Russian Germans in North America are descended from the many
ethnic Germans from Russia who emigrated to
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
.
Migration to
Canada and the
United States by Germans from Russia peaked in the late 19th century. The upper
Great Plains
The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...
of the United States and southern
Manitoba,
Alberta, and
Saskatchewan in Canada have large areas that are populated primarily by descendants of Germans from Russia.
Their mother tongues were
High German or
Low German
:
:
:
:
:
(70,000)
(30,000)
(8,000)
, familycolor = Indo-European
, fam2 = Germanic
, fam3 = West Germanic
, fam4 = North Sea Germanic
, ancestor = Old Saxon
, ancestor2 = Middle L ...
dialects although
ethnic German communities had existed in
Russia for many generations. Russian Germans frequently lived in distinct communities and maintained German-language schools and German churches. They were primarily
Volga Germans from the lower
Volga River valley;
Black Sea Germans from the
Crimean Peninsula/
Black Sea region; or
Volhynian Germans from the governorate of
Volhynia in what is
Ukraine. The smaller villages were often settled by colonists of a common religious denomination who had come from the same area and so a town is made up of German-speaking
Catholics
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
,
Lutherans. The people often settled together from the same region of Germany and so spoke the same
German dialect
German dialects are the various traditional local varieties of the German language. Though varied by region, those of the southern half of Germany beneath the Benrath line are dominated by the geographical spread of the High German consonant s ...
.
Originally recruited and welcomed to the
Russian Empire in the 18th century, when they were promised to be allowed to practice own language and religions and to be exempted from compulsory military service, the Germans from Russia found increasing hardship. With changes in politics, the Russian government took back some of the privileges that had been granted, economic conditions grew poor. Those conditions led to German mass migrations from Russia.
After the
Bolshevik Revolution and the rise of the
Soviet Union, particularly under the leadership of
Joseph Stalin, conditions for the remaining Germans in Russia declined considerably. The subsequent rise of Nazi Germany, with its concern about
ethnic Germans
, native_name_lang = de
, region1 =
, pop1 = 72,650,269
, region2 =
, pop2 = 534,000
, region3 =
, pop3 = 157,000
3,322,405
, region4 =
, pop4 = ...
in other lands and proselytizing to the German ''Volk'', led to suspicions of any Germans in Russia. In 1932 and 1933, the Soviet authorities forced starvation among the Volga Germans according to Western observers. Soviet authorities seized food supplies under the pretext of
famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...
in the rest of the Soviet Union, and they ordered the breakup of many German villages.
After the
German invasion of the Soviet Union, Stalin ordered the deportation of Russian Germans to labor camps in
Siberia and
Central Asia, as he was suspicious of potential collaboration with the invaders. In some areas, his forces attempted to bulldoze the German churches and reused their tombstones for paving blocks. Many Germans in the Americas sent donations back to their communities, but others permanently lost contact with their relatives during the social disruptions of the
Ukrainian famine
The Holodomor ( uk, Голодомо́р, Holodomor, ; derived from uk, морити голодом, lit=to kill by starvation, translit=moryty holodom, label=none), also known as the Terror-Famine or the Great Famine, was a man-made famin ...
, Stalin's
Great Purge, and
World War II.
Areas of immigration
Unlike many other immigrants to the Americas during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Germans from Russia wanted to continue farming and settled in agricultural areas, rather than industrial cities. Primary areas were the Plains states of Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas, North and South Dakota with some movement to specific areas of Washington State and California (such as Fresno and Lodi) in the United States; Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada; Brazil; and Argentina. Those areas tended to resemble the flat plains of the Russian
steppes. In addition, the upper Great Plains still had arable land available for free settlement under the
Homestead Act. In the 2000 Census, North Dakota reported 43.9% of the population identified as having German ancestry. In 1910, 5% of the population of North Dakota had been born in Russia; it is likely that most were ethnic Germans.
Large-scale immigration to the Americas started in the 1870s and continued until the 1917 Revolution, when travel and emigration were stopped.
Since the
reunification of Germany
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...
after the fall of the
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...
and the declining conditions in Russia, many ethnic Germans still living in the lands of the former
Soviet Union sought German
repatriation.
