Germans

Germans

ETHNONYMS: none

Orientation

Identification. The estimated 2,038,341 Germans who lived in Russia as of January 1989 constituted the single largest ethnic minority group without a settlement area of its own. Compared to the more than 100 other non-Russian nationalities living in the Soviet Union, the Germans are the fifteenth-largest ethnolinguistic group.

Location. Just before and during the Nazi offensive on Russia that began on 22 June 1941 and lasted until 1944, the entire Soviet German population was deported from their settlements in the European part of Russia to Siberia, Kazakhstan, and Soviet Central Asia, which, depending on the case, they were strictly forbidden to leave until 1955 or even 1956. Subsequent internal migrations led to the formation of new and concentrated settlements. According to 1989 figures, 41 percent of all Soviet settlements where Germans were in the majority were in Russia itself; 47 percent in Kazakhstan; 5 percent in Kirgizia; and 2 percent in Uzbekistan, Tadzhikistan, and the Ukraine respectively; the rest lived in the Baltic states and in Transcaucasia, Moldavia, and Byelorussia. Very few Germans lived in settlements with an existing German majority. Settlements of this kind came into being in the Altai, Omsk, and Orenburg regions and in northern Kazakhstan at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. Elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, Germans have remained in the minority.

Demography. The January 1989 census showed the male-female ratio within the German population of the Soviet Union to be 51 percent to 49 percent. The estimate of 2,038,341 Germans of Soviet citizenship was based on statements made by the respondents. Statistics show that some of these Germans had previously indicated a different nationality because of discrimination against Germans. No details are available on the way the census was carried out.

Linguistic Affiliation. Germans living in the former Soviet Union speak several dialects and foreign languages depending on their generation. At the time of emigration, settlers tended to group together according to place of origin and religious denomination. Thus, the respective dialects were the main form of communication in the German settlements in the European part of Russia until they were destroyed between 1941 and 1944. Countless German settlements were founded in the Orenburg District, northern Kazakhstan, western Siberia, and Kirgizia at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, however, and were left largely undisturbed during World War II. In these areas German dialects are still the most usual medium of communication for the older to middle generations. In the Mennonite villages of the Orenburg, Omsk, and Altai regions, there is a particularly high instance of children who only speak in German dialect. The most common dialects still to be found are Lower and Middle West German (West Prussian/Rhine-Frankonian, Palantine, Upper Hessian), East German (Silesian), and Upper German (Alemannian, Swabian, Alsatian, and North Frankonian). During the twentieth century internal migrations led to a growth in mixed dialects.

Until as late as 1941, High German was still spoken in German settlement schools (i.e., in the Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic of the Volga Germans). As a result, some in the older generations still demonstrate a fairly comprehensive knowledge of literary German. After 1941, however, German schools ceased to exist and have not been reopened. In the average Russian school, German is inadequately taught owing to the dispersion of settlements, political discrimination, and insufficient opportunity to preserve the spoken language. The process of assimilation or, to be more precise, Russification, has been rapid. In 1926, 95 percent of Germans living in the Soviet Union declared German to be their mother tongue; this had dropped to 75 percent by 1959, to 66.8 percent by 1970, and to 57.7 percent by 1979, and to an all-time low of 48.7 percent in 1989. In many families this process of linguistic decay means that the older generation speaks dialect and High German; the middle generation a Russian dialect and, in some cases, High German; and the children can speak only Russian. There is a marked difference between the languages spoken by the urban and rural populations. The assimilation of German urban populations is far more advanced in Russian-speaking areas than it is among rural populations in the republics of Central Asia. In major towns and cities, 44.88 percent of the men interviewed said their mother tongue was German, compared to 51.82 percent of the women. In rural areas, the comparable figures are 62.03 percent and 68.55 percent for men and women respectively.

History and Cultural Relations

The first Germans to forge links with Russia were the German missionaries and merchants who traveled there over 1,000 years ago; their stay in Russia, however, was relatively brief. Grand Duke Ivan III (1462-1505) brought in doctors, apothecaries, architects, and military officers from many European countries including German principalities. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw the largest increase in German settlers.

