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Journal of the

American Historical Society of Germans From Russia

Vol. 2, No. 3 Winter 1979 ^

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

Adam Giesinger..........................................…………………………………………………....................i

VILLAGES IN WHICH OUR FOREFATHERS LIVED: GERMAN PIONEERS IN THE UKRAINIAN PROVINCE OF CHERNIGOV

Adam Giesinger. ....................................……………………………………………….......................... 1

FROM CANADA TO THE CAUCASUS

An Anonymous Travelogue. .......................................…………………………………………............ .5

ROMANOVKA: A VILLAGE IN THE CAUCASUS Reinhold Schell

Translated by H. William Morris ..................................……………………………………….............. 10

THE GERMAN REPUBLIC ON THE VOLGA: A GERMAN VISITOR'S VIEW OF THE NEW REPUBLIC IN 1924

Ado If Grabowsky

Translated by Adam Giesinger. ....................................……………............. …………………………1 9

WE SING OUR HISTORY

Lawrence A. Weigel. ..................................……………………………………………….....................25

STEPPE IM WINTER - THE STEPPE IN WINTER A Poem by George Rath Translated by JoAnn Kuhr ..................................……………...................26

PASSAGE TO RUSSIA: WHO WERE THE EMIGRANTS? Part IV: Golden Soil

Lew Malinowski Translated by Emil Toews. .................................………………………................. .27

WEIHNACHT - CHRISTMAS A Poem by George Rath Translated by JoAnn Kuhr .................................………………………………………….................. .29

A VISIT HOME; A SOVIET GERMAN RETURNS TO DEHLER Edward Ostertag

Translated by Anne M. Corpening. ....................................……………………………………......... .30

(Continued on inside back cover) Published by

American Historical Society of Germans From Russia 63 ID Street • Lincoln, Nebraska 68502

Editor; Nancy Bernharcn Holland © Copyright 1979 by the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia. All rights reserved.

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

Dear Members of AHSGR: In (his issue of the Journal you will find three articles taken from the Soviet German newspaper Neues Leben,

published by Pravda in Moscow. They are articles which deal with the former German colonies in Russia, a subject that was on the forbidden list for Soviet Germans for many years. The fact that articles such as these now appear in a Soviet newspaper indicates a shift in the official Soviet attitude, a gradual return to the altitude toward the German minority that prevailed in the early years of the Communist era.

In (he 1920's the Soviet government encouraged research into the history of Germans in Russia, so long as (lie published results conformed to Communist truth. The rise of Hitler in Germany, his hostility to Communism and his appeal to foreign Germans over the heads of their rulers, led to a reversal of this attitude in the 1930's. Finally, when the Nazis invaded Russia in 1943, the German colonists were deported to the East and their history was expunged from the record. Forced to live and work in "special settlements," under close police supervision, (hey became non-persons? Postwar official statistical and geographical publications do not mention them. Even the very comprehensive new postwar edition of the Large Soviet Encyclopedia ignored them.

After Stalin's death in 1953 and the assumption of power by Khrushchev, the situation changed. Anxious to restore diplomatic relations with West Germany, Khrushchev invited Chancellor Adenauer to visit Moscow in 1955. Among other things, the negotiations led to an amnesty decree for Soviet Germans and to their re-acceptance into the family of Soviet peoples. To signal the beginning of the new era, on 1 May 1956 the publication of Neues Leben was begun, with official support. In its first twenty years this paper remained almost entirely a propaganda organ, dedicated to the re-education of its German readers. More recently, however, articles have begun to appear dealing with the former German settlements in European Russia. Slanted though these are to conform to the Party line, they are not without value. We have been following them with interest. They give us hope that some day the Soviet archives may be opened more freely to our researchers.

A brief comment on another item. Our people are not generally aware that in addition to the main groups of old German settlements in Russia, the Volga, Black Sea and Volhynian, there were a number of other Old German enclaves in Russia belonging to none of these groups. One of these is the subject of the current installment of "Villages in Which our Forefathers Lived." The six villages described here were founded in 1766 by 147 families of Hessians destined for the Volga, who were diverted to the province of Chernigov in the Ukraine, where they lived an isolated existence among Ukrainians till their repatriation to Germany in 1944. There is little doubt that some of the settlers here had relatives who went to the Volga. It would be interesting for persons knowledgeable about Volga German family names to examine the 1807-1809 census lists for these villages on pages 823-851 of Stumpp's Emigration from Germany to Russia.

You will find in this issue also a variety of other interesting items, for all of which I want to express gratitude to the contributors on your behalf.

Froehliche Weihnachten und glueckseliges Neues Jahr to you all'

Sincerely,

Adam Giesinger i

Meeting at the well in front of the parsonage, German colonists show off typical dress in vogue in the Belowesch colony east of Chernigov in the Ukraine. Photo courtesy the Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland.

ii

VILLAGES IN WHICH OUR FOREFATHERS LIVED: GERMAN PIONEERS IN THE UKRAINIAN PROVINCE OF CHERNIGOV

Adam Giesinger

The Germans who migrated to Russia in the 1760's did not all go to the Volga region. Among them was a group of 147 families,1 mainly from Upper Hesse,2 who ended up in the Ukrainian province of Chernigov. Here, in the region where Peter the Great in 1708 had defeated Charles XII of Sweden in a major battle, these 147 families, in 1766, founded six villages some thirty versts southeast of the Ukrainian town of Borzna. Four of these villages, Belowesch, Gorodok, Kaltschinowka, and Rundewiese, were settled by Lutherans; the other two, Gross-Werder and KIein-Werder, by Catholics. The whole group of six villages was usually called the Belowesch settlement.

The original land grant, as in the Volga region, was thirty dessiatines per family. An exception was made for Gorodok, which was to serve as the town for the new settlement. Here the artisans were settled and, so that they would have time to ply their trades, were given only eight dessiatines of land each.

Although their land was fertile, the Belowesch settlers failed to prosper to the same degree as most other German settlers in Russia.3 The isolated location of their villages, far away from the main trade routes, hampered progress. The settlers here engaged in subsistence farming, raising grain, vegetables, and livestock mainly for their own use. Eventually tobacco became a cash crop on a small scale. Although few suffered serious want, almost no one managed to acquire any amount of wealth. More than a century later a chronicler mentions only one rich man, "der reiche Laukart."4

The young people of these villages married early and raised large families. The population grew so rapidly that land shortages developed at frequent intervals. Following Russian law in this region, at a father's death his land was divided equally among all his surviving sons, daughters inheriting only when there were no sons. When there were many sons, they all became poor. The need for land brought an exodus, every thirty years or so, of groups of young people who went to other parts of Russia to found daughter colonies.

As early as 1802 there arose in this way seventy versts east of the Belowesch settlement the village of Kreschtscharik, founded by thirty-six families.5 In 1831 a group of 131 families6 founded five new villages in the Mariupol region, named after the mother colonies: Belowesch, Kaltschinowka, Rundewiese, Gross-werder, and Kleinwerder,7 In 1861 another group went to the Crimea to found the village of Byten8 and in 1878 another to the North Caucasus to found Deutsch-Chaginsk.9 Towards the end of the century forty families went to the Turgai region east of Orenburg to found a settlement there.10 By the time the mother

KIein-Werder • /-, „, , •Gross-Werder

Rundewiese • • Belowesch Kaltschinowka • ^ Gorodok

1

Borzna A Konotop

Bakhmach ^

colonies were wiped out during the second world war, the descendants of the original 147 families numbered thousands of people scattered over the vastness of Russia,

The following statistics illustrate the population growth during the first century; 1766: 147 families, an estimated 700 people;11 1806: 194 families, 1,201 people, in the original six colonies;

36 families, 205 people, in daughter colony, Kreschtschatik; total: 230 families, 1,406 people;12 1860: 2,064 people in the original six colonies; 285 people in Kreschtschatik; 2,367 people in the Mariupol daughter colonies; total; 4,716 people.13

The majority of Belowesch settlers were Lutherans and the village of Belowesch became the Lutheran parish center for the settlement. The first minister, Pastor Schneider, came with the immigrants from Germany and served them for the first thirty years. His successor was a Pastor Horn from Moscow who served for eighteen years. These men laid a good foundation for the religious life of these villages, so that a relatively high moral tone became characteristic of the Belowesch Protestants.!4

Catholics founded the two villages, Gross-Werder and Klein-Werder. In the early days, according to the report of a Mennonite leader who visited these villages in 1794,15 the Catholic parish here had a German-speaking priest, Innocentius Watler. Later, however, the priests were always Polish. This parish, unlike those in other German colonies in Russia, never came under the jurisdiction of the German bishops of the Diocese of Tiraspol, but remained part of the huge Archdiocese of Mohilev. The Polish parish priests who were sent here took no interest in preserving the German language but allowed their people to become ukrainized. By the end of the nineteenth century only a few old people still understood and spoke German. The rest continued to mumble their prayers and to sing hymns in a German which neither they nor anyone else understood. Bishop Cieplak, Polish coadjutor of Mohilev, who visited this parish in the last years before the revolution, advised its people to re-germanize their children to preserve the faith.16 In contrast, the Lutheran villages, whose clergy were German throughout their history, preserved the German language to the end.17

2

The Catholic Church of Gross-Werder, built in 1771. The building was constructed of spruce lumber on a brick foundation and was covered with white oil-based paint both inside and out. The church showed several features which, although not unfamiliar to classical Russian architecture, became known as the "Werder" style. The choirless apse stood facing the east; two towers showing a neo-baroque influence capped the porch and nave crossing; the main entrance was typical of those of single story wood frame churches. Photo courtesy the Landsmannschaff derDeutschen aus Russland.

