The Germans From Russia: Children Of The Steppe Children Of The Prairie

[PaleoEuropean]

[Root]

[Davystayn]

Amazing, I'd heard of the Volga Germans be for but didn't know they were so numerous.

[kundur]

Germans were mostly imported into Russia by female empresses of Russia who happened to be of German origin. Their transfer was meant to westernize Russia through the implant of a population which was due to serve as example to the local Slavic folk in terms of mentality, working discipline, culture and use of agricultural production means. However, at the turn of the 19th century with the rising nationalism worldwide, there was a Slavic resentment that their own state (ruled by Romanov Despotate) was bringing in foreigners to spread a culture deemed to be superior to theirs. That resentment turned into an animosity through German unification by Prußia.
Later that animosity turned into open hate and physical persecution with WWI unfolding. And under Stalin, during thirties and forties, Germans were victims of massacre, deportation, forcible assimilation and more since the Soviet state saw in Russian Germans potential Nazi collaborators.

In 1914, the concept of Europe and Western world were very different than those we have today.
Today, we type in English and we have a more British perception of what Europe, its culture and history, western culture are. Before WWI, Europe was meant to be dominated by the German states and German culture since Germany had surpassed Great Britain as the leading industrial nation.
With Germans losing WWI, things started to change. And later, in the rush to WWII, all the potentials of Germany were thrown off cliff by a gang Austro-Bavarian reactionaries organized as Nazis.

In the end of the day and looking at how things are nowadays, Germans happen to be another not-so-relevant people who just boosted the white populations of countries like US, Brazil but also Russia and who somewhat contributed a bit to modern civilization through their innovations in science, mechanics, pharmaceutics and some other fields.

[Ymyyakhtakh]

They were one of the targets of the Tatar Holodomor according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921–2...e_in_Tatarstan): "According to Roman Serbyn, a professor of Russian and East European history, the Tatarstan famine was the first man-made famine in the Soviet Union and systematically targeted ethnic minorities such as Volga Tatars and Volga Germans.[8]"

The source of the statement above is an old Ukrainian magazine article which only says this (http://www.ukrweekly.com/old/archive/1988/458814.shtml): "The Volga famine zone included many nationalities, but aid seems to have been concentrated in the ethnically Russian areas. During the second year of the famine, Western agencies noticed that the majority of the starving population consisted of national minorities (Tatars, Germans, etc.)"

From Russian Wikipedia (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Голод_...21—1922)): "The loss during the famine is difficult to determine, since no one was counting the victims. The largest losses were observed in the Samara and Chelyabinsk provinces, in the autonomous region of the Volga Germans and in the Bashkir Autonomous Republic, the total number of whose population decreased by 20.6%."

The population of the autonomous region of Volga Germans was listed as 98% German in 1920 but 66% German in 1926 (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Автоно...ья).

[PaleoEuropean]

Amazing, I'd heard of the Volga Germans be for but didn't know they were so numerous.

A lot of American Germans trace their lineage to Volga Germans. I didn't know so many famous Americans were descendant from them before I started researching.

[Ymyyakhtakh]

Their transfer was meant to westernize Russia through the implant of a population which was due to serve as example to the local Slavic folk in terms of mentality, working discipline, culture and use of agricultural production means.

Sounds fishy. Where have you heard that was the reason?

The manifestos by Catherine II make it seem like they were just looking for any foreign immigrants (except Jews) to settle peripheral territories in the lower Volga region and Siberia:

https://wolgadeutsche.net/history/manifest.htm
https://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/Маниф...цу

The manifesto which allowed foreigners to immigrate to Russia was also printed in Polish, Czech, and Arabic (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Немецк...ье):

On December 4 (15), 1762, Empress Catherine II signed the Manifesto "On allowing foreigners, except for Jews, to leave and settle in Russia and on the free return to their homeland of Russian people who fled abroad." The manifesto of December 4 (15), 1762 , printed in hundreds of copies in Russian, German, French, English, Polish, Czech and Arabic, was sent by the Collegium of Foreign Affairs to Russian diplomatic agents abroad. This manifesto was instructed "not only to make famous people by introducing it into the local newspapers, but also to exert every possible effort so that it could certainly have its effect."

Why they needed foreign immigrants to settle the Saratov region that became the center of Volga Germans (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/История_Саратова):

The entire 17th century Saratov and its environs were ravaged by various gangs of thieves, Kalmyks and Kuban Tatars, who did not cease to attack it until the first half of the 18th century. In 1670 Stepan Razin subjected the city to a three-day robbery. In 1708 Saratov was under siege by Bulavin's troops [7].

The sedentary agricultural population for a very long time could not populate the territory of the region. Only those who were attracted by the free life of the Cossacks and the impunity of robberies and robberies on the Volga moved here. Kazan Governor Artemy Volynsky, in his report to the Senate in 1719, says:

"From Saratov to Astrakhan, between the cities of two hundred and three hundred miles, there was no life, for the sake of both merchants and passing by travelers and fish fishermen from the Kalmyks and from the Kuban people great ruin is being done and the working people are taken prisoner."

Before Germans, Old Believers were shipped off to the Saratov region (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/История_Саратова):

According to the manifesto of Catherine II in 1762, the persecution of the schismatics was stopped, they were allocated lands in the Volga region. Subsequently, this led to the appearance in Saratov of a significant number of economically active merchants, Old Believers. In 1763, foreigners were invited to settle in the free lands of the Volga region and Novorossia. Established in Saratov in 1766, the Office of the Office of the Guardianship of Foreigners became the center of management of German colonists in the Volga region.

[Arsen_]

The manifestos by Catherine II make it seem like they were just looking for any foreign immigrants (except Jews) to settle peripheral territories in the lower Volga region and Siberia..

Catherine II invited Armenians to Russia as well, she gave lands, all sorts of privileges and rights to Armenians, issued a decree: "Весь честный армянский народ в Нашей Императорской милости и благоволении содержать!" ("All the noble Armenian people support with Our Imperial favor and good will!"), and in some areas of today's Russia Armenians were first ones to settle before there appear any kind of Russians themselves!

Armenians built a whole city from the scratch, which is currently part of the city of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia.

Here is the Armenian church in Rostov region of southern Russia which was built in 1783-1789.

Currently, this building is the oldest existing building in Rostov. Also there in one of the buildings of the monastery near the church was the first printing house in Southern Russia.

[Arsen_]

By the way, Armenian traders in then Russia actively bought agricultural products produced by German settlers who were mainly farmers, giving them the opportunity to sell their products.

[Arsen_]

By the way, in the nineteenth century, on money donated by the Armenian community a monument to Empress Catherine was erected in the center of the city of Nakhichevan-on-Don (a city built by Armenians). And there was an inscription on the pedestal: «Императрице Екатерине II благодарные армяне». (“The grateful Armenians to Empress Catherine II”.)

But by an evil irony of fate, after the Bolsheviks came to power, the monument to the empress was demolished, and instead of demolished German-born empress, a monument to the Jew Karl Marx was erected on the same pedestal.