Empress Elizaveta Petrovna liked to wear silk dresses. And they were fabulously expensive, sometimes a fortune. It was then that the empress's quick subjects thought: “Why not organize the production of silk in Russia. And the appropriate territory was chosen - "Volga region" It remains only to invite skilled people from Europe. This thought died with the death of the daughter of Peter the Great. Catherine II returned to her. In contrast to Elizabeth, Catherine was a strong-willed, energetic nature. Immediately followed by the highest decrees of December 4, 1762 and July 22, 1763, inviting all foreigners (excluding Jews) to settle in Russia. The decrees harassing freedom of religion, a gratuitous loan for the improvement of the house and economy in a new place., Thirty acres of land for each family and the exemption from military service for young men. And the foreigners went to Russia. Yes, it seemed to the empress that a small number of them were arriving. The institute of "evocators" arose, i.e. entrepreneurs who received a reward for the delivery of colonists. Baron de Beregar, Comte de Leroy, Comte de Debouf and others distinguished themselves in this field. Then it turned out that these barons and earls were escaped convicts. But they fulfilled their role. Land development was going badly. The majority traveled with the aim of enriching themselves, not developing the land. No wonder the British called these people "the slops of Europe" Those who came themselves (there were about 30 thousand of them) settled on the right, high bank of the Volga - they began to be called upland or crown ones. The part that the callers put settled on the left bank. - they were called "meadow". The crown ones, invited by the tsarist crown, quickly got used to it, began to establish an economy, and developed crafts. Lugovye, having squandered the money received, tried to return to where they came from. The Saratov governor had to use Cossack whips to return those who fled
Trans-Volga steppes. Wormwood and feather grass,
Drifts are not uncommon in winter.
Heat in summer, but winds, and fine dust ...
Ancestors came from Germany.
It was not sweet for them, and the climate is not the same,
And the lands from edge to edge -
Take and Pasha, but the outcome is sad,
There is no rain, and the bread does not grow.
Tried to run but brought it back here
I had to work out of hand.
Gentlemen are sitting in damp Petersburg,
For a German, they don't mind a stick
There is nothing to be done, the settlers had to roll up their sleeves and get down to business. Applying the experience of Ukrainian arable farming, they soon achieved excellent results. They began to receive unprecedented harvests at that time (50-60 centners of wheat per hectare). The colonists grew richer, the colony developed. Millionaires also appeared among the colonists. The colony's population reached a quarter of a million.
Well, what to do, how to be here?
The land is dry, no watering ...
How can the Germans take root here?
The German worked patiently.
The church and houses have risen,
The same as in Prussia,
The side has become a native
And the Germans became the Russians.
In the 18th century, a new ethnic group of the Volga Germans appeared in Russia. These were the colonists who traveled east in search of a better life. In the Volga region, they created a whole province with a separate way of life and way of life. The descendants were deported to Central Asia during the Great Patriotic War. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, some remained in Kazakhstan, others returned to the Volga region, and others went to their historical homeland.
Manifestos of Catherine II
In 1762-1763. Empress Catherine II signed two manifestos, thanks to which the Volga Germans later appeared in Russia. These documents allowed foreigners to enter the empire, receiving benefits and privileges. The largest wave of colonists came from Germany. Visitors were temporarily exempted from tax duties. A special register was created, which included lands that received the status of free for settlement. If the Volga Germans settled on them, then they could not pay taxes for 30 years.
In addition, the colonists received loans without interest for ten years. The money could be spent on building their own new houses, buying livestock, food needed before the first harvest, implements for working in agriculture, etc. The colonies were noticeably different from neighboring ordinary Russian settlements. Internal self-government was established in them. Government officials could not interfere in the life of the colonists who arrived.
Recruiting colonists in Germany
Preparing for the influx of foreigners into Russia, Catherine II (herself a German by nationality) created the Chancellery of Guardianship. It was headed by the favorite of the Empress Grigory Orlov. The Chancellery acted on a par with the rest of the collegia.
The manifestos have been published in a variety of European languages. The most intense agitation campaign took place in Germany (which is why the Volga Germans appeared). Most of the colonists were found in Frankfurt am Main and Ulm. Those wishing to move to Russia went to Lubeck, and from there first to St. Petersburg. The recruitment was carried out not only by government officials, but also by private entrepreneurs who became known as evaders. These people contracted with the Guardianship Office and acted on its behalf. The Summoners established new settlements, recruited colonists, ruled over their communities, and retained a portion of the income from them.
New life
In the 1760s. by joint efforts, the callers and the state pledged to move 30 thousand people. First, the Germans settled in St. Petersburg and Oranienbaum. There they swore allegiance to the Russian crown and became subjects of the empress. All these colonists moved to the Volga region, where the Saratov province was later formed. In the first few years, 105 settlements appeared. It is noteworthy that they all bore Russian names. Despite this, the Germans retained their identity.
The authorities took up an experiment with colonies in order to develop Russian agriculture. The government wanted to test how Western agricultural standards would take root. The Volga Germans brought with them to their new homeland a scythe, a wooden thresher, a plow and other tools that were unknown to Russian peasants. Foreigners began to grow potatoes, unknown until now in the Volga region. They were also involved in the cultivation of hemp, flax, tobacco and other crops. The first Russian population was wary or vague about strangers. Today, researchers continue to study what legends were circulated about the Volga Germans and what their relations with their neighbors were.
Prosperity
Time has shown that the experiment of Catherine II was extremely successful. The most advanced and successful farms in were the settlements in which the Volga Germans lived. The history of their colonies is an example of stable prosperity. The growth of prosperity due to effective management allowed the Volga Germans to acquire their own industry. At the beginning of the 19th century, in the settlements, which became an instrument of flour production appeared. The oil-processing industry, the manufacture of agricultural implements and wool also developed. Under Alexander II, there were already more than a hundred tanneries that were founded by the Volga Germans.
Their success story is impressive. The appearance of colonists gave impetus to the development of industrial weaving. Its center was Sarepta, which existed within the modern borders of Volgograd. Enterprises for the production of scarves and fabrics used high quality European yarn from Saxony and Silesia, as well as silk from Italy.
Religion
The confessional affiliation and traditions of the Volga Germans were not uniform. They came from different regions at a time when there was still no united Germany and each province had its own separate orders. This also applied to religion. Lists of Volga Germans compiled by the Chancellery of Guardianship show that among them were Lutherans, Catholics, Mennonites, Baptists, as well as representatives of other confessional movements and groups.
According to the manifesto, colonists could build their own churches only in settlements where the overwhelming majority of the non-Russian population was. The Germans living in big cities, at first, were deprived of such a right. It was also forbidden to promote Lutheran and Catholic teachings. In other words, in religious policy, the Russian authorities gave the colonists just as much freedom as could not harm the interests of the Orthodox Church. It is curious that at the same time the settlers could baptize Muslims according to their rite, and also make serfs out of them.
Many traditions and legends of the Volga Germans were associated with religion. They celebrated holidays according to the Lutheran calendar. In addition, the colonists had preserved national customs. These include which is still celebrated in Germany itself.
The 1917 revolution changed the lives of all citizens of the former Russian Empire. The Volga Germans were no exception. Photos of their colonies at the end of the tsarist era show that the descendants of immigrants from Europe lived in an environment isolated from their neighbors. They have retained their language, customs and identity. For many years, the national question remained unresolved. But with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, the Germans got a chance to create their own autonomy within Soviet Russia.
The desire of the descendants of the colonists to live in their own subject of the federation was met with understanding in Moscow. In 1918, according to the decision of the Council of People's Commissars, the Volga Germans were created, in 1924 renamed into the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Its capital was Pokrovsk, renamed Engels.