Even in the Lutheran colonies, superior in this respect, education was in a sad state for more than a century. Throughout this period the teachers were men chosen from the ranks of the colonists and their quality degenerated from generation to generation. In the 1860's, we are told, they could not spell correctly.18 Their instruction was restricted to reading and memorizing of the catechism, Bible sayings and prayers, and the elements of writing and singing. There were no school houses. When winter came on, the villagers looked around for a house in which there was an empty room. A farmer was then prevailed upon to hold school there. The children had to bring whatever book they had, a catechism, a hymn book, or any other. They were told to learn their lessons and when they were ready they had to recite them to the "teacher." At the age of fourteen school attendance ended, although in most cases the child could not read.19

The church authorities issued directives that schools were to be built and proper instruction given but the colonists kept delaying on the plea that they could not afford it. In the 1870's the Russian local government built two Russian schools in the settlement, each with a Russian teacher, and capable of accommodating twenty children. These schools did not solve the problem because German language and religion were not taught there, nor could they accommodate all the children that needed schooling. An improvement was finally brought about by Pastor Neander and his wife, who served in Belowesch from 1880 to 1908. They trained teachers and prevailed on the colonists to build schools. As a result the new century started with much more promise for the children of the Belowesch settlement.2 °

The early months of the war in 1914 brought the threat of deportation to the east and the proscription of the German language in church and school. In 1915 Pastor Jurgens left the settlement and for nine years Belowesch remained without a pastor. The parish sent a delegate to the General Synod of the Lutheran Church which met in Moscow in 1924. In the same year Pastor Mollmann came to Belowesch to restore

3

normal religious services.21

Normalcy did not last long. The Stalin regime dealt harshly with the Belowesch settlement. A total of 193 men were deported to slave labor camps. The death rate during the famine year of 1933 was high. Pastor Mollmann was arrested and deported to the east. The church and the parsonage were torn down and the stones were used to build a theatre (which, however, was never completed). From 1937 on, instruction in German was forbidden.22

A Lutheran pastor, who was a sergeant-major in the German army, visited the Belowesch villages in December 1941 and January 1942.23 He found great poverty and a fervent desire for the consolations of religion. There had not been a religious service here since 1933, He held a Christmas service and a New Year's service for them and baptized many children. To make the season happier for them he managed to get food and blankets from army supplies for the poorest.

With the withdrawal of the German armies from the Ukraine, the people of these villages were evacuated westward and the Belowesch settlement came to an end. There were 3,726 people in the six villages at this time.24

Notes

1. Alexander Klaus, Unsere Kolonien, trails. J. Tows (Odessa: Verlag der Odessaer Zeirung, 1887), p. 202. 2. Viktor Schirmunski, Die deutschen Kolonien in der Ukraine (Moscow: Zentral-Volker- Verlag, 1928), p. 20. 3. Friedrich Matthai, Die deutschen A nsiedlungen in Russland (Leipzig: Herman Fries, 1866), pp. 314-315. 4. Frieda Schlau, "Die deutschen Siedlungen des belowescher Kirchspiets im Gouvernement Tschernigow," Heimatbuch der Ostumsiedler

1955, p. 25. 5. Klaus, p. 202. 6. Klaus, p. 204. But Josef Aloys Malinowsky, Die Planerko lonien am Asowschen Meere (Stuttgart: Ausland und Heimat Verlags-

Aktiengesellschaft, 1928), p. 29, says there were 122 founding families. 7. Village chronicles of 1848 are available for these five villages. For Belowesch, Kaltschinowka, and Rundwiese see M[argarete] Woltner,

Die Gemeindeberichten van 1848 der deutschen Siedlungen am Schwarzen Meer (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1941), pp. 186-188. For Grosswerder and Kteinwerder see Josef Aloys Malinowsky, Die deutschen katholischen Kolonien am Schwarzen Meer (Stuttgart: Ausland und Heimat Verlags-Aktiengesellschaft, 1927), pp. 16-19.

8. Th, Eisenbraun, "Ausschnitte uber die Ansiedlung, sowie die wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Entwicklung und der Unter-gang der deutschen Siedlungen in der Krim," Heimatbuch der Deutschen aus Russland 1960, pp. 23-25.

9. A[ndreas] M[ergenthale] r, "Die deutschen Kolonien im Nordknukasus," Heimatbuch der Deutschen aus Russland 1961, p. 35. 10. Schlau, p. 24. 11. Klaus, p. 202. 12. Klaus, Beilage I, pp. 2-4. 13. Matthai, pp. 32-33, 72-73. 14. Schlau, p. 26. 15. P. M. Friesen, Die alt-evangelische mennonitische Bruderschaft in Russland (1789-1910) (Halbstadt: Verlag Raduga, 1911).p.l36. 16. Joseph Aloysius Kessler, Geschichte der Diozese Tiraspol (Dickinson, North Dakota: Verlag George P. Aberle, 1930), p. 34. 17. Schlau, p. 32. 18. Matthai, p. 33. 19. Schlau, pp. 29-30. 20. Schlau, p. 31. 21. Schlau, p. 32. 22. Schlau, p. 32. 23. "Begegnungen mit Hessen in Russland," Heimatbuch der Ostumsiedler 1955, pp. 33-37. 24. Schlau, p. 32.

4

FROM CANADA TO THE CAUCASUS *

Christmas Eve, 1973, we received a letter from John's only brother Wilhelm, inviting us to Russia for one month. Now the red tape started with all the questionnaires to be filled out and sent to Wilhelm. Eight photos of each one of us had to be included. They even had to know my father's middle name. Early the next summer, we received our official Russian invitation which we had to send to Ottawa, our capital city. Our final visa came six weeks later. When we finally held the visas in our hands, our travel agent said, "Hold on to these; we don't see many of them." He also said that he had never seen anyone get a visitor's visa in such a short time (nearly seven months). We purchased our tickets a few days before Air Canada raised the fares by ten percent. The return fare per person from our home to Moscow was $602.00 and from Moscow to Krasnodar, return, $68.00. Krasnodar is a city of 600,000 located on the River Kuban, about 100 miles inland from the Black Sea.

There are two kinds of visas, visitors or guests, and tourists. When you have a visitor's visa you can stay in a private home or homes. This is what we received and we stayed in two private homes, twenty-five days with Wilhelm and his family in the Caucasus and four days in Moscow with another member of the family.

It was in late summer that we boarded the plane and set off for Montreal. We had about 150 pounds of baggage. Eighty-eight pounds was actually our allowance. We shipped about ninety-four pounds without paying extra for the baggage; the balance we carried in our hands. How my shoulders ached! In Montreal we boarded our DC-8 for Moscow. Shortly after our take-off from Montreal, John said, "I suppose there is no going back now. I wish we were home again."

We stopped briefly in Copenhagen. Here Russian personnel took over our Canadian plane. After being airborne for about thirty minutes, I said to John, "I think we are over Russian territory." He didn't say anything, just shuddered. I left Russia fifty years ago (Nov. 17, 1924) and John, October, 1925. So it had been a long time. Flying time was Montreal-Moscow, eight hours, Moscow-Krasnodar, two and one-half. We arrived at the International Airport outside of Moscow in broad daylight, and going through the customs was another adventure. John had received a good piece of advice from a friend: "Don't let on that you understand any Russian." So I tried talking sign language as I don't speak the language.

We had the bad luck that we had a lady customs official go through our luggage, and just between us women, what's worse than a woman when it comes to going through suitcases? She tore everything out and threw it in piles. We had among other things, eight Bibles, (six German, two Russian) two hymn books, two Christian story books. These books annoyed her especially and if looks could kill I would have been a "goner." I just shook my shoulders and smiled. My husband stood behind me and pretended he didn't understand a word. We were two dummies, so suddenly an English-speaking interpreter appeared and that saved our Bibles. I told him if we couldn't take them with us we would leave them there, but we wanted them back when we returned. I said, "They are our Bibles!"

He looked dumbfounded, that a foreign woman dared to speak thus. He looked scornfully at the lady customs officer and said, "You may take them with you."

