Yablonovka (russian: Яблоновка) is a

rural locality In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are describ ...

(a '' selo'') in Rovensky District of

Saratov Oblast Saratov Oblast (russian: Сара́товская о́бласть, ''Saratovskaya oblast'') is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in the Volga Federal District. Its administrative center is the types of ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, located about south of the city of

Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
''

Volga River The Volga (; russian: Во́лга, a=Ru-Волга.ogg, p=ˈvoɫɡə) is the List of rivers of Europe#Rivers of Europe by length, longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Cas ...

. It was founded by

Volga Germans The Volga Germans (german: Wolgadeutsche, ), russian: поволжские немцы, povolzhskiye nemtsy) are ethnic Germans who settled and historically lived along the Volga River in the region of southeastern European Russia around Saratov ...

in 1767 and until 1941 was known as Lauwe; other German names for the settlement were Laube and Schönfeld.

History

It was founded on August 19, 1767 by the colonial agency

LeRoy and Pictet LeRoy and Pictet was a co-operative company which recruited Germans to settle in Russia in the 18th century, under commission by Tsarina Catherine the Great. The company was formed by le Roy, a Frenchman, Pictet, a Swiss from Geneva, and Sonntag, a ...

and 169

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

immigrants from Germany,The Center for Volga German Studies,

Concordia University (Oregon) Concordia University was a private Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) university in Portland, Oregon, that closed in Spring 2020. One remaining program, the accelerated bachelor's degree in nursing, continues to operate under another Conco ...

Lauwe
following

Catherine the Great , en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes , house = , father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp , birth_date = , birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anhal ...

's manifesto of July 22, 1763, which guaranteed settlers in the Russian Empire free transport and monetary support in reaching their new

colonies In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

, free choice of settlement location, freedom of trade, freedom from taxation for thirty years, interest-free loans for ten years, freedom of religion, freedom from conscription in perpetuity, and freedom of return to their homelands, but at their own expense.Germans from Russia Heritage Society
Lauwe: A German Village on the Volga River
The settlement was named Lauwe after the first elder of the village. Its original demarcation consisted of 4,455 ''

desiatina A native system of weights and measures was used in Imperial Russia and after the Russian Revolution, but it was abandoned after 21 July 1925, when the Soviet Union adopted the metric system, per the order of the Council of People's Commissars. T ...

s''. The first forty-seven settler families came from Bavaria (

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

), Baden, Hesse (

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

and

Neu-Isenburg Neu-Isenburg is a town in Germany, located in the Offenbach district of Hesse. It is part of the Frankfurt Rhein-Main urban area and has a population of 38,204 (2020). The town is known nowadays mainly for its regionally used shopping centre, th ...

), the Palatinate, the Rhineland, Saxony, and Brandenburg. It was one of the ten colonies established by LeRoy and Pictet south of

Saratov Saratov (, ; rus, Сара́тов, a=Ru-Saratov.ogg, p=sɐˈratəf) is the largest city and administrative center of Saratov Oblast, Russia, and a major port on the Volga River upstream (north) of Volgograd. Saratov had a population of 901,36 ...

on the "meadow" (eastern) side of the Volga and along its eastern

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage ...

, the Terlyk. In later years, it was also known under the German names of Laube and Schönfeld. In 1774, Lauwe was looted by the rebels of the

peasant rebellion This is a chronological list of conflicts in which peasants played a significant role. Background The history of peasant wars spans over two thousand years. A variety of factors fueled the emergence of the peasant revolt phenomenon, including: ...

led by

Yemelyan Pugachev Yemelyan Ivanovich Pugachev (russian: Емельян Иванович Пугачёв; c. 1742) was an ataman of the Yaik Cossacks who led a great popular insurrection during the reign of Catherine the Great. Pugachev claimed to be Catherine's ...

. The German colonists' special status was nullified under the

Russification Russification (russian: русификация, rusifikatsiya), or Russianization, is a form of cultural assimilation in which non-Russians, whether involuntarily or voluntarily, give up their culture and language in favor of the Russian cultur ...

measures which began as part of Tsar Alexander II's reforms and continued under his successor, Alexander III, and some of the male colonists who had been conscripted were killed in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1888. Between 1871 and 1914, some of the Volga Germans left Lauwe and emigrated to North and South America. When

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

broke the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , long_name = Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , image = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H27337, Moskau, Stalin und Ribbentrop im Kreml.jpg , image_width = 200 , caption = Stalin and Ribbentrop shaking ...

and invaded the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...

in 1941,

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

abolished the

Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic The Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (german: Autonome Sozialistische Sowjetrepublik der Wolgadeutschen; russian: Автономная Советская Социалистическая Республика Немцев По� ...

and signed an order of banishment against ethnic Germans, which took effect on September 16, 1941. The population of Lauwe was exiled to the

Kazakh SSR ; kk, Қазақ Советтік Социалистік Республикасы) *1991: Republic of Kazakhstan (russian: Республика Казахстан; kk, Қазақстан Республикасы) , linking_name = the ...

and the village was renamed Yablonovka ('apple-tree village', after a nearby ravine where apple trees were growing wild) in 1941. The log houses built by the ethnic Germans were torn down and used as firewood. Post-war hopes for the re-establishment of the Volga German ASSR and return of the deportees were dashed by a February 21, 1992 decree of

Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...

in Saratov, and Yablonovka is now populated primarily by Russians.

Demographics

The following table shows population development in Lauwe up to 1931.

References

External links

Photo of Lauwe in the 1930sGeschichte der Russlanddeutschen

at wolgadeutsche.net (facsimile)

at wolgadeutsche.net * ttp://www.grhs.org/korners/heinle/lauwe/Lauwe1850HOH.pdf Heads of household in Lauwe in the 1850 census(pdf)
"Die Lauwe Lampe"
historical newsletter published by Bernice Geringer Madden, at Germans from Russia Heritage Society {{Authority control Rural localities in Saratov Oblast Volga German people Ethnic cleansing of Germans Populated places established in 1767 1767 establishments in the Russian Empire

History

Demographics

References

Further reading

External links