Collectivization
The labor and customs of the Volga Germans allowed them to create one of the most prosperous Russian provincial corners. The revolutions and the horrors of the war years were a blow to their well-being. In the 1920s, some recovery was outlined, which took on the greatest proportions during the NEP.
However, in 1930, a campaign of dispossession began throughout the Soviet Union. Collectivization and the destruction of private property led to the most dire consequences. The most efficient and productive farms were destroyed. Farmers, small business owners and many other residents of the autonomous republic were repressed. At that time, the Germans were under attack on a par with all the other peasants of the Soviet Union, who were herded into collective farms and deprived of their usual life.
Hunger in the early 30s
Due to the destruction of the usual economic ties in the republic of the Volga Germans, as in many other regions of the USSR, famine began. The population tried to save their situation in different ways. Some residents went to demonstrations, where they asked the Soviet government to help with food supplies. Other peasants, finally disillusioned with the Bolsheviks, staged attacks on warehouses where grain taken by the state was stored. Another type of protest was the ignorance of work on collective farms.
Against the background of such sentiments, the special services began to look for "saboteurs" and "rebels" against whom the most severe repressive measures were used. In the summer of 1932, famine had already engulfed the cities. Desperate peasants resorted to plundering fields with an unripe harvest. The situation stabilized only in 1934, when thousands of people in the republic had already died of hunger.
Deportation
Although the descendants of the colonists in the early Soviet years experienced many troubles, they were universal. In this sense, the Volga Germans then hardly differed in their share from an ordinary Russian citizen of the USSR. However, the onset of the Great Patriotic War finally separated the inhabitants of the republic from the rest of the citizens of the Soviet Union.
In August 1941, a decision was made, according to which the deportation of the Volga Germans began. They were exiled to Central Asia, fearing cooperation with the advancing Wehrmacht. The Volga Germans were not the only people who survived the forced resettlement. The same fate awaited the Chechens, Kalmyks,
Liquidation of the republic
Together with the deportation, the Autonomous Republic of the Volga Germans was abolished. Parts of the NKVD were introduced into the territory of the ASSR. Residents were ordered to collect a few permitted things within 24 hours and prepare for resettlement. In total, about 440 thousand people were deported.
At the same time, persons liable for military service of German nationality were removed from the front and sent to the rear. Men and women ended up in the so-called labor armies. They built industrial plants, worked in mines and logging.
Life in Central Asia and Siberia
Most of the deported were settled in Kazakhstan. After the war, they were not allowed to return to the Volga region and rebuild their republic. About 1% of the population of today's Kazakhstan considers themselves to be Germans.
Until 1956, the deported were in special settlements. Every month they had to visit the commandant's office and put a mark in a special journal. Also, a significant part of the migrants settled in Siberia, ending up in the Omsk region, Altai Territory and the Urals.
Modernity
After the fall of communist rule, the Volga Germans finally got freedom of movement. By the end of the 80s. only old residents remembered about life in the Autonomous Republic. Therefore, very few returned to the Volga region (mainly to Engels in the Saratov region). A lot of the deported and their descendants remained in Kazakhstan.
Most of the Germans went to their historical homeland. After unification, Germany adopted a new version of the law on the return of their compatriots, an early version of which appeared after the Second World War. The document stipulated the conditions necessary for the immediate acquisition of citizenship. The Volga Germans also met these requirements. The surnames and language of some of them remained the same, which facilitated integration in a new life.
According to the law, citizenship was received by all descendants of the Volga colonists who wanted to. Some of them had long been assimilated with Soviet reality, but still wanted to leave for the west. After the German authorities complicated the practice of obtaining citizenship in the 90s, many Russian Germans settled in the Kaliningrad region. This region was formerly East Prussia and was part of Germany. Today in the Russian Federation there are about 500 thousand people of German nationality, another 178 thousand descendants of the Volga colonists live in Kazakhstan.
It has already been noted that the elimination of the special administration of the colonies and their transfer to the subordination of local uyezd and provincial governing bodies led to the disunity of the colonists who found themselves in different counties and provinces. In the Volga region, such an administrative-territorial division of the territories in which the Germans lived took place more than 20 years earlier. After the separation of the Volga region from the Saratov province in 1850, only the right-bank German colonies remained in its structure, while the colonies of the left bank of the Volga went to the newly formed Samara province.
The new administrative division did not at all take into account the existing economic, cultural, historical ties of the population of both banks, not least the German one. Obvious miscalculations of the administrative reorganization were noted even by the local authorities. Twenty years later, the Governor of Saratov, M.N. Galkin-Vrasky, in a report to the emperor for 1871, noted the "inconvenience" of the artificial separation of the Saratov and Samara provinces, in which naturally formed economic ties are broken. The governor proposed to resolve the issue of a more appropriate administrative structure for the needs of the Volga region, but the appeal remained unanswered.
By the end of the 19th century, in comparison with the middle of the century, the German population of the Volga region had almost doubled. According to the 1897 census, about 396 thousand Germans lived here, including 163 thousand on the "mountain" side in the Saratov province, and 233 thousand on the meadow side in the Samara province.
As a result, the agrarian overpopulation, which was noticeable in German villages already in the middle of the 19th century, by the beginning of the 20th century, is becoming an important factor influencing the socio-economic development of the region. With the increase in the German population of the colonies, with the next redistribution of land, the courtyard plots were increasingly fragmented. In addition, the number of workers, livestock, implements, property decreased in each household, which especially affected the position of poor families.
- Land provision for Germans in Novouzensky district in comparison with other national groups
It is also necessary to take into account the ecological factor, which in the nineteenth century began to more and more negatively affect the development of the economy of the entire Lower Volga region. Of course, even before the zone of risky agriculture, where the German colonies were located, made itself felt by winters with little snow, dry winds, and drought. But by the end of the century, the wasteful attitude towards natural resources became especially noticeable. Thus, the area of forests of the Saratov and Samara provinces, not rich in vegetation, decreased by almost 14% in less than twenty years (from 1881 to 1899). As a result, the level of groundwater dropped sharply, numerous previously numerous streams disappeared, even the Volga was shallowing. Field crops suffered from dry winds much more than before. As a result of the disorderly plowing of the land, soil erosion increased, ravines grew rapidly, removing the most fertile lands from circulation. Since the 1880s. crop failures in the Saratov Volga region are becoming more frequent and destructive. Barren and hungry for the entire region were: 1879-1880, 1891, 1898, 1901, 1905 - 1906, 1911 - 1912.
The overwhelming majority of the Volga Germans remained rural residents.
Less than 2% of them lived in cities. Agricultural production remained the main occupation of the German colonists of the Volga region. By the middle of the XIX century. Land relations among the Germans were already built according to the communal principle, traditional for Russia, with a regular redistribution of land according to the number of souls of the male population. The development of arable farming was constrained by the three-field characteristic of communal land use without any fertilization of the soil. Only in the southern volosts of the Kamyshinsky district - the Ilavlinsky and Ust Kulalinsky three-fields gave way to the four-fields.
Thus, there were no serious differences in the cultivation of land among various categories of peasants and colonists in the Saratov province. Both of these groups of the rural population used backward extensive methods. At the same time, the colonists were able to achieve a certain technical superiority over the peasants in the use of agricultural equipment. They used an iron plow, in contrast to the wooden plows of the peasants, they used more technically efficient scythes in the form of a hook instead of a peasant sickle. Their winnowing machines were of high quality. The colonists of the Volga region were widely known as unsurpassed craftsmen in the manufacture of simple agricultural implements.
Although wheat production was the main agricultural activity, usually occupying about 45% of the cultivated area, the Germans also grew other crops. So 25% was used for rye and 5% for oats. From the second half of the XIX century. millet and sunflower became popular among Saratov colonists. The latter was cultivated in all colonies, but the largest areas of this crop were occupied by the settlers of the Yagodnopolyanskaya volost of the Saratov district, where they began to cultivate it from the middle of the 19th century, and by the end of the century it was sown with a sixth of all lands.