I said, "Thank you!" We had one suitcase of forty pounds of dress material. We were told we could only take ten meters (1 m. = 39 inches). By

this time my speechless husband whispered into my ear, in Low-German, "Tell them they don't need to inspect our luggage any further; we are going back to Canada."

I whispered back, "Don't you know I can't speak Russian? You tell them!" He retreated in silence. I was ushered into a little room with my suitcase, the material (over forty yards) dumped on a table. A different lady

appeared to go through my material, scolding away in Russian. I just smiled. Our Bibles were safe, so why shouldn't I smile? She returned after a while, and with the exception of three pieces (which were returned on our homeward trip), she put everything back into the suitcase. I said, "Spasiba," thank-you, and went back to where our luggage was.

A sorry sight greeted my eyes. Everything was lying in piles. I had to pack everything quickly, John helping. The packing had taken days at home; here we had oil3-,- about thirty minutes.

A taxi was waiting; our baggage was quickly put in the front seat, hiding the meter. We had eighty-five kilometers to go to the National Airport. I didn't think we would make it. We had only four hours from the

^Editor's Note: The author of this description of a visit to the Black Sea area of the Soviet Union prefers to be anonymous.

5

time we landed at International, till take off from another airport fifty miles away. As soon as we reached. the airport, our taxi driver smilingly asked for thirty-five dollars. John said to me, "We are being robbed, but I can't do much about it."

I said, "Thirty-five dollars doesn't seem too much for fifty miles," As soon as the taxi driver received his money he couldn't get away fast enough. The fare should be between five and six dollars. We boarded a smaller plane and we said, "Caucasia, here we come." Would we really see them? Wilhelm, fifty-six years old, sister Lisbet, sixty, sister Mariechen, widow, fifty-nine. Forty-nine years is a long time. I had never seen any of them.

After two and one-half hours we landed, and as we walked towards the station, John said, "I don't think anyone will be here." Just then a lady from In tourist came into view and John asked her if anyone had asked for us. She said "No" and John's spirits sank to "O," but I kept telling him, "Wilhelm will be there." The next minute we were embraced and kissed. Wilhelm, his wife Ljuba, son Gregor, and sisters Lisbet and Mariechen encircled us. What a reunion! I'll just draw a curtain over all, as I can't describe it, only it was wonderful. God answers prayer.

By the time we reached Wilhelm's home, a four-roomed apartment on the fifth floor (eighty-nine steps to climb) it was nearly midnight. A banquet awaited us — turkey, duck, chicken and ham. On our arrival we had been greeted by Dr. Lera, Wilhelm's daughter. There were two more residents of this dwelling, Lera's daughter Natasha, \Vi, and Babushka, Ljuba's mother, 82.

The apartment, while small, was very modern by Russian standards. The walls were plastered, the floor, parquet. The windows were large and opened inward. The two bedrooms were small, the living room about ten by fourteen feet; the kitchen was very, very small, had a gas stove and running water. The bathroom, a far cry from North American standards, had tub and toilet. When you wanted hot water for a bath, a tank had to be lit in the kitchen and the water kept running all the time while in use. Why? I never got to the bottom of the reason. The plumbing, that is, the pipes, were all on the floor or wall. Paper in the bathroom? Yes, the newspaper Pmvda, which means the Truth," cut into small pieces, and after using deposited in a separate container. Garbage pick-up twice daily. You took your pail and dumped it on a pile several blocks away where it was picked up.

We had a very wonderful stay with our brothers and sisters. So much love was shown us. They did everything they possibly could for us. There is plenty of food. We saw an abundance of fresh fruit at the market place; everything except bananas. Plenty of meat, very high, four to five pounds of chicken, seven or eight dollars.

Krasnodar has many beautiful parks. Gregor who is an engineer, said they generated enough electricity where he works to supply half of Canada's needs. The surrounding land is very fertile, and the climate is very favorable for a large variety of crops. Plenty of rain, too.

We also visited in the same region a man-made lake thirty-three miles long. Water from the Kuban River was diverted to this lake, or sea, as they called it. Large tracts of land were being readied for rice fields and the water from this lake was to be used on the rice paddies,

We visited a cotton factory which employed 25,000 people. We saw several large hospitals. Dr. Lera worked in a children's hospital. She received 120 rubles a month. Gregor gets 200, Wilhelm, 164. Wilhelm is a professor teaching science. Going to the moon seemed natural to him, but an automatic gearshift is something unheard of in Russia.

The people on the streets are neatly and modernly dressed, very clean, and very polite. The street-cars were always crowded, but there was no pushing or yelling.

The average citizen does not have a car. Yet there are quite a few cars around. Here the car is king, and the pedestrian has no rights. The car never slows when anyone is in the way, so people certainly watch where they are going. We soon learned this, as I remember being literally catapulted across the street one day by brother Wilhelm. He is six feet-one and weighs 265 pounds. He packs a punch.

Wilhelm and Ljuba were just married when Russia entered the war June twenty-second 1941, and were sent to Siberia. Wilhelm taught school most of the time till 1957 when Khrushchev said the German people were free to leave their place of banishment. They could settle in any part of Russia except their former homes. Wilhelm chose the Caucasus, because he had studied there before the war. He had to do farm work for a year or two before he was able to secure a teaching position at the local university. Ljuba was a high-school teacher. She had retired last year and received a pension of 115 rubles a month, one of the highest in Russia. Her record was thirty-two teaching years without interruption. When I asked Wilhelm how that was possible, since they had two children, he replied, "Lera was born in July, Gregor in April. Ljuba did take

6

off one year from teaching when Gregor was born, but they forgot to write it down, and she didn't remind them of it." Her pension would have been cut nearly in half.

Wilhelm does a lot of private tutoring, earning on the average about 200 rubles monthly. This is against the law, but then in Russia you make a comfortable living only outside of the law. The highest official in the city came and asked Wilhelm to tutor his son. Wilhelm agreed and consequently had many privileges. That we were able to live in their home for one month was one of the privileges. This official was called a "Naschalnik” and he graciously asked us if we didn't want to stay a month or two longer. He even gave us permission to go to Frunze, but since there is so much red tape to go through when a foreigner wants to travel from place to place in Russia, we declined. We had the full freedom of the city and could go wherever we wanted to.

There were many stores scattered throughout the city, and we brought back many nice gifts. Crystal was cheap. An article that costs fifteen dollars here was $3.50 there. One of our gifts is a samovar (tea machine) with all the wooden cups, bowls, spoons, that go with it. We tried to discourage them from buying so much for us, but they didn't listen.

The people were clean and modernly dressed and very polite on the streets. No lice anymore. If anyone has lice and the police find out, they are punished. Obedience is something the people of Russia have learned.

The children are a joy to behold. Our place of stay was next to a kindergarten. The kiddies were so clean and polite, but they were a happy lot. I never heard them quarrelling. There were many young people on the streets. They never go beyond holding hands and this is done very discreetly. No long-haired youths. No tattered jeans.

Wilhelm had a thirty-inch color T.V. We watched many programmers. No advertising. Again the programmers were sex-free. Not even kissing is allowed on T.V. or in the theater. Morals seem to be higher than in Canada. Any doctor, teacher, government man, member of the Communist Party, or the like, caught living an immoral life loses his job immediately and is punished. Wilhelm is not a member of the Communist Party; his son Gregor is.

Gregor is a very nice thoughtful young man. He was very interested in Christianity, One evening I had to describe a Mennonite wedding. Gregor was all ears. At the end he said, "That is the way I would like to get married. Would there be a Christian girl for me?" Gregor had worked for three months, eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, just to get one month off without pay, while we were there. There was no work too high or too low for him. He had a very responsible job at an electrical station, being the Naschalnik over fifty men, but at home, he scrubbed floors, washed dishes, looked after Natasha, and so on. He was always on the lookout for something to do for us - something nice. Gregor is twenty-eight with brown eyes, dark brown curly hair, and about 5' 11" tall. Tall, dark, and handsome. Any girls around?

The daughter of the house, Valeria, called Lera, was a doctor specializing in children's diseases. She worked daily, five days a week at a large children's hospital. She was in charge of one wing of eighty patients, She received 120 rubles per month.

Lera's husband was in Leningrad, taking a special course in surgery. He too, would only get 120 rubles. Lera was the mother of Natasha, a beautiful, curly-haired, brown-eyed girl of P/2 years.

In Russia a man can't make a living for his family atone; the wives have to work too. Women can get pensions at fifty-five and keep working. Sister Lisbet, 60, received a pension of seventy-three rubles per month, and is still working. She is a lab technician and is the head of a lab where thirty other women work. Lisbet's husband is a very busy doctor, a surgeon in great demand.

Sister Mary, 59, is a widow. She lives with her children, a daughter, who works in Lisbet's lab, and a son-in-law, a chauffeur, who receives 200 rubles per month. A chauffer is also a mechanic. He must be able to fix the car he drives. There are no garages. There was one filling station in the city.

