[Russian name: MAKAROVKA]
Saratov Province: Kamyshin District


Merkel Colony (1766-1941)
Once established, houses were constructed by Russian laborers, and, eventually, schools, and even some churches, were constructed for these villages.14 Merkel had 36 houses finished by the end of 1769.15 Occasional raids by Khirgiz mostly affected the settlers on the Wiesenseite, or eastern side of the river. The Bergeseite was cursed by the Peasant Rebellion of 1774 when Emel’yan Ivanovich Pugachev, claiming to be the late Peter III, who had been assassinated by the Orlov brothers at Catherine’s behest, attacked villages along both sides of the Volga, including many of the DeBoffe colonies. His raids affected the villages of Kratzke, where “Pugachev arrived in front of the school in a heavily escorted carriage and promptly had a gallows erected” at which “four bound prisoners” were hung....”; Merkel; Bauer; Dietel; Schuck and various neighboring colonies, including Kutter, Grimm, and Dönhof, where an attempt was made to execute Vorsteher Count Dönhof. In each village, Pugachev’s men emptied the grain stores, called magaziny, for their personal use.16 It was reported by the vorsteher of Merkel to the Kontora of Oversight of Foreigners in Saratov, that two men in Merkel had already died of starvation, for which the Kontora threatened to fine the Vorsteher for filing a false report. After hearing similar reports from Dietel, Bauer and Kautz in early December, 1774, the Kontora issued full portions of flour to the afflicted villages.17 In a 1798 report to the Office of Immigrant Oversight by the Fellow of the Supreme Court, Collegiate Assessor and Cavalier Sixtel regarding the village of Merkel, it was stated that ’the colonists live in satisfactory conditions.” By that time, the houses, with the exception of 12 new ones, were “ramshackled and repaired old”.18 The village had one Dutch-style windmill, a well located public granary, and two German post-style water mills along the Karamysh brook.19

A wooden Lutheran church with a thatched roof was consecrated in 1826, while the old German school had existed since the village’s founding.20 Apparently, in 1767 Merkel was the seat of the Makarovka Parish which consisted of the villages of Merkel, Dietel, Kratzke and Bauer. Early ministers included Sigmund Israel Bergen (1767-1770), Gottlieb Mai (1772-1774), Christian August Tomau (1777), Lauerentius Ahlbaum (1782-1786) and Johann [C.?] Heinrich Buck (Bush?) from 1793-1798. At some point, the parish headquarter moved to Dietel, and in 1804 Bauer split to join with the Reformed church of Grimm.21 Dietel parish had the following minsters: Karl Jacob Früauf from 1801 to 1815; Andreas Haag from 1819 until 1835; Gotthard Alexis Marpurg from Neuhausen, Germany, from 1835 to 1862; Ernest Gottfried Carrolien from 1864 to 1880; August Julien Tiedemann from 1887 to 1892; and Johann Friedrich Möllmann of Wesel, from 1893 to 1927.22 Merkel church records, apparently now located in the Engels archives, exist for the years up to 1863.23 Thus, Pastor Marpurg appears on some Merkel records of which we have copies, as well as a couple of personal confirmation records, while Pastor Möllmann was mentioned in Alexander Bauer’s articles of the 1920s. Nothing has surfaced regarding Pastors Tiedemann and Carrolien. In an 1860 census report it was mentioned that Merkel consisted of 106 yards with one mill, a Lutheran church and a school. With the establishment of the daughter colony of Friedenfeld in 1860, the population of Merkel was reduced by 224 persons between 1861 and 1879. Seven persons were recorded as having moved to America in 1876 and 1877 during the very first outward migration instigated in 1872, when Alexander II reneged on the promises of the Manifesto, especially the one regarding freedom from military service. Few others would migrate before the next wave of emigration in the early part of the twentieth century, though it was mentioned that two more families from Merkel went to America on passports in 1886. By 1886, there were 134 dwelling places in Merkel: 58 stone, 75 wooden, and 1 adobe hut. Most of these bore thatched roofs with about one fourth baring wooden roofs. At that time there were five industrial establishments and one drinking house. Merkel owned 159 iron plows, 1 wooden plow, 1 winnowing machine and 1 threshing machine. By 1887, there were two wooden reserve grain stores, roofed with straw. The primary crop was rye, with about half as much of sown oats. Also planted in limited quantities were millet, barley, sunflowers, flax and hemp. Watermelon was sown among the rye fields. A. N. Minkh, in 1898, reported that there was an income producing water mill on the Karamysh and two on Peskovatka creek which emptied into the Karamysh brook, and was owned in cooperation with other villages. As late as the 1930s, Wilhelm Pister remembered on of the German-post water mills on the Peskovatka. By 1894 there was a trade school located in the colony. While most all male villagers were farmers, about a hundred colonists participate in the cottage industry of sarpinka cloth weaving and production.24 Wilhelm Pister stated that Merkel households peaked at 280, sometime in the early half of the twentieth century, before the deportation. But this figure seems more likely to have been about 180 households. He and Heinrich Hauf remembered three Dutch-style wind grist mills. A Giske mill was located on the west end of town, while the Specht and Hauf windmills were near the Adams community well, to the east of town.25 Among the many Vorstehers of the village, over the 175 years of Merkel’s existence (1766-1941) were Johann Georg Merkel, Johann Christian Beckman, a Gikes(?) in 1774, Henry Bruntz, Frederick Knaub, Johann Friedrich Kautz, Heinrich Klaus, a Gross, and Heinrich Margheim. Teachers included Ludwig Wegelin who, in 1769, resided in Merkel and taught in Kratzke, and Immanuel Rusch, in the 1920s.26