Vegetables and fruits were grown in the German colonies of the province on personal plots. At this time, preference was given to the previously rejected potatoes. The small garden plots mainly cultivated apples and cherries, and the fields were melons, watermelons and pumpkins.
A number of factors negatively influenced the economic structure of the German agricultural economy in the Volga region. Yet the main problem was the lack of land in the context of the communal nature of land use. As a result, arrears began to accumulate in German rural societies, which had not happened before. The zemstvo chief of the Ust-Kulalinskaya volost reported in his report for 1899 that until 1880 the population of the volost did not even know “even the name of the arrears,” but now there are more than “hundreds of thousands” of them.
Of course, practical German farmers were looking for a way out of this situation. In particular, in agricultural villages, the Germans, if the opportunity arose, resorted to leasing plots from private individuals, although to a lesser extent than the Russian and Ukrainian peasants. However, this source of land use also declined significantly by the end of the century. The reasons were different: increased rent payments, the transfer of noble lands to other owners, an increase in benefits from direct cultivation of the land, and not its lease.
Suffering from lack of land and landlessness, the German peasants, therefore, had reasons for discontent, nevertheless, they practically did not take part in the agrarian unrest on the territory of the Volga region during the years of the first Russian revolution. Unlike the majority of Russian peasants, the Germans demonstrated their loyalty to the authorities by electing volost representatives to the county land management commissions, which were created as part of the Stolypin agrarian reform. Among the third of the volosts that boycotted the elections of volost gatherings, there was not a single German volost.
Land management commissions were assigned an important role in the implementation of the reform. They were supposed to assist the peasant bank in the sale of land to peasants, to create individual farms by dividing entire villages or societies into farms or cuts, as well as by allocating individual householders, to resolve the issue of loans and benefits to individual farmers. The main goal of the reform was to change the form of ownership: instead of communal land ownership, the land ownership of the peasants should have dominated in the countryside.
In the first years of the Stolypin reform, the settlers-Germans of the Volga region reacted to it rather inertly. Many rural societies preferred traditional forms of management to the new order. Only a few villages risked passing over to the hereditary ownership of the land, consolidating it into personal property for all householders, but the striped land remained. At the same time, there was no serious agitation against the reform.
In June 1907, the Kamyshin government addressed the population with a special attitude, in which it asked local assemblies to discuss the possibility of switching to a farm system. At the same time, the farm economy itself was described in a negative light. In some societies, the struggle between supporters and opponents of the Stolypin reform gradually began to flare up. So, in the Neu-Balzer Society at a gathering in 1909, the peasants could not decide on the future of the community due to strong disagreements.
The turning point came in 1910, when literally within two years, seven of the eight villages of the Ilavlinsky volost of the Kamyshinsky district completely switched to the cutting farm (the last village of this volost joined them in 1914). Their example was followed by two more volosts - Ust-Kulalinskaya and Semenovskaya. They went over to the cutting farm in full force (14 villages). The same was done by 3 out of 6 villages of Kamenskaya and one village of Sosnovskaya volost. As a result, the community ceased to exist in 32 of the 51 former German colonies of the Kamyshinsky district. Only 2 of the Russian villages of the Kamyshinsky district parted with the community during this time. Similar processes took place in other districts of the Saratov and Samara provinces, where the Germans lived.
It should be noted that in a number of German villages there was a dull struggle between those who were striving to get to the cut, on the one hand, and the community members, on the other. Those who passed to hereditary possession were drawn into it, since the whole system of land tenure came into motion during the allotments. There were frequent cases when land surveyors, together with those who wished, forcibly separated from the community those villagers whose fortified strips were wedged into the newly created cuts. For example, in Yagodnaya Polyana, Saratov Uyezd, 140 farms out of a total of 400 were forcibly removed from the community. In most cases, allotments were also carried out against the will of the societies. Another cause of conflicts was the desire of rural societies to exclude from their composition those who left for America in order to keep the land for society.
In the implementation of the reform, the government assigned a certain role to the peasant bank, which was designed to provide financial assistance to land-poor peasants in acquiring land. As the practice of the Saratov branch of the bank testifies, the German colonists bought land on equal terms with the Russian peasants. In particular, the Nork Rural Society bought 4.926 acres of land from the bank. However, in 1909, by order of the Main Directorate of Land Management and Agriculture, operations with the colonists were suspended. A little later, in view of the low demand for bank land due to their low suitability for cultivation (low soil quality, lack of water), local bank branches were allowed to sell land to German settlers, but no more than 250 cuts. In 1913 it was allowed to sell an additional 39 cuts. Ultimately, 302 German villagers were able to buy 364 cuts with a total area of 8,920 dessiatines of land from the bank during the reform period. This was a rather insignificant part of the total sale of land to all peasants in the Saratov and Samara provinces.
The Provincial Land Management Commission carefully monitored the correctness of the transactions and, in case of violation of the rules, canceled them. So, when one of the villagers of Sosnovka (Schilling), wanting to bypass the instruction on the prohibition on the sale of more than one cut for a family of up to 5 people of working age, made a fictitious section with his brother and bought two cuts from a bank, the provincial commission forced him to return one to the tank. cut
Since 1910, the Peasant Bank began to collect information about the situation of the "separated" peasants on banking lands. Surveys showed that the profitability of new farms was relatively low. To a large extent, the yield depended on climatic conditions. So, in the Kamyshinsky district of the Saratov region in 1910-1912. out of 10 surveyed farms, only two made a profit. In the Nikolaevsky district of the Samara region, there were no such farms at all. The losses were a direct consequence of the arid climate. A different picture was observed in the Saratov district. Here, most of the farms experienced difficulties only in 1911, while 1912 was completed with a profit for two-thirds of the farms.
A certain role in the withdrawal of the settlers from the community was played by the financial policy of the land management commissions, which made great efforts to strengthen the cut and farmsteads. In particular, much attention was paid to hydraulic engineering works, fire-resistant construction on cuts. Otrubniks were given loans and grants for the construction of ponds and wells, residential and outbuildings, as well as for the fight against sands and ravines. Loans were issued for 12 years, and repayment did not begin until after three years. Thus, in 1912, residents of three German settlements of the Kamyshinsky district were issued only 50 to 300 rubles for fire-resistant construction on cut-off areas. The total amount of the loan amounted to 21.7 thousand rubles. Refusals took place only in those cases when the applicant was found to be wealthy.
Since the beginning of the 1910s. the opening of rental stations began, the creation of grain-cleaning carts, the organization of demonstration fields, gardens, the issuance of planting material, and the holding of agricultural lectures. However, this was not enough. By 1914, in the Saratov province, with the assistance of the commission, only 7 rolling stations were opened, 8 grain-cleaning carts, 10 demonstration fields and 107 demonstration sites were created. In the Trans-Volga districts of the Samara province, there were even fewer such objects. The help to the otrubniks in the purchase of agricultural implements and livestock was also clearly inadequate. Until 1914, only 50% of loans and benefits were granted to those who applied for them, and the amount allocated did not exceed 33% of the originally requested. With the outbreak of the First World War, loan operations were curtailed due to lack of funds.
Thus, the Stolypin agrarian reform in the German settlements of the Volga region had a number of features. First, the wave of exits from the community in them occurred in 1910-1914, while in the Saratov and Samara provinces as a whole - in the first three years. Secondly, in general, more than 70% of householders left the German rural communities, while the average indicator for the two above-mentioned provinces was 27.9%. Thirdly, in the German volosts, the widening of entire villages for cutting became widespread, which was not typical for the peasants of other volosts. The peculiarities of the reform include the excommunication of the settlers from the assistance of the Peasant Land Bank.