Mary receives a pension of thirty-seven rubles per month. Mary is a very fine Christian and had the hardest life. When the war broke out (1941) Mary and her husband were living near Rostov, where he was a veterinarian. He was sent to the front the second day of the war. Mary heard from him twice, and he has never been reported killed. They had a daughter Hedi, about six or nine months old; the second daughter Lent was born in Siberia six months later. They lived through terrible hardships. Mary worked for eighteen years in Siberia, doing the work of a man. Often she had no stockings or underclothes. The time came when Hedi and Lent were to go to school, but had no shoes. Mary had one pair of felt boots, so she asked for a night job, freeing the boots for the day time. The girls were able to go to school half a day each. The boots were in constant use. Stockings? None, and this was Siberia. Mary made cakes from rye chaff, mixing chaff and

7

water, frying them without fat. No one grumbled, and they were always healthy. What are we doing, making and eating three and four meals a day? Mary said she was never sick. She is a small woman, five feet tall and weighs about 130 pounds. In the winter when the snow was deep and the chaff cakes gave out, Mary went to the fields scraping the snow away, looking for kernels of grain. One day she found a sackful of wheat so she divided it with three others. Greater love hath no one!

John's oldest brother Peter and wife Katherine and two children were also in Siberia with Mary. Peter starved to death after one year of life in Siberia. Katherine and children survived and live near Frunze.

Our people are fairly happy now, and hope it never gets worse again. Church services are mostly held in private homes. Prayer meetings are usually held on Wednesdays. The church meetings

are mostly attended by the middle-aged to elderly. Wilhelm's wife Ljuba (the name means love) was very kind to us. She spoke a little German, Gregor a little English, and I learned about forty to fifty words of Russian so we got along fine. The language was no problem. Sister Lisbet can interpret like a professional, Wilhelm was very good, too. My husband brushed up on his Russian and with the help of his hands could speak very well,

Three of my cousins from Mother's side also came a long distance to see us. They were three sisters, lovely Christian women. You may wonder where everyone slept. Well, we used the floor! Several nights there were thirteen of us in this small apartment, and we had no problems.

After our time was up in the Caucasus we went to Moscow for four days of sight-seeing, accompanied by Wilhelm. Moscow's underground transit system is supposed to be the best in the world. There are thirty-three miles of trams and many stations. You can travel twenty-two hours out of twenty-four hours for five cents. The fourteen republics of Russia each furnished one hall or level. The halls were as beautiful as castles. All the ceilings were works of art, many, many crystal chandeliers or other beautiful light fixtures lit up the halls. The halls were usually marble. The place was clean, the cars very up-to-date, clean and comfortable, There was an electric train every minute, one running one way, the next in the other direction. The different levels were connected by escalators.

Moscow has a permanent exhibition place, showing communistic progress. We saw fourteen pavilions built by the republics. They were so beautiful I can't begin to describe them. This place was hundreds of acres in area. The rose garden had 150 varieties. Besides showing mineral wealth and everything they had, we also saw many animals (including sheep weighing 400 pounds). Scattered throughout the grounds I saw Grecian urns for receiving waste paper in Russia. We never saw one paper bag.

The food we ate in cafes was not too bad. Cooked cereal is eaten with a fork. They put a little pat of butter in the center and eat it with a fork, I picked up a glass of milk and a spoon and started eating my cream of wheat. Upon looking up I saw that I was the center of attention. Even Wilhelm looked surprised. The breakfast consisted of a big plate of cereal, another plate of fried potatoes, and meat and eggs. A huge plate of bread is the first thing put on the table. How they eat! Making up for lost time. The waitresses are quite sloppy. I had to talk to my "tummy" many times. Only sweetened coffee is available, except at the airport near Moscow.

The last morning we went to the art gallery. Upon our arrival we saw a long line-up and were told we would have to wait about two and one-half hours. As we were to be at the airport by two o'clock we thought we would just go back, but Wilhelm went to the entrance gates, explained our situation to the policeman at the gate, and we were given permission to enter. The policeman just motioned to the people to clear the entrance and we passed through. I thought of the children of Israel passing through the Red Sea. We saw many beautiful paintings. There were many religious pictures and it seemed to us that here the crowds were the greatest. We saw one huge picture taking up one entire end wall, Wilhelm called to me, "Anna, come here and see Jesus." While I was looking at Jesus on the hill, Wilhelm said, "Who are all the people in the left hand comer of the picture?"

I said, "That is John the Baptist." "Please tell me the whole story," Wilhelm said. As I talked in German, Wilhelm translated into Russian. Soon we were

surrounded by a crowd, all listening. There is a great hunger in Russia for something better than they have. I would have liked to have spent days here but our time ran out.

We visited a number of stores in Moscow, where only North American dollars are accepted. These stores are clean, and they always have interpreters, so we had no problems. Russia is second in watch production and watches that sell for forty-five to fifty rubles in Russian stores can be bought there by foreigners for only about thirteen to sixteen dollars apiece. Men's automatic watches cost twenty-two dollars. We bought sixteen and gave eleven away as gifts. The Russian people cannot buy automatic watches.

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Our time had run out. Our visit at an end we made our way to the international airport; Wilhelm accompanied us. We didn't have any trouble this time. The customs people just waved us through. It was very hard saying goodbye to Wilhelm. Two hundred sixty-five pounds of good man sat there crying.

In eight hours we were in Montreal. Again our luggage was not inspected. Since it was about midnight and we would have to be ready to fly on toward home very early in the morning, we stayed at the airport. The waiting rooms are very comfortable and the rest rooms were clean. What a contrast!

After our plane landed again John said, "Thank God, we are home." We visited friends and relatives for two days and then turned our car out on the highway. The first day we only traveled one mile, as John suddenly got very sick. Flu? We don't know. We spent that day with cousins. The next day we traveled 130 miles. Again John was very sick, so we stayed there. The next day, Sunday, I had to drive and John only opened his eyes once in a while, glanced at the speedometer, and said, "You are going too fast." I slowed down, but what do you do when you are trying to drive about 500 or 600 miles a day? Anyway, on an early Sunday morning I felt I was the only one on the road.

When we drove into our yard John said, "Home, sweet home." The yard was full of cars. The kids were all home, but no one noticed us as we drove into the yard, so we quietly walked in at 7:45 p.m. and here they were just taking the turkey out of the oven. John gave them a watery smile, a shaky hello and disappeared into the bedroom, appearing next morning at ten o'clock. John was sick for about ten days, lost fourteen pounds, but Is fine now and has regained the lost weight.

It doesn't seem possible that we really were in Russia, but, there is no place like Canada! Pardon me, USA!

ANNOUNCING A TOUR TO CANADA

Would you be interested in joining a group of fellow members in AHSGR on a tour to Canada after the convention in Dearborn? Among the places we plan to visit are Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City and Niagara Falls. We'll travel by delux motor coach and go by routes that take us to many of the scenic wonders of Canada, home of many Germans from Russia.

If you think you would like to have 10 days to two weeks of fun and fellowship with us, please write headquarters for more information which will be available in mid-January. It is a "members only" tour, tailored just for us.

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ROMANOVKA: A VILLAGE IN THE CAUCASUS Reinhold Schell

Translated by H, William Morris

The following reminiscences of a Soviet German appeared originally in the 27 June and 4 July 1979 issues of Neues Leben> the weekly newspaper/or Germans in the Soviet Union. Since the paper is published by Pravda, the offical newspaper of the Communist Party, the article is not free of the Party's interpretation of historical events. Particularly suspect in this regard are Schell's descriptions of the "joys" of collectivization and of the insignificance of religion to the pre-revolutionary residents of Romanovka.

Immigration Our grandparents, who settled more than one hundred years ago in the northern Caucasus, were emigrants from the

kingdom of Wuerttemberg. Even before they departed for far away Russia, many of them had engaged in correspondence with persons who had emigrated to Odessa and Transcaucasia in 1818, These areas were at that time sparsely populated, and our ancestors hoped to receive land there. The government of the Tsar promised the immigrants material help and various special privileges. After long deliberation, sixty-six families set out on the way.

The emigrants obtained passports from the Russian envoys, traveled by ship down the Danube, and arrived In Odessa in 1860. There they submitted themselves to a long quarantine. After the quarantine was lifted, they settled in the village of Lichtental and the surrounding German settlements. The land which was placed at their disposal there was certainly too little; so, in the spring of 1866 they continued their wanderings, into the Caucasus. So that there would be no shortage of provisions for the people or their

Areas in the North Caucasus in which Volga Germans and Black Sea Germans founded daughter colonies. Romanovka is indicated with an x, Cartographer, Adam Giesinger.

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livestock, each group of colonists kept a distance of several days' journey from the other groups. The difficult way led by Cherson, Rostov, Stavropol, and Georgievsk. Man, wife, children, and their possessions-all rode on only one wagon.

