Who are the Germans from Russia?
The Germans from Russia are descendants of Germans who settled
in Russia during a period of approximately one hundred years,
from about 1763 to 1862. The history of German settlements in
Russia began with the reign of Tsarina Catherine II (Catherine
the Great) and her issuance of a manifesto in July 1763
ENTICING WEST EUROPEANS
TO SETTLE IN RUSSIA.
The manifesto of the Empress promised much to the new settlers:
freedom of religion, freedom from taxes for a five to thirty year
period, freedom from military service and generous allotments
of free land to farmers.By the end of 1767 German settlers, coming
primarily from central Germany, had organized more than one hundred
colonies along the Volga River, near Saratov, Russia. By 1869
the German population in the Volga region exceeded 250,000. Extensive
German settlements of a second area in Russia, the Black Sea Region,
began in 1803 when Czar Alexander I, a grandson of Catherine II,
issued a similar decree enticing foreigners
TO SETTLE IN SOUTH RUSSIA.
Several major colony groups were founded in the Black Sea region
and extending into the Crimea and to the Caucasus. The Black Sea
Germans came primarily from southern Germany but a substantial
number (Mennonites) also came from the Danzig area in Prussia.German
colonization of Bessarabia began in 1812 when Russia acquired
this territory from the Ottoman Empire. Two other areas in Russia
where large numbers of Germans settled were Volhynia and the Baltic
provinces.
IN RUSSIA, THE GERMANS LIVED IN CLOSED COLONIES
(isolated from their Russian neighbors) and retained their language,
religion, food and culture. The settlers were to find however
that the generous provisions made in the manifesto of Catherine
II and Alexander I were not going to be honored forever. Beginning
in the 1870's
THEIR SPECIAL RIGHTS WERE GRADUALLY TAKEN AWAY.
The colonists became subject to the military draft, lost their
right to local self-government, and the right to keep their own
German-language schools. As the conditions in Russia became less
and less favorable, the Germans looked to the New World for resettlement.
THEY BEGAN EMIGRATING TO THE UNITED STATES
(to Kansas, Nebraska, California, North and South Dakota, Colorado,
Washington State and others), to the prairie provinces of Canada,
and to South America. A substantial number remained in Russia,
however, to face the bitter consequences of the Russian Revolution
and the World Wars. An estimated two million people of German
ethnic origin remain in the CIS today, living primarily in the
Asiatic part far to the east of the colonial homes of their forefathers.
Above excerpts are from
Federation of East European Family History Societies