Handicrafts occupied a significant place in the life of the colonists. During the post-reform period, their active development continued, which was facilitated by the seasonal nature of farming with a long period of winter inactivity. Gradually, they began to take on the nature of working on the market. Leatherworking is gaining significant development in the colonies, especially in the colonies of Goly Karamysh (Balzer), Sevastyanovka (Anton), Karamyshevka (Bauer), and Oleshnya (Dittel). In 1871, 140 tanneries worked in the German settlements of the Saratov province alone.
Since about the middle of the 19th century, the production of smoking pipes has become widespread. In the colony of Lesnoy Karamysh (Grimm), where they were mainly produced, up to 500 thousand pieces of pipes and the same number of shanks of 20 different varieties were produced annually. They were made mainly in winter from the roots and trunks of birch and maple. Some of the pipes and shafts were delivered by the craftsmen to the colonies themselves, but most were handed over to buyers who sold them in Tambov, Samara, Penza and other cities of Russia.
In Nizhnyaya Dobrinka, the production of threshing stones from local material was practiced.
And yet the most popular among the colonists was the sarpino trade. The production of sarpinka was most widespread in the Sosnovskaya volost of the Kamyshinsky district, where the "land hunger" and the low quality of peasant allotments from the German colonists pushed them to seek other means of subsistence besides agriculture.
Simultaneously with the further expansion of the sarpino production, the Schmidt, Reinecke and Borel families began to invest in flour milling.
In the 1890s, the German millers took control not only of the production of flour, but also of its sale in Russia. The first in this direction were the brothers Schmidt, who founded the Trade House in 1888, simultaneously opening a representative office of the company in Moscow. In 1892 the Trading House "Emmanuel Borel and Sons" was established, and in 1899 the Trading House was opened by Konrad Reinecke. At the end of the 90s, representative offices of these firms existed in St. Petersburg, Astrakhan, Rybinsk, Nizhny Novgorod and other cities of Russia.
Despite the construction of a railway in Saratov, the Volga remained the main trade artery. For successful trading operations, they needed their own ships and barges. The firm of the Schmidt brothers succeeded most of all in solving this problem, having created its own shipping company. It consisted of 5 steamers: "Karamysh", "Iosiop", "Kolonist", "Krupchatnik" and "Rusalka"; 32 barges and 2 floating elevators. Borel's firm owned 2 steamers "Vanya" and "Emmanuel" and 18 barges, and Reinecke owned 2 steamers "Konrad" and "Elizabeth" and 17 barges.
The successes of the Saratov millers at the end of the 19th century were highly appreciated at various industrial exhibitions. The first high award - the silver medal of the Imperial Free Economic Society in 1880 - was received by the Reinecke company. She, in 1882, at the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition, received the right to use the state emblem on her products. At the end of the 1880s, the firms Schmidt and Borel were also awarded high awards at various Russian exhibitions.
In the 1890s, recognition of the merits of these firms came from abroad. Twice, in 1892 and 1900. The Reinecke firm received a gold medal at exhibitions in Paris, and in 1897 the same one in Stockholm. Schmidt and Borel also received high awards at various European exhibitions.
In 1871, in the German villages of the Volga region, there were 175 parochial schools, 220 teachers worked in them, they taught 49.8 thousand students. In the post-reform years, the problems of education received more and more public attention. Zemstvo bodies, first of all, county bodies, took an active position. Back in 1869, the Kamyshin district zemstvo assembly, in which more than half of the seats were occupied by German colonists, developed a plan for the introduction of universal public education. The regulation on public schools of May 25, 1874 gave the zemstvo the right to establish schools, allocate funds for their maintenance, recommend teachers and monitor the general educational process in general. Under the zemstvo councils, commissions for public education were created, in which plans for the development of school and out-of-school education were developed.
German representatives in the zemstvos of the Novouzensky and Kamyshinsky counties (in these counties the German population numbered from 24% to 42%) constituted a special category. Work in the zemstvo bodies required literacy in Russian, the ability to draw up reports. Therefore, hardworking, the most enlightened colonists who spoke Russian were elected to the zemstvo bodies. Having started in the zemstvo field, many of them later occupied prominent positions in the provinces. These are such as G.Kh. Shelhorn, P.E. Lyauk, N.V., Garder, V.V. Kruber, K.N. Grimm and others.
The zemstvos laid the foundation for fundamentally new steps in the field of education: the organization of zemstvo schools (the first zemstvo school opened in 1871 in Verkhnyaya Dobrinka); providing them with teachers of the Russian language with remuneration for their work; financial assistance to all types of schools (expenditures on public education in the Kamyshinsky district zemstvo in 1900 amounted to 30% of the annual budget), and then the transfer of some of the parish schools under the wing of the zemstvo; teacher training, the organization of free libraries, the provision of scholarships for studies in universities and colleges.
The development of a network of zemstvo schools (in 1903 there were 213 primary schools in the Kamyshinsky district, of which 55 were parish schools and 52 zemstvo schools) created healthy competition for other types of schools. The teacher of the zemstvo school became a prominent figure in the village.
The need for knowledge was dictated by life itself. The development of production and the market required more and more literate people.
Private education has risen to a new level. Since the 1870s, fellow schools (Geselschaftisschulen) began to appear in the German colonies, created by groups of families for better education for their children. In petitions for the opening of such schools, the founders usually indicated on what funds the school will exist, where it will be located, the estimated number of teachers and students, etc.
The first comradely schools were opened in 1870 in the colonies of Goly Karamysh), Ust-Zolikha and Gololobovka. By the end of the 1870s, similar schools were formed in all the colonies of the Sosnovskaya volost. Classes usually began in mid-August and lasted until June 20. Those who entered here were exempted from attending a church school. By the late 1880s, fellow schools had an excellent reputation and positive reviews from the governor, inspectors, and local residents. At the end of the 1880s, there were 27 such schools in the colonies of the Kamyshinsky district alone.
In general, private schools in the colonies covered a small number of children, but they gave the rich colonists the choice to acquire a greater amount of knowledge, especially the study of the Russian language, which the parish school did not provide, and made it possible to prepare for admission to a Russian gymnasium.
The most far-sighted colonists demanded the study of the Russian language in parish schools, for knowledge of it was necessary for work in government bodies, contacts with the Russian population increased, knowledge of the Russian language made it possible to have a military service exemption introduced for the Germans in 1874, facilitated service in the army. The positions of the colonists and the clergy during this period were divided. Some of the clergy insisted on the introduction of the Russian language and, which is especially important, focused on the training of teachers with knowledge of the Russian language from among the colonists. Another part in every possible way fueled rumors about the upcoming Russification, referring to the abolition of former privileges.
On May 2, 1881, the parish schools were transferred to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Education. The clergy retained the right to oversee the religious education of youth in these institutions. The order of administration changed, the trustees of educational districts were given the right to subordinate schools to the control of the director and inspectors of public schools. The organization and teaching structure of schools remained unchanged. The ministry also did not undertake financial support - the source of support remained the same - rural societies.
An important factor and element of modernization processes was the growth of literacy. Census 1897 gives a comparative analysis of the level of literacy of the peoples of the empire. In terms of literacy (78.5%), Germans in Russia ranked third (after Estonians and Latvians), moreover, the literacy rate of men and women among Germans was practically the same (79.7% and 77.3%, respectively), and the number Germans with an education higher than primary school - almost 3 times more than other nationalities - 6.37%. Census 1897 recorded the knowledge of the Russian language, it was 18.92% for the Germans of the Volga region and the Urals region. The level of primary education among Germans exceeded all other groups of the population by almost three times and amounted to almost 87%. The indicators of secondary education among Russians in general and Germans in the Volga region were almost at the same low level, while the level of secondary education of Russians in cities was much higher. This was due to the lack of secondary educational institutions and the mentality of the peasants who did not see the need for secondary education. For the Germans, the main reasons for the low level of secondary education were the lack of knowledge of the Russian language, which prevented them from entering Russian gymnasiums, which in turn was a consequence of the low level of teaching the Russian language in central schools that trained teachers for German schools.