Large-scale immigration began as a consequence of the manifestos laid down by Catherine II (the Great) on 4 December 1762 and 22 July 1763, encouraging foreign immigration to Russia. The manifesto drawn up in 1763 granted particularly favorable conditions to new immigrants, including complete exemption from military service, religious freedom, the opportunity for self-government, several years' tax exemption, and immigration support. During the years 1764 to 1767, between 23,000 and 29,000 German colonists settled in Russia. Most came from Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, northern Baden, and the Rheinprovinz, but some from France, Sweden, and Holland. Although some of the immigrants colonized areas near St. Petersburg, most gravitated toward the Volga Lands, setting up 104 colonies near the city of Saratov. The second major phase of immigration started in 1789 and lasted, despite periodic lulls, until 1863. During this period, immigrants consisted mainly of Mennonites and Protestants entering the southern Ukraine; a further 55,000 people immigrated to Russia from Württemberg, Baden, Palatinate, Lorraine, Alsace, and Switzerland. The immigrants were to help secure Russia's borders and develop districts long since fallen into disuse as new areas of commercial productivity. By 1914 there were 3,500 German colonies, and the total German population was estimated at 2,338,500.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the urban and rural German populations were divided into national and religious communities, with numerous well-developed clubs and societies. At this time many German officials, merchants, and citizens actually formed part of the Russian upper class and, because they owned land, the rural Germans were wealthy and living apart from the surrounding peasant population. Every year they employed tens of thousands of Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians, and others for seasonal work in southern Russia and the Caucasus, which encouraged the spread of German farming methods and machinery among Russian and Ukrainian farmers. Moreover, elements of Ukrainian and Russian Baptism can be traced back to the Bible-class teachings (Stunde ) of the Swabian Germans.

As a result of immigration, trade in crafts flourished, and milling and material production (sarpinka ) became well established in the Volga Lands. The production of agricultural tools and equipment was particularly successful in the southern Ukraine, and the Johann Hoehn factory (in Odessa), which produced plows, grew to be the largest of its kind in southern Russia. As a result of the termination of self-government in 1871 and the reinstatement of general liability for military service in 1874, however, the internal political climate took a dramatic turn for the worse. In addition, the pan-Russian movement demanded the expulsion of Germans from the western district of Russia (in Volhynia) and new alien laws. The withdrawal of privileges, combined with the increasing Russification, eventually led to the emigration of 18,000 Mennonites to the United States (1872-1873); 10,000 colonists left for Brazil (1890), and several thousand more emigrated to Canada, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay.

During World War I, anti-German feeling in Russia reached a high pitch, and in the winter of 1915-1916 approximately 200,000 Germans were deported from Volhynia to other parts of the country. All Germans were to have been deported from the European part of Russia to Siberia and Central Soviet Asia by the end of 1917, a plan that could never fully be put into effect because of the Revolution in 1917. After the fall of Czar Nicholas II and the subsequent proclamation of civil rights and rights to self-determination, various ethnic groups in Russia began to seek autonomy. The German autonomy movement was centered in Odessa, Moscow, and Saratov. The Commission for German Affairs in the Volga Lands was finally set up in Saratov in May 1918, and on 19 October 1918 the German colonies of the Volga Lands were granted autonomous status, the first instance of national autonomy in Soviet Russia. In 1924 the district was transformed into the Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic of Volga Germans (ASSRVG). In the twenties and thirties, German provinces existed in the Ukraine, the Crimea, Transcaucasia, around Orenburg, in northern Kazakhstan, and in the Altai region. In the ASSRVG and the German provinces, German became the official language and was spoken in the schools. Numerous newspapers, journals, and books were printed, and the education system ran from kindergarten to university.

