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Archiver > GER-VOLGA > 2006-01 > 1136836034
From: "" <>
Subject: First settlers / Germans on the Volga - from Russia
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 14:47:14 -0500
We have had these threads upteen times on the GR heritage List several
years ago, but they seem to be new to this group and to the 'newbies',
so, it might be worth repeating that of the original settlers,
one-third were NOT farmers, nor was Catherine the Great especially inviting
farmers.
At first she just intended good stock immigrants to arrive from
Europe, and they were intended to have been able to settle in
any town they chose.
While the recruitment was going on and while the immigrants on
on high seas (or rather the Baltic), Catherine changed her
intentions and decided that ALL new immigrants that were recruited
were to settle the Volga and farm virgin territory.
There were (as always in life) exceptions -
1) One lot settled in a village just south of St. Petersburg.
2) Required tradesmen/artisans were allowed to settle in
Saratov town and start the 1st German colony there - now known as
"German Street".... about 100
3) other tradespeople/traders/merchants/ were placed in
Katherienenstadt, which was the 'chief' GR village
and was meant to be the hub of economic life and its
Samara-side trading centre.
4) The reason that even non-farmers were sent off to
farming villages was Catherine decided that villages
need more than just 'farmers', they also need school
teachers, doctors, soldiers - etc.... because farming
took only 6 months a year, and during the other 6 months
of the year one needed cobblers, tailors, cart-wrights, etc.
to form and develop a community.
5) Really bad 'untalented' men who couldn't make a go of
farming were eventually released into the cities as
wage earners to practice their trades.
so long
Vera
Original Message:
-----------------
From: frank jacobs
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 06:16:58 -0600
To:
Subject: Re: [GV] Re: [GR-GENEALOGY] Good Article to read, told about her
ancestor who was German from Russia
Greetings,
I'm not about perpetuating myths about the "best" farmers every, but the
ones who survived had to innovate and learned farming to survive. I
remember in Weigel's papers there was a description of the first German
individuals arriving on the steppes, including various tradesmen who
incidentally would not get to practice their trades. Here stood a
wigmaker
and here stood a (?) with an old Kalmluth horse. So this is the paradise
the agents promised us. Some didn't have a clue.
They would become farmers out of necessity or die. However they were people
on an area needing population. One of the Russian poets later made the
comment, somewhat paraphrased, A German can take a willow twig and make it
grow in sand.
Some were creative and innovators, perhaps because they were not locked
into
the century old farming traditions of the Russian peasant? There were
those
who became the owners of the large steam threshing machines that arrived in
Russia at the end of the 19th century.
But this was over multigenerational timelines. The old comments, for the
first generation there was death, the next hunger and the third bread. In
the interim, they were available cannon fodder on a wild expanding
frontier,
even if not in the Russian Army.
Frank Jacobs
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jerry Frank" <>
To: <>
Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2006 7:10 PM
Subject: [GV] Re: [GR-GENEALOGY] Good Article to read, told about her
ancestor who was German from Russia
> At 04:06 PM 08/01/2006, you wrote:
>
>><http://www.denverpost.com/style/ci_3368674>http://www.denverpost.com/styl
e/ci_3368674
>
>
>
> Once again we have to fight the error of German Russian lore. The
article
> quotes author Tom Noel who writes,""These Germans, known as some of the
> world's best farmers, had been brought to Russia by Empress and Czarina
> Catherine the Great to farm the Volga valley." It appears that Mr. Noel
> has not taken the time to research his comment and has relied on well
> established GR lore.
>
> First of all, where is the evidence that the WORLD thought that the
> Germans were the best of farmers? The only claims for this that I have
> ever seen comes from the Germans themselves. That is not to say that
> these Germans were NOT good farmers but why the gloating attitude?
>
> Secondly, Catherine did not invite just Germans. She invited ALL
> Europeans to come farm this land. It is therefore clear that she did not
> consider the German skills to be anything special or at the very least,
> not important enough to consider with respect to her objectives.
>
> Sorry to keep harping on this topic but it seems that the only way to
> change the lore is to keep repeating the truth.
>
>
>
> Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta
>
>
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