United States
Germans from Russia were the most traditional German-speakers. About 100,000
Volga Germans immigrated by 1900 and settled primarily in the
Dakotas
The Dakotas is a collective term for the U.S. states of North Dakota and South Dakota. It has been used historically to describe the Dakota Territory, and is still used for the collective heritage, culture, geography, fauna, sociology, econom ...
,
Kansas, and
Nebraska. The south-central part of
North Dakota was known as the "German-Russian triangle." A smaller number moved farther west and found employment as ranchers and cowboys.
The largest groups settled mainly in the
Great Plains
The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...
:
North Dakota, South Dakota,
Kansas and nearby areas. Outside those areas, they also settled in
Iowa,
Michigan,
Minnesota,
New York State,
Oregon,
Washington State,
Wisconsin, and
California's
Fresno County in the
Central Valley. They often succeeded in
dryland farming
Dryland farming and dry farming encompass specific agricultural techniques for the non-irrigated cultivation of crops. Dryland farming is associated with drylands, areas characterized by a cool wet season (which charges the soil with virtually ...
, which they had practiced in Russia. Many immigrants who arrived between 1870 and 1912 spent a period doing farm labor, especially in northeastern
Colorado and in
Montana along the lower
Yellowstone River in
sugar beet
A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and which is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (''Beta vulgaris''). Together wi ...
fields. Their family and community lifestyle and their contribution to the sugar beet industry on the plains of Colorado is well-documented in "Work Renders Life Sweet: Germans from Russia in Fort Collins, 1900 - 2000." They were often sugar beet farmers almost everywhere they settled.
Cities
Other Volga Germans made new lives in the industrializing American cities, especially
in Chicago, which had an immense upsurge in immigration from Eastern Europe during that time. Chicago now has the largest number of ethnic Volga Germans in North America. The largest area of concentrated settlement was in
Jefferson Park, on the city's
Northwest Side, mostly between 1907 and 1920. By 1930, 450 families of the Evangelical faith were living in that area, most of whom originated from ''Wiesenseite''. Later, during the period of suburbanization, many of their descendants moved out to outlying areas such as
Maywood and
Melrose Park. Many families living in the Jefferson Park central business district along Lawrence and
Milwaukee Avenue have Volga German immigrant ancestors.
Wheat
Bernhard Warkentin, born in a small Russian village in 1847, travelled to America in his early twenties. Interested in flour mills, he was especially impressed with the wheat-growing possibilities in the United States. After he had visited Kansas, Warkentin found the Great Plains much like those that he had left behind. Settling in
Harvey County, Kansas, he built a water mill on the banks of the
Little Arkansas River, the Halstead Milling and Elevator Company. Warkentin's greatest contribution to Kansas was the introduction of hard Turkey Wheat into Kansas, which replaced the soft variety grown exclusively in the state.
Culture
Negatively influenced by the violation of their rights and cultural persecution by the tsar, the Russian Germans who settled in the northern
Midwest
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...
saw themselves an ethnic group that was separate from Russian Americans and had an entirely different experience from the German Americans who had immigrated from German lands. The Volga German settled in tight-knit communities, which retained their German language and culture. They raised large families, built German-style churches, buried their dead in distinctive cemeteries by using wrought iron grave markers, and created choir groups that sang German church hymns. Many farmers specialized in sugar beets, still a major crop in the upper Great Plains. During World War I, their identity was challenged by
anti-German sentiment.
By the end of the World War II, the German language, which had always been used with English for public and official matters, had seriously declined. German is now preserved mainly through singing groups and recipes, with the Germans from Russia in the northern Great Plains states speaking predominantly English. German remains the second-most-spoken language in North and South Dakota, and Germans from Russia sometimes use
loanwords
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because the ...
, such as for 'cake' although that word is primarily used for the sweet bread dessert made in a pie plate with topping like fruits or cottage cheese. The latter kind of
Kuchen
Kuchen (), the German word for cake, is used in other languages as the name for several different types of savory or sweet desserts, pastries, and gateaux. Most Kuchen have eggs, flour and sugar as common ingredients while also, but not always, ...
has been the state dessert of South Dakota since 2013. Despite the loss of their language, the Volga Germans have remained distinct and left a lasting impression on the American West.
Memory
During the 1970s, Dr. Kenneth Rock, a professor of history at
Colorado State University
Colorado State University (Colorado State or CSU) is a public land-grant research university in Fort Collins, Colorado. It is the flagship university of the Colorado State University System. Colorado State University is classified among "R1: ...