Following the seizure of power in Germany by the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) party, conditions for Germans in the former Soviet Union deteriorated. In 1938 the autonomous German provinces were disbanded, and after Hitler had declared war on the Soviet Union, Germans were deported on a large scale to Siberia and Central Soviet Asia. The Germans in the Volga Lands were subsequently accused of collaborating with the enemy and the ASSRVG was eliminated. By 1941, 226,000 people had already been moved to the eastern parts of the country, with most men and women being drafted into the Worker's Army (Trudovaja Armija). Approximately 895,000 Germans were deported during the course of World War II. In 1956 the rest of the German population was placed in special settlements under the supervision of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD).

As a result of political and social changes, conditions have greatly altered for the Germans in Russia. Today they find themselves in a diaspora, and many are scattered among Muslim communities. Since 1941 political and legal discrimination have turned the Germans into the outsiders of Soviet society; at the same time, cultural pressure and assimilative processes have resulted in widespread adaptation to Slavic values.

Settlements

The geographic distribution of the German population in the former Soviet Union was determined by state regulations and by the need for workers in new centers of industrial growth, as well as by deportations to Novaya Zemlya and Siberia. To this day the German population displays the high degree of mobility it acquired out of economic and political necessity. An analysis of German settlement patterns in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1989 shows a consistently large German population in Russia and Ukraine and a rapidly expanding population in Kazakhstan and Kirghizia during the same period.

Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. Prior to 1917 most Germans in Russia were employed in agriculture, particularly in cereal growing and animal breeding. The chief source of income in the Crimea and Transcaucasia was viniculture. The social and employment structures were significantly affected, however, by the dispossession of property and the deportations that took place between 1941 and 1945. In 1989, 53 percent of the Germans living in Russia were urbanized (on a national average), whereas the other 47 percent lived in the country. The statistics vary according to republic and region. In Uzbekistan, for example, 88 percent of the German population is urban; the comparable figures are 71 percent in the Ukraine and 54 percent in the former Soviet Union. In the primarily agrarian provinces of Kazakhstan and Kirgizia, the corresponding data are 49 percent and 42 percent respectively.

Industrial Arts. The handicrafts and decorative arts that had flourished before 1917 lost much of their importance following the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and continue to play a significant role only in rural areas.

Trade. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries streets lined exclusively with German stores were to be found in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Saratov, Odessa, and other cities. Regular street markets were held in the settlements and a number of German-owned trading firms distributed industrial and farming products throughout Russia. Today farming is the only industry in which Germans pursue private production. Surplus dairy products, meat, eggs, fruit, and vegetables are sold at the kolkhoz markets or purchased by state distribution agencies.

Division of Labor. Within the sphere of agriculture, German men in Russia tend to work the machinery (as elsewhere in the former Soviet Union), whereas women tend to be employed in the fields and in animal care. Within the sphere of industry, the occupations chosen depend on jobs available.

Land Tenure. The ownership and utilization of land have always differed from region to region. In the Volga Lands approximately 30 to 35 hectares would be allocated to individual German colonists at the time the settlements were founded, whereas in southern Russia and Bessarabia 60 to 65 hectares were more usual. Land allocations (for viniculture) were significantly smaller in the Crimea and Transcaucasia. In Volhynia, land was not allocated but leased. In other regions of Russia, economic success and the increase in the population led to the foundation of secondary settlements (daughter colonies) and increased ownership of land. In the pre-Revolutionary period, 5 to 9 percent of the population in southern Russia consisted of German settlers who owned up to 38 percent of the land. In 1917, however, all Russian land was nationalized and between 1928 and 1932 was transformed into collectives (kolkhoz) or state property (sovkhoz).

Kinship, Marriage, and Family

Kinship. The rural German population tended to have larger families (six to twelve children) than those living in the cities, with the biggest families usually consisting of three or four generations. The number of children born in each family dropped to an average of two to three in rural homes and one to two in urban-based families after private land ownership was abolished and no longer provided a source of income. The accelerating trend toward urbanization has also influenced the decline in the birthrate.

Marriage. In the rural areas before 1917, Germans tended to marry within their religious communities. Following the demise of the church in the twenties and thirties, however, religious differences came to play less of a role, and by the end of World War II, they were no longer a consideration. The number of interethnic marriages has greatly increased in the meantime. By the end of the seventies, at least 47.5 percent of all married Germans in the Soviet Union had chosen a partner of another nationality. This percentage was lower in the Central Soviet Asian republics and in Kazakhstan. Mixed marriages occur most frequently with Russians and Ukrainians.