Not until late autumn did they reach their goal, fifty kilometers west of Pyatigorsk at the foot of the Kamelberg [Camel Mountain]. Sod huts were hurriedly built, since winter was approaching- They leased land from the large estate owner, Orbelyanov, for a thirty year term. There they erected roomy houses for themselves, planted orchards and vineyards, and named their village Orbelyanovka. Beside them, new arrivals from the Ukraine, some speaking high German, some low German, founded a village named Tempel-hof.

Many years of hard work were spent before they experienced a degree of success and prosperity. Then suddenly the large estate owner popped up in the village and demanded his land back, as in the meantime thirty years had been counted off. The inhabitants hoped to be able to sell their buildings and improvements to him. He declined. For these farmers, then, nothing remained but to leave their homesteads and to move again.

One of them, Johann Langc, went to Petersburg and succeeded in obtaining authorization for the farmers to found two German villages in the outlying Suchaya-Padina, 120 kilometers northeast of Pyatigorsk. Friedrich Schell, David Barchet, Salomon Singer, and Friedrich Lade, the first ones to get underway again with wives, children, and possessions, found there a new but smaller homeland. This was autumn, 1896. All other former residents of Orbelyanovka followed them in the spring of 1897. So began the history of the German village of Romanovka in Russia. Also in the same year the first natives of Romanovka, Karl Barchet and Fritz Schell, were born. The former residents of Tempelhof also came and founded their village of Olgino only five kilometers away from Romanovka.

With Swabian Energy The German farmers received state-owned land, for which they had to make large periodic payments. They could not

always meet the deadlines for payments. In such cases the nearby estate owner Paramonov "gripped them under the arms"; but, for his "help" he demanded good wheat for ridiculously low prices. No matter how they racked their brains and bodies, they could never make the required payments in full and on time, so they were always stuck in debt—until, that is, the October revolution drew a final line under the sum of their bills.

But now, back to the year 1897. First the streets had to be laid out, then the individual farmer's courtyards and land. Ground and soil were divided up so that each farmer received fruitful and marginal land in like measure as his neighbor. Also the distance from field to courtyard was taken into consideration. Besides this, one could be granted five dessiatines [one dessiatine == 2.7 acres] of pastureland. Altogether 2,600 dessiatines of land belonged to the village, luckily all useful land.

The proverbial Swabian energy came to the fore again in the struggle for existence. The huge load of work in the beginning almost pressed the farmers to the ground. All about them stretched only dry sagebrush steppe. The bitter water, containing mineral salts, lay hidden at depths of sixty meters under the earth. There were no wells. Water for people and livestock had to be hauled from distant villages in large barrels.

In the following years large dwellings, stalls and barns were erected, orchards and vineyards set out. In addition, every farmer planted a small grove of trees which provided the stakes for the vineyards. Also a brick and tile kiln was built. Especially beautiful were the houses which were roofed with yellow and green glazed tiles. They gleamed afar in the sunshine. One laid much value on building beautifully and spaciously. Soon the schools were dedicated, a general store and a wine cellar were given over to their respective functions, and two sixty meter deep wells were made available for use. The water was still bitter and heavily mineralized, fit only for watering livestock. The buckets were pulled up out of the well with the help of a horse. Times of drought were fearful, when the water barely covered the bottom of the well.

According to the season, one could catch as drinking water, rain water off the roofs; or, one caught melting snow water in cement basins. Often this soft water did not last until the next rain; then that meant harnessing up and hauling water from the village of Kiyevskoye.

What They Sowed and Harvested In sowing their fields, these farmers used the three field rotation system. That means the whole of their cropland was

divided into thirds. On one part winter wheat or barley was planted; on another, spring crops

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Threshing with the stone rollers.

such as corn, oats, millet, and mohair grass were planted. The third part lay fallow. In the following years one rotated a particular crop to the other fields in their turn.

The chestnut colored soils were not very productive. The yearly precipitation of 350 millimeters of water [approximately fourteen inches] was less than desirable, but by careful working of the soil these farmers managed to harvest 140 pood [about thirty-one bushels per acre] of winter wheat per dessiatine. In comparison to the Kuban area where a dessiatine brought forth 200 pood [about 44.5 bushels per acre], this soil was much "stingier."

Did the farmers of that time have agricultural implements and machines to work the land, and with which to bring in the harvest? Yes, they procured for themselves all the necessary things. With large two-bottom plows pulled by four-horse teams, they plowed one and one-half dessiatines [about 4.05 acres] per day. With four and five-bottom riding plows, sometimes outfitted with seed boxes and seeding apparatus, they took on two dessiatines [about 5.4 acres] a day; and, with their drills and seeding machines, they could even seed up to five dessiatines [about 13,5 acres] in a day.

Wheat, oats, and other cereal grains were usually cut with twine binder machines. Several large threshing machines, powered by steam engines, threshed the grain right in the yard of each farmer. All the neighbors helped bring the bundles from the fields to the thresh machines on large wagons equipped with scaling ladders. And so it went, from farm to farm until every farmer had his crop in the barn.

Millet was usually threshed with a stone threshing-roller. First it was spread out on the threshing floor. Then two horses were hitched before the threshing-roller, and away they went in a circle until the millet was threshed out of the husks. The straw, which made first-rate feed for cattle, was shaken out with wooden pitch forks; then a hand-driven seed-cleaning machine separated the kernels from the chaff.

Now the barnyard was full of straw, hay, chaff, and other fodder for the barnyard animals. One coming from Olgino to the lower-lying Romanovka, looking out over the scene from afar, saw only straw stacks, each one larger than the other. They overtopped even all the trees,

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The straw was used by the farmers to heat their roomy houses; for the kitchen where throughout the year the women cooked, boiled, and baked; as well as for strewing on the village streets so that people, especially school children, could walk on something dry. The cattle were given straw bedding, and the village lad was given a straw covered trail from his farmyard to that of his intended as he went to court her the first time.

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Corn husking

Corn shelling

Of Wine, Syrup, and Corn In the gardens ripened the most varied sorts of apples, plums, pears, apricots, cherries, gooseberries, and currants. Many of

them were dried or preserved for the winter. By the beginning of August one could try the first grapes. In the middle of September the grapes were gathered. Big and little, young and old, all worked at cutting and gathering the grapes. The clusters had to be sorted, then quickly transported to the common village wine-cellar. This was believed essential to the later quality of the wine. No one made wine at home.

In the melon patches juicy watermelons and sweet melons ripened, also pumpkins so large that one sometimes could not pick them up and lift them onto a wagon. The people of Romanovka also planted sugar cane, which was cut in late fall and taken to the press. The village blacksmith, Abraham Messerle, constructed a steam-driven sugar cane press. The juice was cooked into syrup by the housewives in unbelievable quantities. We little ones made wry faces when mother always put the very sweet cane syrup on the table. "Please give us watermelon syrup, or grape jam," we pleaded.

One cartful after another, fully loaded with ears of corn, rumbled into the village. They were stored in barns, and after the harvest was finished, the people met in merry circles with their neighbors to shuck the ears. Lucky he who found the first red ear, for he received a glass of wine. It wasn't long, however, until all the others felt they had earned a glassful too—without any red ears! With songs, jokes, and noise, the shucked ears Hew quickly to the side in an unbroken stream, until the watermelons were brought out as refreshments. The next evening the party was at a different farmstead, where the corn shucking was repeated, naturally with wine, watermelon, and "tongue-whetting."

And so it went until winter. The first snow fell usually at the end of November. Then began the butchering. As a rule, each farmer butchered four or five large hogs and one steer. Sausage and liverwurst were made, as long as the casings held out. The fat was rendered into lard, the meat salted down, then smoked. One was careful to see that no crackling escaped the meat grinder. The homespun butchers were really masters of their art, for the sausages, smoked hams, and Pressmagen tasted first-rate,

Even in winter there was no lack of work. The large animals, as well as the poultry needed to be cared for, and the cows had to be milked. One hauled whole wagonloads of wheat to the mill, part of the flour to be used for one's own bread; the rest to be sold. One could only praise the bread the farm wives baked in those days. They made large, golden-brown loaves, white as snow inside, and of extraordinarily good flavor.

Intellectual Life What did the farmer do after the work was finished? Did he have any time left for culture or other beautiful things? Oh yes!

First, you notice that there was strict order in the village. Singing, shouting, and making noise were forbidden on the streets. The young greeted their passing elders by removing their caps. All children were obligated to finish the four-year village school. Illiteracy was unknown. Beside this, the boys took part in the brass band, and the girls learned sewing and tailoring. Romanovka also had a four-part choir, in which boys and girls alike took part. The farm families subscribed to and read newspapers, and a community library was available.

In 1914 the war broke out. Many of the colonists were drafted into the army. During the war the Tsarist government robbed the colonists of their rights as citizens, and left them at the mercy of the regime. They were to be deported to Siberia.