, collected 60 oral histories of Russian German immigrants and their descendants as part of the "Germans from Russia in Colorado" Study Project. He documented life in the ethnic German communities in Russia, the immigration experience, work and social life in the United States, and interaction between the Russian-German communities and the wider society in both Russia and the United States. They were often described as looking like Russians but sounding like Germans.
Approximately one million descendants of Germans from Russia live in the United States. Modern descendants in Canada and the United States refer to their heritage as ''Germans from Russia'', ''Russian Germans'', or ''Black Sea Germans''. In many parts of the United States, they tend to have blended to a large degree with the "regular"
German Americans, who are much more numerous than Russian Germans in the northern half of the United States.
Canada
Background
In addition to the large population of Volga Germans that settled on the American prairie, many also settled in the
Canadian West
Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada– ...
. In the early 1870s, the Canadian government had begun to create promotional programs in Europe to entice settlers to the largely-unsettled western areas in what would become
Alberta,
Saskatchewan,
Manitoba, and
British Columbia.
[HEIER, EDMUND. "The Immigration of the Russo-German Catholics and Lutherans into Canada." Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne Des Slavistes 4 (January 1, 1959): 160–175. doi:10.2307/40866073.
] Public policy also served to attract immigration following the passage of the federal ''
Dominion Lands Act'' of 1872, which provided free grants of homesteads to those who settled on the Canadian prairie.
In the early 20th century, many immigrants moved from the United States to Canada in search of inexpensive land and greater social autonomy. Those German-American immigrants brought not only their experience working on the American plains but also their accrued wealth, which gave a much-needed boost to the economy of Western Canada.
1875–1918
The Volga Germans who flocked to Canada in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries came from different religious backgrounds, including
Lutheran,
Catholic, and
Mennonite. The last group, named after the founder
Menno Simons, was the largest portion of the immigrant population. Those Mennonites were
Plautdietsch-speaking people of Dutch decent who in Russia had been the best organized by preparing scouting parties to investigate the prospect of immigration to Canada and the United States. The scouts had been reliant on the assistance of established Mennonite groups such as those found in
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Lancaster County (; Pennsylvania Dutch: Lengeschder Kaundi), sometimes nicknamed the Garden Spot of America or Pennsylvania Dutch Country, is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in the south central part of Pennsylvania. ...
, and in
Ontario. From 1873 to 1879, Mennonites formed block settlements in Manitoba such as the
East Reserve and
West Reserve, with a total of close to 7,000 members. Most settled in southern Manitoba in the richest part of the
Red River Valley
The Red River Valley is a region in central North America that is drained by the Red River of the North; it is part of both Canada and the United States. Forming the border between Minnesota and North Dakota when these territories were admitted ...
. The communities were centered around religious homogeneity, the insistence on the tenets of
adult baptism, and the refusal to bear arms or to swear an oath.
[Moelleken, Wolfgang W. “Diaphonic Correspondences in the Low German of Mennonites from the Fraser Valley, British Columbia.” Zeitschrift für Mundartforschung 34, no. 3/4 (December 1, 1967): 240–253. doi:10.2307/40500396.] Many Mennonites had been propelled to leave because of the introduction of extended conscription, which had been put into place in 1874 and was set to take effect in Russia in 1881.
Many Volga Germans emigrated from the United States to Western Canada from 1890 to1909. They sought to escape rising land prices and the imposition of laws that had begun to encroach on their relative autonomy. Canada was seen as a new frontier and a place of vast land but little settlement. The immigrants settled mainly in the colonies of St. Peter and St. Joseph, East and West of
Saskatoon, in central Saskatchewan.
In the 1890s, twelve Catholic families established Rastadt-Dorf, and another twenty-one settled Katherinetal. Additional settlements were begun in Davin,
Kronau, and Speyer.
Interwar period
During the
interwar period
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the World War I, First World War to the beginning of the World War II, Second World War. The in ...
, conditions in Russia worsened, especially after the
Revolution and the
Great Famine of 1921. Many Volga Germans sought to leave the
Soviet Union but faced opposition from a government that did not wish to see such a large portion of its population leave. The government imposed a fee for obtaining a passport, which led to protests as many would-be immigrants flooded the streets of
Moscow.
Many Mennonites were eventually able to leave, and between the World Wars, over 20,000 of them left destined for Canada.