Inheritance . Prior to the Russian Revolution, land in the Volga Lands was the property of the mir and usufruct was periodically redistributed. In German colonies in southern Russia, German laws regulating the inheritance of the farm by the youngest son were in effect, but were superseded by Russian inheritance laws after self-government was abolished in 1871. Since the nationalization of lands and of the means of production in 1917, individuals have the right only to use, not to own, domestic buildings and farmland. The property and leasing laws passed in 1990 have brought little change.

Socialization. The older generation used to be held in respect, as were clergymen and teachers in rural communities. Urbanization has reduced families to two generations, thus changing the role played by older relatives.

Sociopolitical Organization

Since 1941 the Germans have been an ethnic minority without territory of their own. As such, they do not have any form of representation or administration. There were German delegates in the soviets at various levels leading up to the Deputy Congress of the USSR, but they represented their constituencies and not an ethnic group. In March 1989 a society called "Rebirth" was founded in Moscow. Its main aims were to reestablish the political and legal rights of Germans and to reinstate the ASSRVG and the German provinces. The society had approximately 50,000 members in April 1990.

Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs and Practices. Before the Revolution, about 65 percent of the Germans in Russia were Lutheran and 25 percent Catholic, the others being Mennonite, Baptist, Pentecostal, or Adventist. Religious communities were set up by the consistorial districts of St. Petersburg and Moscow of the Evangelical Lutheran Russian church (1832). The Catholic communities belonged to the diocese of Tiraspol (1848), and the bishopric was in Saratov. Religious communities like these fell apart in the thirties, however, because of the militant atheism of the time, widespread church closures, and the persecution of priests and the faithful alike. Religious life underwent a revival (the beginnings of ecumenicism) during the years of the mass deportation and work camps (1941-1956). The first religious communities to be granted state approval after World War II were a Lutheran community in Akmolinsk (in 1957) and a Catholic community in Frunze (in 1969). There are now about 300 Lutheran communities in the former Soviet Union with 150,000 to 200,000 active members. Since October 1989 these communities have established the German Evangelical Lutheran church. The number of practicing Catholics in Russia remains unknown, but there are roughly 25 to 30 Catholic communities in existence. In the mid-1980s the total number of German Baptists was estimated at 50,000 to 80,000, and a total of 50,000 is assumed for the Mennonites.

Arts. Germans in the former Soviet Union managed to preserve the cultural heritage of their home country until the middle of the twentieth century. The dissolution of concentrated settlements and the processes of acculturation and assimilation have since led to an accelerating loss of the traditions and customs that were previously handed down by word of mouth.

Death and Afterlife. Practicing Christians in Russia uphold the views on death and the afterlife that prevail in their particular religious denomination. Germans with a more atheistic bias believe that death is merely a biological process that puts an end to life.

Bibliography

Bartlett, Roger P. (1979). Human Capital: The Settlement of Foreigners in Russia, 1762-1804. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Eisfeld, Alfred (1985). Deutsche Kolonien an der Wolga 1917-1919 und das Deutsche Reich. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Kahle, Wilhelm (1974). Geschichte der lutherischen evangelischen Gemeinden in der Sovet-union, 1917-1938. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Long, James W. (1979). The German-Russians: A Bibliography of Russian Materials with Introductory Essay, Annotations, and Location of Materials in Major American and Soviet Libraries. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.

Long, James W. (1988). From Privileged to Dispossessed: The Volga-Germans, 1860-1917. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Pinkus, Benjamin, and Ingeborg Fleischhauer (1987). Die Deutschen in der Sowjetunion: Geschichte einer nationalen Minderheit im 20. Jahrhundert. Baden-Baden: Nomos.

Stumpp, Karl (1980). Das Schrifttum über das Deutschtum in Russland: Eine Bibliographie. 5th ed. Stuttgart: Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland.

ALFRED EISFELD