Freedom The great day had come, "Proletarians of all lands, unite!"

The decree of the Tsar banishing the German colonists was lifted, and the civil rights of the German minority were insured. The former colonist was now a full-fledged citizen of the new Soviet Republic. A new epoch in his life had began.

At that time the teacher Hummel wrote his poem, "Red October." Im Osten brennt ein grosses Feuer In the east there burns a great fire der roten Revolution. The red revolution. Gestuerzet ist das Ungeheuer- The monster is thrown down- der Zar von seinem blut' gen Thron. The Tsar from his bloody throne. Gestuerzt ist auch die Macht der Reichen Toppled also is the power of the rich vom starken Proletariat. By the strong proletariat.

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Und aus dem Blute vieler Leichen keimt heute eine neue Saat. Die wird zu neuem Licht erbliihen, zurWahrheit und Gerechtigkeit. Der Stern von Lenin wird dann gluehen stolz auf der Erde weit und breit.

And from the blood of many corpses There germinates today a new seed. It will bloom into a new light To truth and righteousness. The star of Lenin will then glow Proudly on the earth, far and wide.

Difficult Years The civil war broke out. The men who still were alive came home from the Turkish front. The nation's commerce was crippled; the amount of cropland being seeded had decreased greatly.

The area was soon threatened by the "white armies." The fighting front approached. One could already hear the roar of the cannons. All residents were forced to hurriedly flee with their wagons. On the threshing ground lay the first threshed grain. Away they went, with only the most important possessions.

In July, 1918, the farmers again became wanderers. They stopped in another German village, Alt-Kana. How heartily they then thanked their cowherders, feeling it a near-miracle that a heard of 300 head was brought without any losses, through fields and villages to their intended destination. Now each one again had his cow and his calf.

Several times some women went back by wagon to visit their own village. Yet, every time they realized that it was too soon to return home. So, they wintered in Alt-Kana, and returned to their own village only in the spring of 1919, after the defeat of the "white" troops. The village was empty, deserted. Only here and there a half-starved dog; or a homeless cat. There was not much time to sorrow or to talk about their troubles, for the seeding of the cropland needed to be done. They sowed corn, barley, oats, millet, and mohair grass; the orchards and vineyards were also tended. Because of their flight the previous autumn, they had neither brought in the last of their crops, nor seeded fall grains. The grains, falling to the ground had naturally reseeded themselves, however; and, from the volunteer crop they were able to reap a harvest in 1919.

The next year was very dry, and the year 1921 brought a famine. Among the poorer farmers bread ran out, and they were forced to borrow wheat from the rich, which they were to pay back threefold from the coming harvest.

In that terrible year, Russia received flour from America. Our farm women baked beautiful bread from this flour, but regretfully it was bitter. The American farmers had cleaned their wheat of sage and other weeds rather poorly. Beggar after beggar—Germans, Russians, Armenians, Gypsies—went from house to house.

The Soviet "New Economic Plan" Gradually the whole land recovered, also Romanovka, from the war and famine. The amount of cropland was increased,

partly through leasing land from other nearby villages. However, in time their agriculture was hindered by the endless partitioning of the available land. The numbers of residents

grew rapidly, and the community felt forced to found daughter-colonies. So it was that Mirpol and Ebcnfeld, thirty kilometers [about 19 miles] distant, came into existence. Material assistance from the mother-colony Romanovka helped the landless and land-poor who had been forced to move, to "stay on their feet" again and again. Simultaneously in the year 1922 the German villages of Len-indorf, Neudorf, Ebental, Schonfeld, Reinfeld, Friedenfeld, Leninfetd, Neufeld, and Rosental arose at dis-tances of six to sixteen miles from Romanovka, on the land of former large estates, or on new land.

Through the "New Economic Plan" dealers popped up everywhere, loudly offering their goods for sale, One had tar; the next one rock-salt; yet others offered dried fish, fresh vegetables and meat, tanned leather-wares for harnesses and boots, needles, yarn, and combs for sale. Caucasian mountain people brought potatoes from their mountains. In years of good grain harvests, one had to trade two sacks of wheat for a sack of potatoes; in years of poor harvest, sack for sack. Some dealers bought butter and eggs, then took them on to the cities to resell.

This trade took place in the village streets. The stores also expanded their offerings of goods to the public, and by 1925 one could buy everything there which was necessary to a family.

In the following years bountiful harvests ripened in the fields and in the vineyards, which were sold pro-

15

fitably to the state or at local markets. Prices were the same either way, under the system of controlled economy. The village flourished again.

Thirst for Knowledge In the neighboring village of Olgino a seven grade school was opened. After the closing of the Romanovka grade school,

many went to Olgino to school. Among the good instructors there were teachers Hindenburg, Gengenbach, Fast, and Weingarten. Students who had started school in Romanovka could thank teachers Ediger, Tows, and Neufeld that they could write and do arithmetic flawlessly. From teacher Ediger they learned physics, algebra, geometry, chemistry, and even astronomy.

The students who were eager to study further, went on to the sixth grade, and after a seventh year could transfer to the nine-year schools, either at Helenendorf in Transcaucasia or at Leninfeld in the Kuban Valley, Others applied to study at Halbstadt's school of medical technology in the Ukraine, or at the German technical college in Leningrad. A few also attended universities or academies.

Thirty-five residents of Romanovka, at one time or another, were trained as grade school, middle school, or high school teachers. Ephraim Messerle, Oskar Zacher, and Telmut Tietz became university professors,

However, most young people stayed on at home, on the farm. The work of a farmer was hard, especially at harvest time. One left for the field mornings in the dark, and came home evenings in the dark again. The noon-hour lasted only as long as it took to feed the horses. If a farmer had spare horses, he ate his lunch very hurriedly. When the outrider on the draft horses began to accompany the monotonous rattle and hum of the reaper with nods of his head, he would be doused with a bucket of cold water.

The community saw to it that: every child went to school without fail. Eagerly every farmer read the newspaper. The large village library was expanded ever further. Stage presentations, music, and four-part singing enriched the cultural life in the evenings. The youth of the village organized sports events, and the best competitors in long-distance races, sprints, high-jump, broad jump, gymnastics, croquet, soccer, and other sports were awarded prizes.

The people of Romanovka were Lutherans; but, religion had from the beginning never really gained a foothold there. They had no pastor, and gave themselves to concern about religious affairs only intermittently. They did not pray before meals, nor at bedtime. These farmers relied less on God than on their own head and hands.

The Happy Life in the Kolkhoz Early in 1928 the farmers gathered in the school house. They discussed the suggestion that they unite themselves and work

their land collectively. After a few days they met again and decided to found a cooperative for the communal working of their land. It should be noted that all the farmers, without exception, supported the cooperative. They elected a board of directors, with Abraham Messerle as chairman, Horses and farm machinery were made a part of the association, but each farmer retained two horses and one wagon to use.

The village was divided into four brigades. In the spring they got underway to the fields. Twenty-five plows, each one being driven behind and in the next furrow from the one ahead, leave a wide stripe of broken land behind them! Following them came the grain drills which seeded the ground.

One must say that the farmers were contented with their co-op. Especially the young people came to life. They could work shoulder to shoulder now with their friends. Evenings they came joyously, singing, back to the village.

Yet the first few harvests were short, as the board of directors and the social welfare committee had neither the necessary knowledge nor ability. Beside this, labor was everywhere in short supply. Many of the village people were moving into the cities and going to work there. In the villages the rich farmers were "de-kulak-ized." [Translator's note: "Kulaks" were the enterprising, well-to-do peasant farmers. Generally they were opposed to collectivization of the land. De-kulak-ization in most cases simply meant their murder or removal to slave labor camps.]

Later the leadership of the collective farming enterprises was taken over by experienced persons. Together with the cooperative members, they soon succeeded in making their kolkhoz into one of the best in their area. Now the collective farmers were able to breathe a little easier, wear better clothing, and eat better, as each "work unit" received more money and products.

The first radios aroused much attention and brought the outside world into the village. Films were shown

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regularly. The village provided itself with a German "middle-school" with boarding facilities. Here the children of Romanovka and eleven surrounding German villages had the opportunity of being instructed in their own native language. The parents were very happy when director Jakob Tows would accept their child as a student in this school, as it was the best and a model school for all others in the area.

Life in the village proceeded happily and satisfactorily. Then on June 22, 1941 Fascist Germany overran our land.

Our German collective farmers again put on their soldiers' uniforms, and worked in the hinterland where they helped to forge the victory over the hated fascists.

I heartily thank my old village acquaintances, who helped me with their remembrances. I would like to thank Karoline Arndt, Woldemar Messerle, Leon Hahn, David Unruh> and Nikolai Schell, especially.

