There Is Always Room for One More: Volga German Stories and Recipes

Important Dates in the Lives of German Russians

April 21, 1729   Sophia Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst was born in Germany. She later ruled Russia with the name of Catherine II, better known as Catherine the Great.

1756–1763   The Seven Years’ War takes place. It is an important factor in bringing Germans to the Lower Volga to establish colonies.

June 28, 1762   Catherine II, or Catherine the Great, ascends to the throne of Russia.

December 4, 1762   The first Manifesto is issued by Catherine II. She invites foreigners to come to Russia to live. The invitation brings few to the country.

July 22, 1763   Catherine II issues a second manifesto. It spells out in detail the conditions under which foreigners can immigrate and grants them special privileges and rights. Large numbers of German peasants accept the invitation to live in the country.

1764–1767   German colonies are founded along the lower Volga River.

1771–1774   Kirghiz raids during Pugachev’s rebellion in what is called the Pugachevshchina. The Volga colonies are decimated as a result.

1786   Mennonites from West Prussia begin coming to Russia because the 1772 Partition of Poland threatens military exemptions that the Mennonites make use of as conscientious objectors. The Mennonites settle primarily in the Taurida region in southern Russia.

1793   The second partition of Poland grants an area of Volhynia to Russia. Polish landowners invite the German peasants to lease land for farming.

November 6, 1796   Catherine II dies at the age of 67.

1796–1801   The son of Catherine II Czar Paul I reigns.

1801–1825   Tsar Alexander I, the beloved grandson of Catherine II, reigns.

February 20, 1804   Alexander I modifies and reissues the Manifesto of Catherine II, inviting foreigners to settle in New Russia.

1825–1855   Tsar Nicholas I, who is the grandson of Catherine II and a brother of Alexander I, reigns.

1830   A Polish insurrection brings the immigration of many Polish Germans to the Bessarabia and lower Volga region.

1855–1881   This is the time of the reign of Tsar Alexander II, great grandson of Catherine II and the son of Nicholas I.

1860s   Another flood of Germans immigrate to Volhynia prompted by the abolishment of serfdom. This leaves a significant lack of a work force. A second Polish uprising in1862 brings more Polish Germans to Volhynia and other parts of Russia.

1871   Germany is unified as a nation for the first time. This created great unease among other European nations and Russia. It is a time of animosity toward foreigners in Russia due to a Slavophile movement and growing nationalism.

June 4, 1871   The Imperial Russian Government issues a decree repealing the manifestos of Catherine II and Alexander I. It terminated the special privileges of the German colonists.

January 13, 1874   The Imperial Government of Russia issues a second manifesto amending the previous one. This decree institutes compulsory military conscription for the German colonists. This sends thousands of German Russians fleeing to North and South America.

1881–1917   This is the reign of Tsar Nicholas II, a descendent of Catherine II. He abdicates during World War I. On July 16, 1918, the Bolsheviks execute him and his family. Nicholas II is the last monarch to rule in Russia.

July 28, 1914   The start of World War I.

1915   The Eastern Front advances. The Volhynian Germans are deported to the Lower Volga and South Russia.

December 13, 1916   The Volga Germans are ordered to be banished. This is never carried out because of other troubles in Russia at that time.

November 7, 1917   The Bolshevick Revolution in Russia is led by Vlaimir Lenin. This is the beginning of the Communist regime.

June 24, 1918   Lenin establishes the Autonomous Volga German Workers Commune, which becomes the forerunner of the ASSR of the Volga Germans. It is founded in 1924.

1920-1923   This is a period of famine in Russia. Death by starvation in the Volga- German colonies alone is estimated at 166,000, one third of the population. Assistance is provided by the American Relief Administration.

January 1924   Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic of the Volga Germans is established.

1928–1933   A second famine claims many lives throughout Russia.

1928–1940   German farms and property are taken away by the Soviet government. Volga Germans are forced onto collective farms or they migrate to cities. This is the period of Stalinization.

September 1, 1939   World War II begins.

June 22, 1941   Nazi Germany invades Russia.

August 20, 1941   This is the beginning of exile and banishment of the Germans left in Russia. The Crimean Germans are deported.

August 28, 1941   A decree is put out ordering the deportation of the Volga Germans to the northeastern area of the Soviet Union. This includes Middle Asia and Siberia.

October 1941   The Germans in the North and South Caucasus are deported. Germans from St Petersbrug are also deported.

1991   The Soviet Union falls.

A Short History of Why Germans Went to Russia

GERMANY WAS NOT BROUGHT TOGETHER AS a nation until 1871. However, the German principalities and kingdoms shared a strong link with Russia. For centuries, Germans have lived inside of Russia’s borders. They were especially drawn to the Baltic States where they were the landowners. During Peter the Great’s reign, many Germans were given government positions. Under Elizabeth I, these positions were purged of foreign officers, primarily German officers.

On December 4, 1762, Catherine the Great, Tsarina of Russia, issued a manifesto asking Europeans to settle in Russia. There were few who answered the invitation. It was her second Manifesto of July 22, 1763 that offered freedom from military service, freedom from taxation, freedom of worship, and self-administration within the Russian Empire for eternal time that induced many Germans to migrate to Russia. Different enticements were used to get the emigrants to relocate to the Steppes of the Russian frontier. Stipends and loans were distributed to help with the relocation and establishment of colonies. Land was to be given as an inalienable and hereditary possession of the colony, though not to an individual for eternal time. Some colonists were allowed personal ownership. Catherine’s timing couldn’t have been better. The German peasants had suffered much through the Seven Years’ War. Germany was a mix of 300 principalities and dukedoms, and these frequently changed hands politically and religiously.