The decision taken in 1871 to teach all subjects in Russian, with the exception of the native language and the law of God, was to be introduced gradually and assumed the voluntariness of learning the Russian language. But in reality, on-site inspectors often violated the law.
The re-subordination of schools to the Ministry of Public Education, and locally to directors of public schools, the introduction of a corps of inspectors, state control over the activities of the zemstvo in the field of education, the introduction of teaching in Russian - all indicated that the state was striving to include the German school in the general system of social life.
This policy as a whole was in line with the objective development of society. Inspectors' reports, exam results, zemstvo surveys of the state of school education indicated that the introduction of the Russian language was not observed everywhere. It was not possible to transfer the German school painlessly enough to teaching the Russian language on a larger scale than before, since no concrete steps were taken to increase the output of teachers in central schools and Catholic seminaries, a program for providing teachers with manuals and textbooks was not thought out, the teaching program was not rebuilt , the material base of the school has not been strengthened. The inconsistent steps of the government and the concrete actions of the school administration provoked protests from the colonists.
The positive changes in social life that accompanied the development of the economy in the country and on the Volga ran into the traditionalism of the bulk of the German population in their attitude to school. On the one hand, there was a large group of urban Germans, concentrated in cities of provincial and district significance and entered the mainstream of capitalist development through their capital participation in flour-grinding, grain and flour trade, etc. On the other hand, the bulk of German peasants in the Volga colonies personified peasant traditionalism, the consciousness that everything in life should remain the same as it was passed on by parents in the process of education, and this was an objective contradiction with the need for reforms and the rejection of outdated forms of existence ...
Objective processes of integration of the German colonies into the general society of the Volga region forced the government to organize central schools. (Ekaterinenstadt and Lesno-Karamyshskoe) for training teachers with knowledge of the Russian language - the so-called "Russian schools". They were supported by the colonists. Only in 1833 did the real preparatory work begin on the creation of schools. But the low level of knowledge of students, frequent changes in leadership, a set of disciplines and imperfect curricula - all these reasons did not allow graduating teachers with a sufficient level of knowledge of the Russian language. The preparation of the clergy and teachers at the Roman Catholic seminary in Saratov proceeded more thoroughly. She was distinguished by a high level of teaching staff, a wide range of general education subjects gave the best knowledge of the Russian language. Only by the end of the 1890s of the XIX century. the schools were replenished with qualified teachers, their material base improved. Teachers were also trained by the Volsk Teachers' Seminary, Russian grammar schools in Saratov and Samara.
In 1909-1913. the central schools were transformed into city schools with the organization of two-year pedagogical courses at them. He studied at the Lesno-Karamysh School from 1868 to 1916. 3427 students, of which 368 came out with a certificate of graduation.
These figures indicate that both schools were constantly experiencing a shortage of personnel, material support, and most importantly, students with a good knowledge of the Russian language as a basic one for teaching. Nevertheless, it was these schools that produced a number of well-known representatives of the intelligentsia, who subsequently occupied a prominent place in public and political life, especially after 1917 (I. Schwab, G. Dinges, A. Schönfeld, A. Lane, A. Lonsinger and others).
By the beginning of the twentieth century, the German urban population in the Volga region was growing steadily, primarily due to immigrants from the colonies. Germans could be found in almost all social groups. They were workers and office workers, cabbies and loaders, handicraftsmen and entrepreneurs, teachers and governesses, engineers and architects, doctors and pharmacists, entrepreneurs and representatives of creative professions, clergy and government officials.
The increasingly active participation of urban Germans in the socio-economic, socio-political and cultural life speaks of the emergence in the post-reform period of a new phenomenon - a wide interaction of German and Russian cultures.
The largest German diaspora was in Saratov. And this is no coincidence, since Saratov became the de facto metropolis of the German colonies on the Volga. If in 1860 about 1,000 Germans lived in Saratov, whose main occupation was craft and trade, by the beginning of the twentieth century their number had grown more than 5 times.
On the site of the former Nemetskaya Sloboda, Nemetskaya Street appeared, which became the central, most beautiful and respectable street in Saratov. This street was home to the majestic Catholic Cathedral of St. Clemens. Not far from it, on Nikolskaya Street, the Lutheran Church of St. Mary. Closer to the railway station are the buildings of the Saratov University. This ensemble of buildings, created in neoclassical style, has become a decoration of the city. It was designed and built by the talented Saratov architect K.L. Myufke.
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Saratov has become one of the largest industrial centers in the region, and German entrepreneurs have played an important role in this.
At the turn of the century, to serve the local weaving industry, which was greatly developed in the German colonies of the right bank in the village of Shakhmatovka near Saratov (now the village of Krasny Tekstilshchik), the Saratov Manufactory joint-stock company founded a paper mill. One of its directors was E. Borel, a representative of the famous clan of sarpink and flour-grinding "kings". Later, another “sarpink king”, A. Bender, became one of the main shareholders.
At the beginning of the century Saratov became the largest flour-grinding center in the Volga region. Its mills daily produced 59 thousand poods of flour, while in Samara this figure was 45 thousand, in Nizhny Novgorod - 42 thousand poods. It has already been noted that practically the entire milling industry of Saratov was concentrated in the hands of the Germans: the Schmidt brothers, K. Reinecke, E. Borel, D. Seifert, and others.
The products of the Miller Brothers chocolate factory were in great demand.
The well-known Volga region tobacco factories were also located in Saratov, among them A. Shtaf's factory. She received her raw materials - high-quality tobacco from the German colonies of the left bank, located near Yekaterinenstadt.
In the context of the rapid growth of the Russian economy, factories of the metallurgical and metalworking industries appeared in Saratov. At the very end of the 19th century, the mechanical plant of O. Bering, the Gantke nail and wire plant, the plant for the production of mill equipment by E. Schiller, and others were opened.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Saratov became not only an important industrial, but also a large cultural center of the Volga region. In 1909, the 9th Imperial University, the first higher educational institution, was opened here. Among the teachers and professors of the university were such world-famous scientists as the philosopher S.L. Frank, mathematician V.V. Wagner, philologist Yu.G. Oxman, physicists V.P. Zhuze and E.F. Gross, chemist V.V. Worms, biologist A.A. Richter, geologist A.I. Olli, and others.
Speaking about the intelligentsia of Saratov, one cannot fail to mention the name of A.N. Minha, who for more than 20 years worked as a magistrate of the Saratov district, was engaged in literary activity, was the founder in 1886 of the Saratov Scientific Archive Commission.
The Germans played a significant role in the social and political life of Saratov. So, for example, In 1901 - 1903. the governor of Saratov was A.P. Engelgardt. Deputies of the 1st State Duma - J. Dietz and V. Shelhorn.
The Germans left their mark on the history of Samara. Until now, the decoration of Samara is the Lutheran and Catholic churches.
The first Samara Germans in the second half of the 17th century. became its governors V. Ya. Everlakov, A. D. Fanvisin, A. Shele. Samara governors at different times were K. K. Grot (1853 - 1860), I. L. Blok (1906). The latter's life was tragically cut short by an assassination attempt by a terrorist.
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The rapid economic development of Samara from the second half of the 19th century. predetermined by the fact that since 1851 it became the center of the newly created province of the same name. German entrepreneurs played a significant role in this process. For example, the section of Dvoryanskaya Street from Alekseevskaya to Predtechenskaya was entirely the focus of German entrepreneurship. Large shops were located here. Among them is the "Sarepta" store of Yu. B. Christianzen together with a warehouse. It traded in goods from Sarepta: the famous sarpinka and the equally famous mustard oil.