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AUTONOMOUS SOCIALIST SOVIET REPUBLIC OF THE VOLGA GERMANS

• German villages ° Russian towns or cities

Canton Boundaries as at 1924

8. Canton Mariental 9. Canton Fedorovka 10. Canton Kukkus 11. Canton Krasny-Kut 12. Canton Seelmann 13. Canton S.taraya-Poltavka 14. Canton Pallasovka

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1. Canton 2. Canton 3. Canton 4. Canton 5. Canton 6. Canton 7. Canton

Balzer Frank Solotoye Kamenka Marxstadt Krasnojar Pokrovsk

THE GERMAN REPUBLIC ON THE VOLGA A German Visitor's View of the New Republic in 19241

Adolf Grabowsky Translated by Adam Giesinger

The German Reich, when it became a republic, retained its old name, although many republicans would have liked it to adopt the new name "German Republic." In the meantime another German Republic has arisen, on the Volga. This autonomous state in the Soviet federation is of course called such only in everyday language; its actual title is much more formal. Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic of the Volga Germans (A.S.S.R.V.G.). This republic has just emerged from the Workers' Commune of the Volga Germans, a restricted type of state structure which originated in the spring of 1918. In December 1923 the half-state became a full state.2

A full state it is in the limited sense in which the countries belonging to the German Reich are states. It has nothing to do with Russia's foreign relations and deals in only a limited manner with financial and military affairs. Its competence lies mainly in the field of culture and in the administration of justice. Even in these matters the central government in Moscow always has the deciding voice whenever money is involved which the autonomous republic can not raise on its own.

Much greater than the influence of the local government and even of the government in Moscow is the predominant role of the Communist party in all decision-making. This is an essential feature of the Russian government system. The Soviets no longer play a real role, since, as a result of open or subtle pressures, the party list always prevails in elections to the Soviets. The slogan, "all power to the Soviets," which resounded in the early days of the revolution, is now out of date. The party includes all those in positions of leadership and authority and puts its stamp on all aspects of Russian foreign and domestic policy. This is very noticeable in the Volga Republic. Moscow knows that the Volga Germans are not a hundred per cent, nor fifty per cent, nor even ten per cent communistic. If they were permitted to run their affairs without interference, they would undoubtedly use their Communist Constitution in a most uncommunistic way. To prevent this happening, the party sends tested party members to keep an eye on them. Since it is a region m which German is spoken, the men sent for this purpose are usually German-speaking Communists from the Reich or from Austria. At the present time the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars is an Austrian and the man who looks after political enlightenment, a very important assignment, since it involves the indoctrination of the people with Red ideology, is a German worker from the Reich, formerly a leader of the insurrection in Hamburg. For future party stalwarts, of course, the regime counts on recruits from the German Republic itself. Such people are being educated in the so-called University for Western Peoples in Moscow, an institution which is not yet functioning fully and can not yet be compared in standard with the University for the Eastern Peoples.

On a journey down the Volga from Samara, one suddenly observes, at some hours' distance from Saratov, church steeples on the left bank, which remind one vividly of the church steeples at home [in Germany]. The villages to which the steeples belong are not visible, because they lie hidden in valleys. Steeple after steeple greets you and finally you land in Marxstadt, which was formerly called Baronsk, after the Dutchman, Baron Beauregard,3 its founder, or Katharinenstadt, after Catherine II, who settled Germans of many tribes, as well as Dutchmen, in this region after the Seven Years' War, It was no homogeneous race that was brought here and this fact explains much of the later development of these colonies. Swabians, however, formed the majority and so today one hears mainly a kind of Swabian dialect.4 The people themselves have no idea what dialect they are speaking, since almost none of them have ever been in Germany or have had any direct contact with German culture. The assertion of the Tsarist regime during the war that the Volga Germans were pro-German and traitors to the Russian fatherland was therefore a viciously false accusation. The decree banishing these Germans from house and home was ready for promulgation at the end of the year 1916; only the February Revolution of 1917 prevented its carrying out. As a result the Germans on the Volga were sympathetic to the first revolution, but, as farmers with some property, living a middle class life, they had little taste for the October Revolution of the same year.

Until recent years the Volga German farmers had been relatively well off. The difficult decades of their beginning, when they had to defend themselves against the nomads of the steppes — for Catherine had intended with her colonization to form a line of defense against the nomads -- were over, and now the virgin steppes gave crop-yields, which, although not a hundredfold, were of a magnitude not approachable in Germany with the primitive agricultural methods which have been and still are being used here. The majority of the colonists settled on the left side of the Volga, on actual steppe land, but a minority settled on the

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right side, called the Bergseife (the hilly side), as compared with the Wiesenseite (the meadow side) on the other bank. During the world war conditions changed. Forests had always been treated in a wasteful manner, but now there began their outright destruction, which continued through the years of revolution. The result was a change in climate. There had been crop failures and famines in earlier years, but they were the exception, not the rule. Now the hot winds from the Asiatic steppes come in unhindered and, if rains do not happen to fall at just the right time, they burn up the whole grain crop in June. In June of this year the temperature here rose to a height which is normally experienced only in the Sahara desert. In addition to the destruction of the forest, there is probably another cause of the problems in this region; the cyclic occurrence of dry and wet periods, which, according to recent studies, is characteristic of the whole Russian-Siberian plain. Thirty-five-year wet periods, or seventy-year periods, according to another source, alternate with dry periods of equal length.

One could, of course, take measures to neutralize the effects of the climate change: through irrigation on a large scale, through comprehensive reforestation, through selection of seed grain, and through improved farm implements. This is expensive but not impossible. Because the Volga and many small tributaries flow directly across the German Republic, there are favorable pre-conditions for irrigation; methodical forest management has to come some day in any event; seed selection requires good experimental stations to develop the most suitable seed grain for the dry climate (a beginning of this has been made in a station at Krasny-Kut); finally improved farm implements would enter the country in large numbers if the Soviet government lessened the restrictions against their import. The government is, of course, forced to restrict imports to protect its currency, so long as it has not established substantial foreign credits. On the other hand, it is throwing money away. Because the German farmers lack seed grain this year, Moscow sent an advance of 800,000 poods (to be paid back in kind after the harvest), but is this seed grain actually useful? Most probably at least half of it is not suitable for the climate of the Volga Republic.

Marxstadt is a city of 18,000 inhabitants. It is the largest entirely German city of the Republic and was therefore originally chosen as the capital. Its location, however, was found too inconvenient. Pokrovsk, a city of 40,000 people, lying opposite Saratov, was then chosen.5 It has the disadvantage of having a population which is eighty per cent Russian. A strange capital for a German Republic! One enters the city hoping to be able to use the German language, but soon discovers that only officials of the various ministries and the occasional innkeeper speak any German. Somewhat unusual also is the entrance to the city. The Volga at this point is cut by many sandbanks and thus the steamboat which carries passengers from Saratov to Pokrovsk has to make detour after detour. The crossing takes at least four-fifths of an hour. Even then one has not reached one's destination. I took the last boat of the day and arrived on the other side at 10:30 p.m. Where is Pokrovsk? Only Hooded land and sand dunes were visible. It took another three-quarters of an hour, wading through sand and water, to reach the market square of the city. There is no decent footpath, let alone a paved road.

This in itself indicates the primitive conditions existing here. The German farmers stand culturally higher than the Russians of the region, but not so high as one could wish. The farm implements are more modern than those of the Russians — the iron plow Is used, not the wooden one, and mowing and threshing machines are known - but the three-field system is customary as among the Russians, and artificial fertilizer is equally unknown. Even farm manure is seldom used as fertilizer, because most of it, due to lack of wood, is used for fuel. The winter grain is rye; the summer grain wheat. There is a common field for hoe crops, usually close to the village, wherever possible close to water, in which potatoes, corn, tobacco, hemp, cucumbers, pumpkins, and watermelons are grown. The meadow land Is divided up annually among the members of the community by drawing lots, to provide for a just sharing of the flooded and dry meadows. Otherwise, as everywhere in Soviet Russia, the old mir system with its periodic re-division of the land (the re-division took place every twelve years among the Volga Germans) has been replaced by individual ownership, The three- or four-generation family, headed by the oldest man in the group, which was a fundamental characteristic of the mir system of landholding in the old Russia, has disappeared; it split up during the revolutionary period, perhaps to avoid offering too large a target to the tax-collector. In the future, in place of the three-field system, which is quite unsuitable for the climatic conditions of the German Republic, a more rational and more specialized type of agriculture has to be developed: more corn (suitable for this dry climate), less grain crops, above all more livestock raising.

Economically more advanced than the typical German villages are the Mennonite villages in the Canton Kukkus, The Mennonites, who came to the Volga only about sixty years ago, stand out economically everywhere. They have never known the mir system, have always had individual ownership and therefore give their land better attention. They raise livestock successfully. Even the appearance of their villages is better.

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While the other German villages are aesthetically joyless, with no trees and no gardens, one sees green trees and flowers in the Mennonite villages.

