The Germans of the Soviet Union

Irina Mukhina

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781134134014
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Russian History
• Index: History

The Germans were a very substantial minority in Russia, and many leading figures, including the Empress Catherine the Great, were German. Using rarely seen archival information, this book provides an account of the experiences of the Germans living in the Soviet Union from the early post-revolution period to the post-Soviet era following the collapse of communism. Setting out the history of this minority group and explaining how they were affected by the Soviet regime's nationality policies, the book:

• describes the character of the ethnic Germanic groups, demonstrating their diversity before the execution of the policy of systematic deportations by the Stalinist authorities from 1937 to 1947
• argues that there was not one but several episodes of deportation within this period
• considers the different dimensions of this policy, including the legal and economic structures of, and everyday life in, the Soviet special settlements
• investigates the 'women's dimension' of deportation, especially the role of women in the preservation of ethnic identity among the afflicted groups
• explores the long term consequences of Soviet deportations and exile on the identity of the Soviet Germans.

1 “Many Germans”
Germanic communities in the Russian Empire

Would it be possible to explain many deportations that occurred among ethnic Germans in the USSR without acknowledging the dispersed nature of Germanic population in Russia and the Soviet Union and the fact that prior to the deportations, ethnic Germans never comprised a coherent group with a common national consciousness? I believe the answer is no. Hence it is my purpose here to demonstrate this diversity and lack of unity among German people in the Russian Empire. Nowadays, we often hear about “Soviet Germans” or “Russian Germans.” But the term “Russian Germans,” a term that unified various Germanic groups in Russia, did not exist and was not used in pre-revolutionary historiography on German settlers and colonists in Russia and its immediate environs.¹ For example, the greatest historians of Russia, namely Kliuchevskii and Soloviev, note that Nemetskaia sloboda (German settlement in Moscow during the reign of Peter the Great) included Prussians, Swiss, and other foreigners from a variety of nations. These historians did not perceive that other German settlements elsewhere in Russia (for example, in the southern parts of the Russian Empire) were a part of the common history of German settlements or German presence in Russian territory.² Similarly, a well-known Russian historian A. Velitsyn did not perceive the Germans of St. Petersburg, Novgorod, Pskov and Livland regions, and various Germanic colonists residing along the Black Sea coast and the Volga River banks as members of the same ethnic group.³ He referred to the colonists by two general terms of “nashi inostrannye kolonisty” (our foreign colonists) and people of “nerusskie vladeniia” (non- Russian property holders).⁴ Velitsyn divides them into various ethnic and confessional groups, using terms that included Hamburg, Danzig, Swiss,⁵ Bavarian,⁶ and Prussian colonists;⁷ Crimean Germans,⁸ Khortitsa colonists,⁹ settlements of Scottish missionaries and Lutheran pastors;¹⁰ Evangelical, Catholic,¹¹ Stundist, Anabaptist, Separatist, Presbyterian colonists and colonies of Dancing Brotherhood, ¹² Baptists, Mennonites, and Molokans.¹³ Not once does Velitsyn say that any of these various groups comprised a coherent ethnic entity, let alone could be commonly referred to as “Russian Germans.”

Prior to deportations, there was a significant number of variables separating the Germanic people in the Russian Empire and later the USSR. Three of these variables appear to be the most significant – their confessional affiliation, social position, and geographic location of their settlement in Russia – which also often indicated the place of their residence prior to emigration to Russia. Often Germans living in the same location in Russia displayed similar confessional and social identities, although this was not always the case. Moreover, various aspects of Germanic identities were not mutually excusive and often went hand in hand, especially in terms of social and confessional interrelations. Yet, as we will see, various Germanic groups often avoided contact with each other precisely because of their different religious affiliations and social class. They also often lived hundreds of miles apart from each other. Hence there is a need to identify these categories and analyze their diversity in order to appreciate various waves of deportation.

Location

Volga Germans

The best-known and the most numerous group of Germanic people in Russia settled along the Volga River. The first German settlements in the Volga region were established in the second half of the eighteenth century after Catherine II issued a Manifesto on July 22, 1763 that allowed foreign migrants to settle in Russian lands.¹⁴ This Manifesto offered full religious freedom to settlers and the right to self-government, exclusion from all taxes and the military draft, and unrestricted permission to purchase existing or to establish new businesses. The Russian government often paid settlers’ relocation expenses as well as offering them substantial travel money, free food and transportation within the Russian Empire, relocation loans, the duty-free import and subsequent export (in case the settler changed his mind) of all personal possessions and accumulated capital, and even business or construction loans with no interest for a term of ten years.¹⁵ Residents of various regions in Europe found many of these proposals attractive, and the emigration of German-speaking people to Russia began. The flow of immigration was maintained throughout the following century as subsequent government decrees after Catherine’s Manifesto further reassured settlers of their special position in the Russian Empire. Paul I apportioned an additional 123,000 dessiatines of land for free distribution to settlers (about 332,100 acres) and confirmed all privileges bestowed on settlers by Catherine II in a decree signed on September 6, 1800. Although a later decree signed by Alexander I required that all would-be immigrants possessed enough liquid assets to survive the first years of immigration (usually the equivalent of 300 gulden in cash or property), Alexander I nevertheless reconfirmed in an Edict of February 20, 1804 all other privileges enjoyed by settlers since Catherine II’s Manifesto.

Though the first settlers of 1763–65 came to Russia to settle in the Volga region, the history of the Volga Germans is inseparable from the Black Sea Germans, Crimean Germans, and Volhynia Germans. All of them were motivated to come to the Russian Empire for similar reasons and they arrived in Russia with similar expectations as did Volga Germans, even if the exact dates of their coming and details of their lifestyle were different. Table 1.1 and Maps 1.1–1.3 demonstrate the pattern of immigration by people who were known in Russia as “German colonists.”