Professor George G. Bruntz stated in his Children of the Volga, “Merkel was a typical German Dorf (village)”, with “low, square, frame houses, with their heavy brown shutters,” and a dirt road for main street. Most of the houses had a gate that entered into the courtyard where farm animals (sheep, cows and horses, etc...) were kept, and where a few vegetables were grown, along with sunflowers (Russian peanuts) which were roasted as a delicacy. There was no business district as it was a community of peasants and small craftsmen, with one store to supply its many families.” “The village bell tower stood in the middle of main street” guarding the church and school behind it.” “Like many German villages along the Volga, Merkel had an Oberdorf (upper village, or prosperous section) and an Unterdorf (lower village).” 27 The village consisted of a Haptstraße (main street), Hinter Strasse (back street), Weise Gass (wise street), and Rote Hintergass (Red back street), intersected by at least eight vertical cross roads, including a major thoroughfare known as Kirchengass (church street), or Breite Querstaße (broad cross section).28 George J. Walters stated in his book Wir Wollen Deutsch Bleiben [‘We want to remain German‘] that the original log school, built by the first settlers of Merkel, was still standing in 1923!29 This was later verified by Merkel born Wilhelm Pister. As a boy, Wilhelm had been deported to Siberia, eventually making his way into Germany in the early 1990s. Wilhelm died in June, 2000. The old school was also mentioned by Alexander Bauer, a Merkel born reporter for the international German newspapers Dakota Freie Presse, prior to 1924, and Die Welt Post from 1924 to mid-1929. Wilhelm Pister stated that this old school house was moved away, sometime before 1940.

Reformed church members of Merkel would have attended the church in Dietel, which was replaced by a statue of the godless Lenin after the deportation of the Germans in 1941.30 Merkel suffered equal to any other Volga village in the Great Famine of 1921-1922. Ravages of disease and famine took their toll over the next twenty years until the 1941 Deportation.

In 1924, with the formation of the Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic of the Volga Germans (A.S.S.R.), the villages along the Karamysh were re-classified from the Kamenka Kanton (district) into the Balzar or Goloi-Karamysh Kanton (district).31 Prior to this, Merkel had been assigned to the Kamyshin district. Dietel and Kratzke had purchased a steam plow (tractor), but Merkel refused such technology until at least the middle of 1929.32 Merkel received phone service in 1925.33 In April of 1927, the villages along the Karamysh suffered a flood caused by rapid melting of snow. Water flowed through the streets of Merkel. The following year in June, 1928, another flood hit the region.34 By August, 1928, Merkel had access to radio by which it could receive reports from Europe, apparently, as a result of a new radio station constructed between Dietel and Kauz.35 On October 1, 1928, Merkel found itself re-assigned to the Frank Kanton, in a new redistricting of the local villages.36 In June, 1929, the museum in Pokrowsk sent an archeologist out to excavate some ancient graves found near the old Merkel churchyard. Pottery and skeletons, thought to be 4000 years old, were recovered.37

On August 8, 1937, the Communists entered Merkel in the middle of the night and took every third male member of every family, or about 119 men, to a re-education (labor) camp in Engels. No explanation was given, and most appear to have ended their lives in that camp. Only 24 of these were ever heard from again. In 1957, Johannes Margheim found records in the Marxstadt library that his father, Heinrich Margheim, had been shot on November 11, 1937, and two of his brother-in-laws, Adam Schmidt and Heinrich Hauf died in Engels that same year, also.38