Intellectually, however, the Mennonites, like the rest, have failed to make any contribution. It is noteworthy that not one really outstanding man has emerged from the ranks of the Volga Germans. There have been a few industrialists, a few clergymen, and a few teachers, who managed to rise above the general average, but even the average of these is not so high as a German from the Reich would expect to see.

Here we reach the sorest point: the Volga Germans have an honorable history, but they lack the energy to perform deeds beyond the ordinary. That the Germans of the Ukraine, the Crimea, or the Caucasus have not accomplished anything beyond the ordinary is not surprising. They live scattered over far too wide an area to be expected to rouse themselves to far-reaching accomplishments or to furnish a source for outstanding men. If they make progress economically, that is all that we can expect. This they have accomplished, for their economic situation has always been better than that of the Volga Germans. Of the Volga Germans one has the right to expect more, since they live close together in large numbers. If they have not risen above the average, there must be special reasons for it.

This unusual phenomenon has been ascribed to inbreeding, which is said to exist among the Volga Germans. But marrying with in a community which counts hundreds of thousands is not inbreeding. I am more inclined to believe that the diversity of backgrounds among the original settlers, mentioned previously, is to blame. Those who came together on the Volga steppes after the Seven Years' War were at least partly the victims of war and of wartime dislocations, people who were ill-suited for positive deeds. Thus the settlers again and again showed a tendency to wander, whenever conditions became difficult. They still have not acquired the habit of living permanently in a particular place.

These Germans were in special need of retaining their German culture. And they retained it the least. This is Germany's great fault. Just as it has never shown much concern about its sons scattered over the globe — even Bismarck was of the opinion that one should not concern oneself about people who have shaken the dust of home from their feet — so it neglected the Volga Germans, perhaps even despised them. And yet Germany could be proud of a people who have maintained the language and customs of home under such adverse conditions. Gradually these colonists were overcome by a feeling of being deserted, a spiritual depression and instability, which made them incapable of energetic action. The more deserted and isolated they felt, the less they were able to muster the will to re-establish contact with Germany. A vicious circle: by origin these colonists were weak and therefore needed support from home; their homeland forgot them and therefore made them still weaker.

Another scourge which increases the powerlessness of the Volga Germans is malaria. This disease has always been endemic on the middle and lower Volga, but it was a relatively mild form, which did no serious damage. In the war years, however, the severe tropical malaria was brought here, apparently from Persia. It disables the people just at the time of year when farm work is most urgent. In the summer months there are times when a third of the population of a village is ill with the disease. A patient's fever usually rises only every second day, but, because the temperature goes high, the victims are weak and listless also on the days on which the fever is down. Because the capital is lacking, a thorough program for coping with the disease has not been organized. Only small-scale attempts are being made. Malaria stations are in the planning stage and a malaria institute has been set up at Kasan University.

How greatly every activity originating from Germany is appreciated by these isolated Germans is shown by the gratitude which they still express for the expedition of the German Red Cross, which worked here some time ago. Although until recently German help, while very much desired, was not absolutely essential, the problems have now become acute again as a result of the new crop failure. The 1924 crop is exceptionally poor. Normally one harvests sixty to seventy poods per dessiatine. In 1922 there were forty to fifty poods, in 1923 still thirty poods, but this year there have been in places only five pounds per dessiatine, which was too little to make it worth harvesting. It is estimated that over the whole region there will be an average yield of five poods per dessiatine, which is not even a return of the seed. The consequence is that the farmers, as in 1921, are flooding the market with their livestock. Bread is expensive now, but meat is unbelievably cheap; in some places a Russian pound of meat is only four kopecks. A few livestock prices will be of interest: a cow normally sells for up to 150 rubles, but at the present time a good cow can be bought for 35 rubles, a middle-sized cow for 20 rubles, and a small cow for only 15 rubles. A farm horse, normally 150 to 200 rubles, is now 60 to 70 rubles; a goat, normally 15 to 20 rubles, is now 2 to 3 rubles.

The same thing is happening again, as in the frightful famine year of 1921: many farmers sell everything that can be sold, load the rest on a wagon and take off into the unknown. If you ask them where they are

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going, you receive the indefinite answer: to a land where there is bread. The impulse to wandering, mentioned earlier, has been awakened and will not be curbed. As a result of such aimless wandering, thousands perished in various places in 1921. Others settled permanently in Siberia or in the Caucasus, while some stayed there for a time but later found their way home again. Very characteristic of them was the fact that no one thought of a trek to Germany,6 More readily there occurred to them the idea of emigrating to America.

Child beggars have again become a characteristic feature of Saratov, the only large city of the region, which does not belong to the German Republic but dominates it economically. Actually the begging of German Volga children in Saratov had never come to a stop, for since 1921 dozens loll around the streets of the city, beings who will never learn to work. But the number has now become considerably larger. It is a sad sight for a German from the Reich to see these ragged neglected creatures, to whom a Russian now and then throws a kopeck. The local German government has done a great deal for such children in distress. During and after the famine year 1921, 15,000 children were accommodated in children's homes. Some of these homes still exist, ten of them in Marxstadt alone. Decisive help to solve this problem of neglected children can come only from the outside.

When an appeal is made to Germany for help, the excuse is often heard that such help renders a service only to Bolshevism, since the Volga Republic too is Just a Communist state. The form is certainly communistic, but how little this is the reality has been pointed out earlier. Real enthusiasm for Moscow I have been able to find among the native Germans only among those who are in the Red Guards. These form a special German regiment in the ninety-fifth Volga army in Saratov. Each of these young men feels himself called to be the prophet of the pure teaching of Marx. In general the Red army is more of a training school for Communism than it is a military institution. It is very questionable, however, whether the Red enthusiasm will be very long-lasting even in these recruits,

Even if one assumes that the number of Communists in the Volga Republic is far greater than it actually is, and one takes into full account the communistic organization of the state, the fact that these Germans have an autonomous republic is so important for the preservation of their German character that it should make all our doubts disappear. These German elements are not scattered among the Russians, but have a commonwealth within which they can realize a full German life. They will realize such a life all the sooner the more interest Germany takes in their little state.

What type of organization does this state possess? The German Republic (area: about 2,200,000 dessiatines) consists of fourteen cantons, among them seven entirely German, two entirely Russian, and five mixed. There is an official map of the region, on which the German villages are marked in red and the Russian in black.7 From this map it is obvious that Russian villages in any number exist only in the Canton Solotoye, on the right bank of the Volga just below Saratov. Beyond that only the Canton Pokrovsk has exclusively Russian villages, but it is inhabited only near the Volga, not farther out. From this map it is clear also to what a large extent the German Republic extends over to the right side of the Volga, the hilly side; there are a total of four cantons here. Of purely German villages there are only three which have not been included in the German Republic. These are northwest of Saratov, deep in Russian-inhabited territory.8 In addition, as mentioned earlier, Saratov itself, which before the war had 25,000 Germans and probably has about the same number now (in a total of about 200,000 inhabitants), does not belong to the Republic. The inclusion of Saratov would have been an action very helpful to the Germans, but it is understandable that the Soviet government decided against- it. The Germans in Saratov form scarcely fif-teen per cent of the population and only a minority of them are socially leading elements. Many of them belong to the so-called mill proletariat, the workers in the large steam-powered flour mills, most of which were formerly German-owned. On the other hand, there are also, as was mentioned earlier, a considerable number of Russians among the inhabitants of the German Republic, as well as a few Tatars and Ests. Altogether there are about 100,000 non-Germans among the 500,000 inhabitants,

It is Communist policy to bring the administration as close to the people as possible (to facilitate Red propaganda efforts!), much closer than in Tsarist days, when the open country almost ruled itself. Thus every canton of the German Republic has a completely structured administration, although one which works with a minimum number of heads. The center is the Cantonal Executive Committee, with sections for internal affairs, agriculture, justice, finance, public enlightenment, communal administration, and health. The section for internal affairs, the most important of them, supervises the village Soviets. In addition to this there is in each canton a militia administration, which provides police functions. Similar sections, which supervise those in the cantons, also exist in the central administration at Pokrovsk, there as departments of the Central Executive Committee. In Pokrovsk there is also the Superior Court, to which all cantonal judges

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are subject. In contrast with the Russian villages, there is a school in nearly every German village and in the larger communities,

villages of 2,000-3,000 inhabitants, there are schools with two, three, and even four teachers, These are the elementary schools, the actual people's schools. Schools of a more advanced level, substitutes for the former middle schools, which include the last four years of schooling, exist in the canton centers,

In addition to the school, the church is extremely important for the preservation of the German nationality. Approximately two-thirds of the Volga Germans are Protestant, the rest Roman Catholic. Almost all inhabitants are members of the collectives of believers, who administer the church building and are, according to Soviet law, the church organization. I was told that in the town of Frank (on the Bergseite) only three or four inhabitants had excluded themselves from the collective. Here too only the members of the younger generation, previously mentioned, hold thems