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Bookseller P. Grau, pharmacist L. Greve, photographer A. Bach, jeweler F.F.Schwartz, and others left fond memories of themselves.
From the end of the 19th century, large German family enterprises appeared. The Behnke mechanical plant, the A. von Wakano brewery, the trading houses of the Klodts, Kenitsers, and others have already been noted.
The main sphere of activity of the German intelligentsia of Samara was the provincial administrative institutions, where a lot of small and medium officials worked. The first provincial architect was A. Meissner, later this position was occupied by J. Boehm, A. Levenshtern, A. Daugel, D. Werner. The last of them made the most significant contribution to the formation of the appearance of the central part of the city.
Another city, the appearance of which was largely determined by the Germans, was Kamyshin, a district town in the Saratov province, near which a whole group of German colonies was located. At the beginning of the century, about 1,000 Germans lived there. Interestingly, more than half of them were women in service. It has already been noted about the outstanding social activities of the Kamyshin resident P. Ye. Lyauk. A. Raisich was a well-known entrepreneur in Russia.
The German diaspora also existed and played a significant role in such Volga cities as Astrakhan, Tsaritsyn, Volsk, Syzran, Simbirsk.
... The deportation of the Germans to the USSR led to the decline of the national language and culture, to accelerated assimilation with the rest of the population of the USSR. The consequences of the deportation caused the emergence of the resettlement movement to Germany, which especially intensified in the 1990s.
At the moment, people with ethnic roots from the Volga Germans live mainly in Russia, Germany, Kazakhstan, the USA, Canada and Argentina.
Story
Most of the colonist families who settled then remained in their original compact residence for more than a century and a half, preserving the German language (preserved in comparison with the German language in Germany), faith (usually Lutheran, Catholic) and elements of the national mentality.
First migrants
The first wave of migration, directed to the Volga region, arrived mainly from the lands of Rhineland, Hesse and Palatinate. The next stream of emigration was triggered by the 1804 manifesto of Emperor Alexander I. This stream of colonists was directed to the region of the Black Sea and the Caucasus, and consisted mostly of the inhabitants of Swabia; to a lesser extent residents of East and West Prussia, Bavaria, Mecklenburg, Saxony, Alsace and Baden, Switzerland, as well as German residents of Poland.
The last wave of migration was the resettlement of a large group of Mennonites from Prussia to the Novouzensky and Samara districts of the Samara province. In 1853, an agreement was reached between representatives of the Mennonites and the government of the Russian Empire on the compact settlement of one hundred families on the vacant lands of the left bank of the Volga. At the conclusion of the agreement, the settlers were provided with significant benefits, so each family was provided with 65 dessiatines of convenient land, which significantly exceeded the size of the allotments determined by the early colonists of the early 18th century. Mennonites were exempted from all payments and duties for 3 years from the moment of their arrival at the place of settlement, and were exempted from military service for 20 years. At the end of this period, the right not to serve in the army remained, but the colony had to pay 300 rubles for each prospective recruit.
XVIII-XIX centuries
Economic development of the Volga Germans
One of the main tasks of the government during the resettlement of colonists from Western countries to Russia was the development of agriculture. German settlers had to fulfill this task. The colonists brought with them from their homeland a plow, a scythe, a wooden thresher, which are almost never used in Russia, they used a three-field rotation during processing. Russia produced mainly rye and a small amount of wheat. The colonists greatly expanded the number of crops. They introduced the white turkey, potatoes, increased the crops of flax, hemp, cultivated tobacco and other crops. However, unlike the German colonists of the South of Russia, the Volga Germans did not improve the general culture of Russian agriculture, but, on the contrary, adopted the Russian communal system of land use.
With the development of agriculture and the growth of the well-being of the colonies, their own colonist industry appeared. At the beginning of the 19th century flour production was intensively developed in the nearby water mills, the oil industry, the manufacture of agricultural tools, as well as the production of woolen cloth and harsh linen. After that, a tanning production appeared, which subsequently gained large scales in Goliy Karamysh, Sevastyanovka, Karamyshevka and Oleshnya. By 1871, the colonies had 140 tanneries and 6 lettuce factories.
Industrial weaving in the German colonies of the Volga region began to develop in Sarepta, which gave rise to the name of the local fabric - sarpinka. Cotton fabrics and shawls were produced there, yarn for which was delivered from Silesia and Saxony, and silk was produced in Italy. The demand for these products was so great that already in 1797 a second stone building was built at this factory. Difficulties in obtaining raw materials from abroad caused the need to produce yarn from Persian cotton paper delivered through Astrakhan. In addition to Sarepta directly, spinning mills set up in Popovka, Sevastyanovka, Nork, Lesnoy Karamysh participated in the production. In Sarepta itself, a dyehouse was set up for painting in various colors. The profitability of sarpin production and increased competition forced Sarepta to move production to Saratov in 1816, where the local German entrepreneurs, the Shekhtel brothers, pushed the Sareptans out of the weaving industry.
Naked Karamysh remained the center of sarpin production. A new round in the development of the production of this fabric is associated with the activities of A.L. Stepanov, who realized that competition between a hand-made sarpinka and a machine-made one can be only if manual production becomes cheaper and approaches modern fashion standards. The entrepreneur organized a partnership from the scattered Sarpinski factories and improved the looms. Thanks to this, semi-silk and even silk things began to be made, the quality of the goods produced in general improved significantly. Within five years, sarpino production from Naked Karamysh has received all-Russian recognition and distribution. The profitability and importance of sarpino production is emphasized by the fact that the center of this type of production (by the beginning of the 20th century) - Sosnovskaya volost, despite the lack of land, was one of the most prosperous in the region even during the lean years.
Religion and freedom of belief of the Volga Germans
Main article: Religious life of the Volga Germans
Early period
The main benefit, among other privileges, was freedom of religion for the colonists. However, it was provided to the German colonists in such a way as not to infringe on the interests of the Orthodox Church. The construction of church buildings and the maintenance of the required number of priests and pastors were allowed only in those places where foreigners settled in colonies, that is, predominantly of one faith. The colonists settled in Russian cities were not subject to such privileges by this rule.
The colonists were forbidden "under pain of all the severity of Our laws" to persuade the Orthodox population to accept their faith. At the same time, it was freely allowed to persuade to accept Christianity and even take Muslims into serfs.
Since the community of the Volga Germans itself was created as a result of several groups and waves of immigrants, which represented various social groups of people from different countries and regions who came to Russia for various reasons, it is not possible to talk about any uniformity in the religious life of Volga Germans. ... The main groups of colonists who came to Russia as a result of the invitation to live by Catherine II were Lutherans and Roman Catholics. So, in Saratov - the very center of the future territory of residence of the Volga Germans - three quarters of the Germans living there at the end of the 18th century (but after the destruction of the city's population by the Pugachev rebels in 1774, when 20 people remained alive from the whole city) were Protestants and only one a quarter are Catholics.
XIX century.
Subsequently, after the establishment of the Tiraspol diocese, under the jurisdiction of which the colonies were now transferred, they were headed “ Dean of Roman Catholic Churches in Saratov, Samara and Astrakhan Provinces". After a significant increase in the number of parishes and their size, the Volga colonies were divided into several deaneries: Saratov, Kamenskoe, Yekaterinstad and Rovno. In general, the position of the Catholic Church in Russia was determined by the "Regulation for the spiritual and ecclesiastical government of the Roman Catholic law" of November 13.
Protestant denominations were also administered by the College of Justice. The pastors assigned by her to the colonies were often not distinguished by either knowledge or impeccable morality. In the Russian legislation there were no special provisions concerning the structure of Protestant religions, therefore for a long time they used the Swedish laws and procedures in force in the territory of Livonia. At the end of the 18th century. Johann Janet was elected the first father.