NOTES:
14 Pleve, German Colonies, 131-133
15 Geisinger, Adam, translator, The First Statistical Report on the Volga Colonies, Dated February 14, 1769: Found in the Russian Archives by Pisarevsky and published in his Studies on Foreign Colonization in Russia in the 18th Century, Moscow, 1909, appendix, pp.. 74-83. Work Paper #25, 1972, American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, Lincoln, Nebraska.
16 Beratz, Gottleib, German Colonies...pp. 87-88: citing Christian Gottlob Zuege, Die russiche Colonist. Bauer, Gottlieb, Geschichte der Deutschen in den Wolgakolonien, p. 47, 1907 Scheuerman, Richard D. The Volga Germans: Pioneers of the Northwest, citing Christian Gottlob Zuege. Pleve, Igor R., German Colonies...: pp. 165-188, citing Zuege
17 Pleve, Igor R. Journal of the Saratov Kontora of Oversight of Foreigners, Vol. 1, 1774, translated by Richard R. Rye.
18 Mai, Brent, editor, A Description of the Saratov Colony of Makarovka [Merkel], 1798, as given on October 9, 1798 to the Office of Immigrant Oversight by the Fellow of the Supreme Court, Collegiate Assessor and Cavalier Sixtel, 1798 census. Translated by Bachiar Kholmatov. American Historical Society of Germans From Russia, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1995.
19 Ibid. Style of windmills revealed by Wilhelm Pister, Lubtheen, Germany, who had been born in Merkel and exiled to Siberia at the age of twelve. Wilhelm emigrated to Germany in 1991.
20 Minkh, A. N., Historical Geographic Dictionary of the Saratov Guberniya (Province). 1898, Saratov Zemstvo, citing the Saratov Provincial Statistical Committee, 1881, and referencing Klaus, Our Colonies: the list of populated places of the central statistical committee of 1862; the textbook of the provincial zemstvo of 1891; and the Sosnovka [Schilling] volost directorate of 1894; maps from the military-topographical corps of the general headquarters, 1892, and the zemshaya [land council] map of 1894.
21 Pleve, The German Colonies on the Volga: The Second Half of the Eighteenth Century, addendum 2: Structure of Parishes in the Volga Colonies in the 1760s-1780s. From: Journal of the Saratov Office of Oversight of Foreigners, Vol. 1, 1774), Saratov, 1995. Schnurr, Joseph, Die Kirchen und das religiose Leben der Rußlanddeutschen: Evangelischer Teil, Stuttgardt, 1980.
22 Die Evangelisch-Lutherischen Gemeinden in Rußland, St. Petersburg, 1909.
23 Pleve, Dr. Igor R. Deputy Dean of History at Saratov State University, and wife, Ludmilla.
24 Minkh, A. N. Historical Geographic Dictionary...: article: Makarovka
25 Pister, Wilhelm: Conversations, letters, and correspondences with Elaine Frank Davison, Carl Pister and Darrell W. Kautz.
26 List of Original Settler’s, Colony of Makarovka/Merkel, American Historical Society of Germans from Russia. Pleve, Igor R. Journal of the Saratov Kontora of Oversight of Foreigners, Vol. 1, 1774, translated by Richard R. Rye. Bruntz, George G., Children of the Volga, Dorrance & Company, Ardmore, Pennsylvania, 1981. Letters: Robert Knaub, Natalie Kautz Taylor, Vera Wegelin Bell, Clarence Jake Margheim,. Bauer, Alexander, Die Welt Post articles.
27 Bruntz, George G. Children of the Volga, Dorrance & Company, Ardmore, Pennsylvania, 1981.
28 Pister, Wilhelm, Map of Merkel
29 Walters, George J. Wir Wollen Deutschen Bleiben [We Want to Remain German!], p. 103, Halcyon Press, Kansas City, Missouri.
30 Davison, Elaine Frank of Walla Walla, Washington. Dr. Rodney J. Fink, Macoomb, Illinois.
31 Kautz, Henry [Dietel Vorsteher] and Georg Schild, Die Welt Post: December 11, 1924, Receipt from Dietel, p. 2, written in Dietel July 24, 1924, translated by Eugen Wittmann, 2000.
32 Bauer, Alexander, Die Welt Post, December 18, 1924, article: Neuigeitsqelle (News Source), p. 6, written in Merkel, November, 1924. Translated in 2000 by Eugen Wittmann. Occasional references in following Bauer articles through 1929, i.e Oct. 20, 1924.
33 Bauer, Alexander, Neugs\keitquelle (News Source), Die Welt Post, January 8, 1925, p. 3, written in Merkel, November 24, 1924.
34 Bauer, Alexander, Letters From the Republic of the Volga Germans, Die Welt Post, June 2, 1927, p. 4, written in Merkel, 11 April, 1927. Die Welt Post, July 5, 1928, Bauer, Letters from the Republic...., written in Merkel, May 24, 1928.
35 Bauer, Alexander Die Welt Post, October 29, 1925, Letters From Russia, p. 1, written in Merkel on September 16, 1925. Bauer, Die Welt Post, September 20, 1928, Reports From the Republic of the Volga Germans, p. 4, written 19 Aug, 1928, Merkel.
36 Bauer, Die Welt Post, April 11, 1929, Reports From the Republic of the Volga Germans, p. 2, written 8 Feb., 1929, Merkel.
37 Bauer, Die Welt Post, July 25, 1929, Reports From the Republic of the Volga Germans, p. 2, written June 16, 1929, Merkel.
38 Margheim, Clarence Jake, information obtained from his Merkel born cousin Johannes Margheim of Hardheim, Germany.