With the opportunity to govern themselves and practice their own religion, thousands of Germans answered the call of Catherine’s recruiters. With much effort, the recruiters mustered enough people, less than 500 families to populate 11 colonies on the Bergseite (hilly side) west of the Volga River and below the ancient settlement of Saratov. One of the recruiting teams consisted of a moderately successful trio of French men. They were Baron Jean de DeBoffe, Meusnier de Prescourt de Saint Laurent and Quentin Benjamin Coulhette d’Hauterive. The DeBoffe colonies were Bauer (Karamyshevka), Degott Kamey (oweag), Dietel (Oleshna), Franzosen (Rossoschi) Kautz (Wershinka), Kratzke (Potschennoje), Merkel (Makarovka), Rothammel (Pomjatnoje), Seewald (Werchnoje), Schuck (Grasnowatka), and Vollmer (Kopjonka). As you can see, these villages had Russian names, but they adopted names preferred by the colonists, which was usually the name of the leader of the colony.

Once recruited in Germany, the immigrants were gathered at various recruiting centers and organized for their travel to ports of departure along the northern coasts of Germany. Lubeck proved to be the best port. The vorstehers, or mayors, were then chosen from the more educated for their integrity, honesty, personal trust, and respect acquired from their fellow travelers. They were given responsibility for an assigned group of people. From these ports, the colonists sailed to a processing center at the mouth of the Neva Riva, in the harbor of St. Petersburg. Oranienbaum is an alternate name given for the center and is named for the local palace of Peter the Great. Here, the colonists were required to take the Solemn Oath to the Russian crown. Processing for the colonists could take weeks or months. Supplies were then purchased in Oranienbaum, and the colonists would then begin the final leg of the journey to their final destination with assigned escorting officers. The colonists had to winter along the way and were often put up in the houses of the Russian peasants. Many of the sickly and elderly died along this hazardous journey to their colony’s location along the Volga.

Arrival at the colony sites was disastrous, to say the least. They had been promised finished houses in their new villages, but when they arrived, there was nothing. Instead, the Russian officers halted the wagons at predetermined sites on the barren sites and pointed out the location for the yet to be built colony. Because the colonists had arrived late in the summer there was little time to prepare for winter. Most of the colonists spent the winter in dugouts, or semlyanka, patterned after winter homes of nearby tribesmen. The Dietel colonists of my grandmother arrived on July 1, 1767.

What a difficult beginning. Many died of cold, illness, or starvation. The first three years were years of hardship, but those who survived persevered and eventually prospered. By the time the Volga Germans began migrating again, this time to the United States, there were about 1,700,000 hard-working, prosperous colonists.

The Women in my Life

VOLGA GERMAN WOMEN ARE TOUGH. I know this first hand because I grew up surrounded by them. There was my grandmother Susanna Kinsfather Nab. She had five stepmothers when growing up in Russia. She never said what happened to them all, but I’m going to guess childbirth with no doctors, cold and pneumonia, or being worked to death. Women in Russia worked in the fields like slaves, had their babies at the end of a field, wrapped them up, and went back to work. The fields were sometimes very far away from the villages and at harvest time, the men could be gone for a month. The women would stay behind to look after the children, the livestock, and the house. My Grandma Nab never would talk much about Russia. She did, however, tell me that one harvest the men were gone a very long time in far away fields, and she was running out of meat. She politely went out to the pigs, sat on one, slit its throat, and butchered it herself! She told me this in German because she never spoke English. She did understand English, so she spoke to us in German, and we answered in English! It sounds rather strange, but it worked perfectly well and seemed normal to me.

Grandma had very lovely white hair that went halfway down her back. She wore it in a twisted bun on the top of her head. I only saw it down once when my Aunt Esther was helping her brush it. I was probably about 10 at the time. I wondered out loud to my Aunt about why Grandma didn’t try a different hairstyle. Aunt Esther said that Grandma Nab would never be able to wear it any other way because she had been struck by lightning on the top of her head while working in the fields. She had survived, but the hair on top of her head was gone! She survived being struck by lightning. Now, that is tough.

I didn’t get to know my grandmother until she was in her 70s and living in a little three-room house in town. My dad was the youngest of seven children and I was his youngest, so everyone seemed quite old to me. I didn’t get to ask any questions about what it was like in Russia and why they left. My father told me that the Bolsheviks had started to overrun the German villages, burning, raping, hanging women, cutting off their breasts, and pulling out their gold teeth. So, Grandma Nab had seen too much and lived through tragedy after tragedy. She was harsh and could be pretty mean. She was rather nice to me, but I was just a child. When she started yelling at Grandpa in German and shaking her fist, we all found somewhere else to be. She wasn’t cooking the big meals or baking so much when I knew her. She left that to her daughters and daughter-in-laws. She was probably a great cook though because her two daughters were fantastic.

My mother’s mother, Grandma Bauer was basically lost to me also. She moved to Portland, Oregon in 1941. I saw her every few years when she came for a visit. When I knew her she was a happy, accepting free spirit. She had nine children of whom seven survived. She was only a year old when she came to America so, although she could speak German, she was much more Americanized. We all loved her very much. She had the greatest laugh and loved to visit all her children and grandchildren. She had to be pretty tough too, because my Grandpa Bauer was an alcoholic and he beat the girls and probably Grandma. He lost the beautiful farm they had because of his gambling and drinking. They moved to town and he was a cook for a while. They lived in my hometown of Torrington on a farm for a while until