Numerous complaints from believers about disturbances in the management of the Lutheran Church forced the authorities to change the entire system of government. A special body was created in the city - the Main Directorate of Spiritual Affairs of Foreign Confessions. By decree of Alexander I, on July 20, 1819, the bishopric was introduced into the Evangelical Lutheran Church with the same powers as in Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia: the bishop governs all Protestant churches and their clergy. In addition, an Evangelical Lutheran General Consistory was created in St. Petersburg, to which all the functions of the Justic Collegium were to be assigned; it was created by a royal decree of October 25, 1819 in Saratov; the full name of the organization was as follows: Evangelical Lutheran consistory for the management and supervision of Protestant communities; Its functions included leadership of the communities of Saratov, Astrakhan, Voronezh, Tambov, Ryazan, Penza, Simbirsk, Kazan, Orenburg provinces, while the Bishop and Superintendent of Saratov was appointed Doctor of Theology Ignatius Aureliy Fessler.
Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Volga Germans
Creation
Existence
Collectivization in the German countryside had dire consequences. According to historians, thousands of the most productive peasant farms were destroyed, while their owners were shot, arrested, imprisoned, exiled, or, at best, became state laborers in "kulak" special settlements. The newly created weak collective farms, especially in the early years, were not able to compensate for the losses in agricultural production, especially since the state did not give them the opportunity to grow stronger, turning them into a convenient tool for removing food from the countryside.
The already tense food situation in the regions where the Germans lived was sharply worsened by the colossal scale of procurement. The state did not take into account the changed situation in the countryside and did not reduce the norms for procurement of grain and other products. Less food was left for the peasants themselves. The threat of hunger hung over the German villages, the poorest farms were already starving or left to beg.
There was chaos inside the collective farms. The collective farmers themselves were deprived of the opportunity to solve their problems; they had only to accurately fulfill the instructions received from above. Free peasant labor has become the labor service of mercenaries. All this was compounded by constant abuses on the ground, blatant violence and lawlessness.
Famine 1931-1933
During the winter of 1931-1932. many villages of Pokrovsky, Fedorovsky, Marksstadt, Krasnokutsky and a number of other cantons were seized by famine due to the fact that almost the entire harvest was handed over to the state. The organs of the GPU ASSR NP reported to the regional committee about the facts of swelling from hunger, exhaustion, eating garbage, corpses of dead sick animals that were available in these villages. In turn, the regional committee of the CPSU (b) of the Republic of Volga Germans reported to Moscow that
In connection with the famine, in some villages there were peasants' performances, which were of a diverse nature. Inhabitants of some villages came out with banners of approximate content "We welcome the Soviet power, we ask you not to refuse bread to the hungry population", other collective farmers attacked the carts with food; the break-in of barns and the unauthorized removal of bread took place. Absenteeism as a way of protest was also widely and widely practiced. In many villages of the Nemrespublika during that period, secret informants of the OGPU recorded "anti-Soviet insurgent conversations."
In the fall of 1932, the bulk of the grain was once again exported from the Non-Republic for grain procurement, while the collective farmers got practically nothing. The second secretary of the regional committee of the VKP (b) ASSR NP A. Pavlov, speaking in the fall of 1932 at the plenum of the regional party committee, frankly said:
This recognition clearly confirms the fact that in the winter of 1932-1933. the peasantry of the USSR itself was left without means of subsistence, that is, it was deliberately doomed to death by starvation.
Deaths from hunger were highly political in nature. First of all, individual farmers, families of the repressed, that is, “enemies of the Soviet regime”, deliberately left without a livelihood, died out. However, the fact that the “shock workers of labor” loyal to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union died testifies that hunger has grown to such an extent that the leadership at all levels has lost control over the situation. Parcels from relatives - "kulaks" sent earlier to Kazakhstan and Siberia with food and money transfers were not delivered to the addressees due to the OGPU's inadmissibility of assistance from "class hostile elements". In the coming year of 1933, there was an increase in the number of attempts to board wagons with grain by hungry women and children; as a rule, these precedents were brutally suppressed by police squads and detachments of the OGPU. However, in the midst of the famine of 1933, the Republic of the Volga Germans had to fulfill the export plan. In that year, several thousand tons of grain, 29.6 tons of bacon, 40.2 tons of butter, 2.7 wagons of dead poultry, 71 tons of black currants, etc. were exported from the republic.
One of the ways to escape hunger was the mass exodus of peasants from their homes, from collective farms to cities and construction sites. The flight of peasants from the village began in 1930, and in subsequent years it rapidly intensified, reaching in 1933 the number of over 100 thousand people.
The table below shows the mortality (people) in the Republic of Volga Germans by the years of collectivization and famine in 1931-1933.
From the data presented, it is quite clearly seen that as the NEP ended and collectivization developed, which caused serious social upheavals, a steady increase in the death rate of the population began, which reached its peak in 1933. Quite often there were cases of cannibalism, murder of their own babies for the purpose of cannibalism, etc.
Since September 1933, the collective farms that have completed the implementation of the grain delivery plan (significantly reduced in comparison with 1932) for all types of assignments, which created seed, insurance and fodder funds, were allowed to distribute the remaining grain among the collective farmers. At the same time, it was prescribed to perform
Comrade Stalin's instruction to make the collective farms Bolshevik and the collective farmers prosperous
and the distribution of income among collective farmers to accompany
In the fall of 1933, the Republic of Volga Germans and German regions in other regions of the country completed the implementation of the state plan for a new grain procurement system as never before; Party organs were ordered to provide peasant families with bread and fodder. At the same time, the initiative of local authorities on the creation of additional funds and the adoption of counter increased plans for grain procurements was strictly prohibited. In November - December 1933, the party and Soviet leadership of the country provided a number of cantons of the ASSR NP with fodder for feeding weakened cattle, which to some extent contributed to the preservation of livestock in the winter months of 1933-1934.
All the above measures led to a gradual overcoming of the apparent famine in the places of residence of the Germans. So, according to archival data, in the Republic of Volga Germans, the number of deaths in November 1933 decreased to the indicators that existed in good years, although in October of the same year the mortality rate in the republic exceeded this indicator by almost 1.5 times. By the end of the year, obvious hunger was overcome, also in other regions of the country, but latent hunger and malnutrition accompanied the German population of the USSR for a number of years.
The repressions of the 1930s
As relations between the USSR and Germany deteriorated, the attitude towards Soviet Germans also worsened. In 1935-1936. more than ten thousand Germans were evicted from the border zone in Ukraine to Kazakhstan. In 1937-1938. The NKVD carried out the so-called "German operation". According to the order of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR No. 00439 dated July 25, 1937, all Germans who worked at the enterprises of the defense industry (or had defense workshops) were to be arrested. Arrests and dismissals began on July 30, and a massive operation began in the fall of 1937. In total, 65-68 thousand people were arrested, 55.005 were convicted, of which: to the VMN - 41 898, to imprisonment, exile and deportation - 13 107. With the greatest force it affected the border zones and the encirclement of capital cities; the ASSR itself suffered disproportionately little. According to the directive of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR 200sh, all Germans, including representatives of all nationalities that were not part of the Soviet Union, were dismissed from the army (some were later reinstated). In the late 1930s. outside the ASSR NP, all national-territorial entities were closed - German national village councils and districts, and schools with teaching in their native German language were translated into Russian.