There were numerous political, economic, religious, and personal reasons why so many German-speaking immigrants decided to relocate to Russia, and very often a combination of various factors prompted relocation. For instance, wars waged in Europe often stimulated the influx of newcomers. The first wave of German immigration was directly linked to the Seven Years’ War (1756–63). Immigrants came from all regions affected by the war but especially from warafflicted Hesse. Similarly, the Napoleonic invasion of the Upper Rhine in 1796 stimulated the outflow of people from the entire Rhine valley. Immigrants were trying to escape forceful military conscription and various economic hardships commonly associated with warfare, including plunder and high taxes.

Table 1.1 Ethnic German immigration in the Russian Empire, 1763–1862

Political and religious reasons often intertwined to promote emigration. When the Edict of 1789 in West Prussia restricted the land acquisition by all non-serving groups of people, Mennonites, who rejected military service on religious grounds, were denied a right to acquire additional lands. Mennonites were not willing to abandon their religion due to the changing political climate and chose to emigrate instead. In Württemberg, the reasons were more explicitly and directly religious. The rise of the prominent Pietist movement in the second half of the seventeenth century and thereafter prompted the rise of a religious separatist movement in the eighteenth century which denied any presence and need for the State and the Church. The movement split into “revolutionary” and “peaceful” coalitions of separatists. Whereas the government was willing to tolerate Pietists and “peaceful” separatists, it placed severe restrictions on revolutionary Separatists and waged a war of religious persecution. The complete freedom of religious self-expression promised by Catherine II and later Alexander I attracted many Separatists to Russia as a new place of residence. Several other religious denominations such as Chiliasts and Stundists joined Separatists in this semi-voluntary exile.¹⁶

Although some personal reasons for emigration also existed (for example, a desire to reunite a family), many historians believe that promises of economic well-being and overall improvement of quality of life were the primary driving force behind German emigration to Russia. Lucrative promises of land in the rich soils of southern Russia and of the relative autonomy granted settlers by Catherine II seemed especially attractive to farmers who faced problems with low and still diminishing productivity of the soil at home, in addition to various economic hardships produced by wars. In Europe, the three-field rotation system was rapidly depleting soil of important nutrients, and no new virgin lands were available to farmers. In Prussia and elsewhere, many farmers were on the verge of starvation and impoverishment, and even those farmers who learned crafts and trades to survive hard times still fostered dreams of having their own farmsteads. Hence the combination of various factors prompted an influx of Germanspeaking settlers to Russia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Many of these emigrants ended up settling along the Volga River, where in the 1920s and 1930s the Soviet regime created an Autonomous Republic of Volga Germans (ASSR of Nemtsy Povolzhia).¹⁷ Although there existed no confessional unity among settlers and as many as twenty-five regional dialects were spoken among Germanic settlers along the Volga River up until the early 1920s,¹⁸ the Volga Germans possessed a common livelihood (e.g., agriculture) and a common history of migration to Russia. Although assimilation to a limited degree occurred over the decades and centuries that German settlements existed on Volga, their settlements were still characterized by the unique preservation of various dialects and traditions of their Schwaben, Thueringer, Hessen, and other ancestors. ¹⁹

The ability of German settlers to remain an enclosed community is not surprising considering the multicultural atmosphere of many regions of the Russian Empire. The example of Volga German settlements is revealing in this respect. From the very beginning, the Volga region was a multi-ethnic and multicultural region. The first settlers of this area in recent history were oiratskie tribes, which migrated there from Mongolia in the first half of the seventeenth century, bringing with them their Buddhism-based traditions and customs. Many of these first tribe members later settled in the areas of Don Cossacks and were incorporated into the Don Cossack community. German settlers brought with them to the Volga region Roman Catholicism and Evangelical Lutheranism. In the late nineteenth century, the area contained communities of Evangelical Christians, Baptists, and Seventh Day Adventists. Moreover, many nationalities, such as Persians, Turks, Jews, and others, had lived in this region for many decades and even centuries. As a result, in the early twentieth century more than two dozen ethnic groups and religious denominations existed in the Volga region, each seeking total isolation from outsiders and the preservation of its own traditions. Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism were practiced by Tatars, Kalmyks, and Jews in the region. Among the Christian churches were found not only the Russian Orthodox Church but also Old Believers (including such Old Belief variations as beglopopovtsy, Belokrinitskaia ierarkhiia, staropomortsy, novopomortsy, spasovtsy, sredniki, chasovenniki); the Armenian Apostolical Church, Armenian Catholic, Roman Catholic, and Evangelical-Lutheran churches, as well as communities of Evangelical Christians, Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, and various members of old Russian sectarianism (molokane, khristovery, subbotniki, enokhovtsy).²⁰ It was this diversity of religions and peoples in the region that allowed for the long-term preservation of enclosed German communities isolated from one another in the Volga region by their religion and dialect.

Ukrainian Germans

Ukrainian Germans could be roughly divided into three groups: Black Sea Germans, Crimean Germans, and Volhynia Germans.²¹ Black Sea Germans and Crimean Germans came to Russia at least half a century later than the Volga Germans and were affected by many changes that took place in their motherland during those years. Black Sea Germans (i.e., Ukrainian Germans other than those from Volhynia and Crimea) were mostly known for their agricultural abilities; they were considered exceptional farmers. The short-term stay of Hutterites in this area also affected these Germans, although Hutterites’ exact influence on the surrounding communities and on the image of German-speaking people as “foreigners” is yet to be fully investigated. Crimean Germans, however, established close contact with Armenian diaspora in Crimea and were characterized by a lack of contact with other settlers elsewhere...