From the 1910s to several years after the end of the Second World War, the ethnic background of the Volga Germans made them prey to discrimination in Canada. By 1914, Germany had become Canada's enemy, and the Volga Germans were not immune although many families has not set foot in Germany for hundreds of years. This period saw the suppression of many German cultural customs, including the suppression of their print media and the closure of German schools. The federal ''
Wartime Elections Act'', passed in September 1917, revoked the citizenship of any German naturalized after March 1902. Many settlements were renamed to disguise their obvious German origin.
The 1920s also saw the movement of Volga Germans within Western Canada as well. Many pushed further west and settled in
British Columbia. The area had the appeal of a warmer climate, an escape from the frigid prairie. Other Volga Germans were propelled by economic factors such as the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, which not only impoverished many but also coincided with a tremendous drought ushering in crop failures. The economy of the Prairies and much of the rest of Canada was dependent on the success of wheat farming. Wheat had been a staple crop for the Volga Germans in Russia and adapted well to the climate of Western Canada. Repeated crop failures meant a large influx of German-Russiana to larger cities and towns, which would contribute to the gradual decline of their culturally-homogeneous communities. The prairie lands abutting the United States border experienced
Dust Bowl conditions, which sent swarms of families to the coastal areas of British Columbia. Throughout the period after World War II, new immigrants joined their families in British Columbia and congregated in the
Fraser Valley and
Vancouver Island.
The mid-20th century brought immigrants from
South America, mainly
Argentina and Brazil, who fought to maintain their cultural autonomy in increasingly-nationalist countries dominated by leaders like
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón (, , ; 8 October 1895 – 1 July 1974) was an Argentine Army general and politician. After serving in several government positions, including Minister of Labour and Vice President of a military dictatorship, he was elected P ...
.
Lutheran and Catholic Volga Germans were also significant migrants to Canada but lacked the organization of their Mennonite brethren. Early on, they were more likely to settle in Saskatchewan, especially around
Regina.
Despite their location near earlier Mennonite communities, Catholic and Lutheran settlements remained religiously homogenous.
Legacy
Throughout their history in Western Canada, the Volga Germans have maintained many of their cultural characteristics, including their dialects, which have been proliferated through Saturday schools and Canadian policies that allowed for cultural freedom. Those schools operated on Saturday mornings for around three hours and became especially vital as German stopped being taught in Canadian public schools after World War I. The Mennonites, unlike most Volga Germans, maintained those schools even after World War II. The Volga Germans' dialects was also maintained by the churches, especially for Mennonite.
Before the Volga Germans left for North America, they had been regarded as privileged colonists in Russia. When they arrived in the United States and Canada, they found that they were treated the same as any other migrant group from
Eastern Europe. The Mennonites may be seen as an exception since they successfully used connections with their brethren in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and in Ontario.
Through their hard work on the North American plains, they established themselves as a productive portion of society in both Canada and America.
Language
The Germans from Russia originally spoke
German dialects
German dialects are the various traditional local varieties of the German language. Though varied by region, those of the southern half of Germany beneath the Benrath line are dominated by the geographical spread of the High German consonant ...
such as the
Palatine dialect
Palatine German (endonym: ; Standard German: ), also known as Palatine Dutch, is a Rhenish Franconian language and is spoken in the Upper Rhine Valley, roughly in the area between Zweibrücken, Kaiserslautern, Alzey, Worms, Germany, Worms, Lu ...
or Mennonite Low German () at home. Since the villages in Russia often were populated by settlers from a particular region and isolated from Germany, they maintained their regional dialects. Depending on their specific dialect, Germans from Russia had difficulties understanding
Standard German
Standard High German (SHG), less precisely Standard German or High German (not to be confused with High German dialects, more precisely Upper German dialects) (german: Standardhochdeutsch, , or, in Switzerland, ), is the standardized variety ...
, which can differ greatly from the dialects. After emigrating from Russia to the Americas, the Germans kept speaking their dialects.
In the 1950s it was still common for children in the Dakotas to speak in English and for the parents and grandparents to use German. Songs in church would be sung in both languages simultaneously. Probably the person best known for having a "German from Russia accent" in English, a result of his having learned English as a second language, was the bandleader and television star
Lawrence Welk.