Deportation of the Volga Germans
After the publication of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "On the resettlement of Germans living in the Volga region" dated August 28, the Autonomous Republic of the Volga Germans was liquidated and the total deportation of Germans from the ASSR was carried out. For this purpose, in advance (according to the recollections of the inhabitants of the ASSR NP, as early as August 26), the NKVD troops were brought into the territory of the ASSR NP. The Germans were ordered to prepare for resettlement within 24 hours and, with a limited amount of their property, arrive at the collection points. German residents of the republic were taken to remote areas of Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia. According to this decree, in September-October 1941, 446,480 Soviet Germans were deported (according to other sources, 438,280). In September 1941, many persons liable for military service of German nationality were sent from the front to the rear units. In the following months, the deportation affected almost the entire German population living in the territory of European Russia and the Caucasus, not occupied by the Wehrmacht. The resettlement of the Germans was carried out gradually and was completed by May 1942. In total, up to 950 thousand Germans were resettled during the war years. 367,000 Germans were deported to the east (two days were given for training): to the Komi Republic, to the Urals, to Kazakhstan, Siberia and Altai.
The current situation
The Volga Germans were not able to return to the Volga region in the amount in which they were taken from there by the Soviet government. They were not allowed to settle there for decades. After the war, many Volga Germans remained to live in the region where the NKVD distributed them at the time of deportation - the Urals, Siberia, Kazakhstan (178,400 people in 2009 - 1.07% of the total population of modern Kazakhstan - self-identified as Germans), Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan ( about 16 thousand - 0.064% of the country's population). After a long period of persecution, the Germans restored their lives in the places of new residence, their number there naturally increased, and they managed to preserve their unique cultural identity, their cultural traditions. Decades after the war, some of them more and more often raised the issue of resettlement back to the place where the autonomy of the Volga Germans had previously existed. However, in the places of their former residence, the settlers themselves met with a tough rebuff from the population, who had moved into their old houses by the same Stalinist regime at the same moment and occupied their native lands.
Attempt to create autonomy in 1979
Filmography
- Refugees (German. Flüchtlinge) - German propaganda film 1933
Literature
- German, Arkady Adolfovich. German autonomy on the Volga. 1918-1941. - 2nd, corrected and supplemented. - M .: BiZ Bibliothek (CJSC "MSNK-Press"), 2007. - 576 p. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-98355-030-8
- Traditional culture and confessionality of the Volga Germans // "Old Sarepta" and the peoples of the Volga region in the history of Russia (Materials of the conference of the II Sarepta meetings). Collection of abstracts. - Volgograd: VolSU. 1997
- Klaus A. A. Our colonies. Experiments and materials on the history and statistics of foreign colonization in Russia. - Issue I. - St. Petersburg. : Printing house V.V. Nuswalt, 1869 .-- 516 p.
- Zinner P.I. The Germans of the Lower Volga Region. Outstanding personalities from the colonies of the Volga region. - Saratov, 1925.
Notes (edit)
- PSZRI. T. XVI. No. 11720
- PSZRI. T. XVI. No. 11880
- PSZRI. T. XVII. Note to No. 12630.
- // = Geschichte Der Deutschen In Russland. Ein Lehrbuch / Ilarionova T. S. - M.: MNSK-Press, 2007. - S. 112-114. - 544 p. - (BIZ-Bibliothek). - 3000 copies. - ISBN 5-98355-016-0
- Herman A.A., Ilarionova T.S., Pleve I.R. 3.3. The development of German colonies in the Volga region // History of the Germans of Russia: Textbook = Geschichte Der Deutschen In Russland. Ein Lehrbuch / Ilarionova T. S. - M .: MNSK-Press, 2007 .-- S. 107-111. - 544 p. - (BIZ-Bibliothek). - 3000 copies. - ISBN 5-98355-016-0
- Herman A.A., Ilarionova T.S., Pleve I.R. 2.1. Manifestos of 1762 and 1763 - the basis of the legal framework of the colonization policy of Russia in the second half of the 18th century. // History of the Germans of Russia: Textbook = Geschichte Der Deutschen In Russland. Ein Lehrbuch / Ilarionova T. S. - M .: MNSK-Press, 2007 .-- S. 32 .-- 544 p. - (BIZ-Bibliothek). - 3000 copies. - ISBN 5-98355-016-0
- Herman A.A., Ilarionova T.S., Pleve I.R. 2.6. Urban Germans in the reign of Catherine II // History of the Germans of Russia: Textbook = Geschichte Der Deutschen In Russland. Ein Lehrbuch / Ilarionova T. S. - Moscow: MNSK-Press, 2007 .-- P. 86 .-- 544 p. - (BIZ-Bibliothek). - 3000 copies. - ISBN 5-98355-016-0
- Herman A.A., Ilarionova T.S., Pleve I.R. 3.3. The development of German colonies in the Volga region // History of the Germans of Russia: Textbook = Geschichte Der Deutschen In Russland. Ein Lehrbuch / Ilarionova T. S. - M .: MNSK-Press, 2007. - S. 114-115. - 544 p. - (BIZ-Bibliothek). - 3000 copies. - ISBN 5-98355-016-0
- Herman A.A., Ilarionova T.S., Pleve I.R. 5.6. Region of the Volga Germans in 1918 - 1922 // History of the Germans of Russia: Textbook = Geschichte Der Deutschen In Russland. Ein Lehrbuch / Ilarionova T. S. - M .: MNSK-Press, 2007 .-- S. 286 .-- 544 p. - (BIZ-Bibliothek). - 3000 copies. - ISBN 5-98355-016-0
The historical site of Bagheera - secrets of history, mysteries of the universe. Mysteries of great empires and ancient civilizations, the fate of disappeared treasures and biographies of people who changed the world, the secrets of special services. History of wars, riddles of battles and battles, reconnaissance operations of the past and present. World traditions, modern life in Russia, mysteries of the USSR, the main directions of culture and other related topics - all that the official history is silent about.
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In 2018, the Republic of Estonia celebrated the 100th anniversary of its independence. Skeptical opinions on the part of historians, which point to the long stay of Estonia in the USSR, did not prevent the official Tallinn from holding many events timed to this round date. A special point was the perpetuation of the memory of Ivan Poski, thanks to whom Estonia acquired its modern borders in 1920.
After Hitler seized power in 1933, our intelligence began to collect information about Germany's preparation of revenge for defeat in the First World War. The Kremlin had three main channels for obtaining data: the intelligence department of the Red Army, the intelligence of the Navy, and the foreign intelligence of the People's Commissariat of State Security.
Many saints and saints revered by the Church performed real miracles, testifying to their unusual natural gift. They healed incurable patients, saw prophetic dreams, could predict the future ...
Grow up, young forces,
Under the red banner of labor!
Grow up, golden years,
In order not to disappear without a trace!
Hey youth! Be bold!
And we will not die without a trace,
And with proud joy we will go out
A bright path on a new life ...
These are lines from the anthem of the Lenin Peterhof school, composed by its graduates in the 1920s.
For several hundred years this encrypted book has been one of the unsolved mysteries of the past, over which the greatest minds of mankind fought ...
Did the Nazis have an atomic bomb? The Berlin historian Rainer Karlsch, the author of the book “Hitler's Bomb. The Secret History of German Atomic Weapon Tests ”. Karlsch conducted a fairly serious historical investigation and received sensational results. Did he manage to solve one of the greatest mysteries of the Third Reich?
This week we celebrate 8 March - International Women's Day. Now it seems strange, but more recently, women were quite officially considered second-class people. The famous "Three K - Ktiche, Kinder, Kirche" (kitchen, children, church) - for many centuries hung with the sword of Damocles over the female sex, denying their capabilities and desires. Naturally, many women could not put up with this state of affairs and fought for their rights. Sometimes this fight was bloody ...
It is unlikely that St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, in the most wonderful dreams that often visited him, could have assumed that he would become one of the most revered saints in the distant and unfriendly cold northern country - Russia. In terms of the number of temples dedicated to him, he is second only to the Mother of God here. There are 18 of them in Moscow alone.