Notable descendants of Germans from Russia
*
Philip Anschutz
Philip Frederick Anschutz ( ; born December 28, 1939) is an American billionaire businessman who owns or controls companies in a variety of industries, including energy, railroads, real estate, sports, newspapers, movies, theaters, arenas and m ...
, businessman
*
Craig Bohl, football coach
*
Tom Daschle
Thomas Andrew Daschle ( ; born December 9, 1947) is an American politician and lobbyist who served as a United States senator from South Dakota from 1987 to 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, he became U.S. Senate Minority Leader in 1995 an ...
, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader
*
John Denver
Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, activist, and humanitarian whose greatest commercial success was as a solo singe ...
(Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr.), singer
*
Paul Revere Dick
Paul Revere Dick (January 7, 1938 – October 4, 2014) was an American musician, best known for being the leader, keyboardist and (by dropping his last name to create the stage name) namesake of Paul Revere & the Raiders. The band became notable ...
, Paul Revere and the Raiders
*
Angie Dickinson, actress
*
Joe Exotic, felonious zookeeper
*
Phyllis Frelich
Phyllis Annetta Frelich (February 29, 1944 – April 10, 2014) was a Tony Award-winning deaf American actress. She was the first deaf actor or actress to win a Tony Award.
Early life
Frelich was born to deaf parents Esther (née Dockter) and Ph ...
, Tony winning actress
*
Johnny Hopp, baseball player
*
Chris Isaak, singer-songwriter
*
Bernd Leno, football player
*
Randy Meisner
Randall Herman Meisner (born March 8, 1946) is a retired American musician, singer, songwriter and founding member of the Eagles. Throughout his professional musical career, Meisner's main role was that of bassist and backing high-harmony vocal ...
, musician and former band member of the Eagles
*
Roman Neustädter
Roman Petrovich Neustädter (russian: Рома́н Петро́вич Нойште́дтер; born 18 February 1988) is a professional footballer who plays for Belgian First Division A club Westerlo.
Of German heritage, Neustädter played for ...
, football player
*
Brian Schweitzer, former Governor of Montana
*
Brian Urlacher, former American football player
*
Lawrence Welk, band leader
*
Carson Wentz, football player
See also
*
Black Sea Germans
*
Bessarabia Germans
*
Der Staats Anzeiger
''Der Staats Anzeiger'' (The State Gazette) was an American German-English language newspaper, first published in 1906. Initially published in Rugby, North Dakota, publication was moved to Devils Lake, North Dakota in 1911, and shortly after that ...
, their North Dakota newspaper
*
History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union
The German minority population in Russia, Ukraine, and the Soviet Union stemmed from several sources and arrived in several waves. Since the second half of the 19th century, as a consequence of the Russification policies and compulsory military ...
*
History of Saskatchewan
History of Saskatchewan encompasses the study of past human events and activities of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, the middle of Canada's three prairie provinces. Archaeological studies give some clues as to the history and lifesty ...
*
Russian Mennonites
*
Hutterites
Notes
Further reading
*
* Gross, Fred William. "Type and Nature of German Publications In North Dakota," ''Heritage Review'' (1993) 23#4 pp 34–38.
* Iseminger, Gordon L. "Are We Germans, or Russians, or Americans? The McIntosh County German-Russians During World War I", ''North Dakota History'' (1992) 59#2 pp: 2–16.
* Koch, Fred C. ''The Volga Germans: In Russia and the Americas, from 1763 to the Present'' (1977).
* Kloberdanz, Timothy J. “The Volga Germans in Old Russia and in Western North America: Their Changing World View.” ''Anthropological Quarterly'' 48, no. 4 (October 1, 1975): 209–222. doi:10.2307/3316632.
*
* Rempfer, Michael, and James Gessele, "Der Staats-Anzeiger:' Salute to its Centennial Founding." ''Heritage Review'' (2006) 36#3 pp 37–42
* Sackett, S. J. "History of the Volga Germans in Ellis and Rush Counties, Kansas." (1976)
online
External links
American Historical Society of Germans from RussiaGermans From Russia Heritage Society* '
Germans from Russia Settlement Locations on Google Map''
Germans from Volhynia – genealogy, culture, history* https://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/research-history/history-germans-russia
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
de:Russlanddeutschebr>
– history and map settlements by religion
{{DEFAULTSORT:History Of Germans In Russia And The Soviet Union