Origins – German-Americans from Russia

Origins – German-Americans from Russia

Only recently have I developed a real curiosity about my husband's family origins. He said they were Germans who were living in Russia when they emigrated. German was the language spoken at home when my husband was a child. They were Lutherans rather than belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church, and they emigrated from Odessa to the area around Streeter, ND with their separate families about the time of the first World War. One reason for their leaving was to avoid conscription into the Russian army.

My husband's father was one of three brothers and one sister who immigrated and settled in California near Stockton. My husband's mother, Elizabeth Albright, came with her father and one brother from Russia at about 18 years old. Her mother had died when she was still a child, and she had been forced into the job of cooking and caring for her father and brother when she was only nine years old. She told me about hauling buckets of water from a long distance away to wash the clothes.

My husband's parents weren't acquainted with each other when they arrived to in western North Dakota, but were introduced when family and mutual friends sought a bride for his father. It was an arranged marriage and it lasted all their lives in spite of huge difficulties. His mother bore 15 children in 30 years; five of them dying at birth or in childhood. When my husband's father lost their homestead, they moved east to Grand Forks and the mother, Elizabeth, took over managing the affairs of the family. She was one tough lady!

Recently I decided to do some research about these Russian Germans, and discovered a fascinating story that began with German-born Russian Empress, Catherine the Great, who ruled Russia from 1745 until her death in 1796.

Catherine, who was born Sophia, to a father who was a prince and also a general in the Prussian army, and a mother born to nobility and fiercely ambitious for her children. She brokered a marriage of Sophia to Peter of Holstein, who was in line to become Emperor of Russia. Even before her marriage, Sophia began to prepare herself for her position as Empress Consort by learning all she could about her new homeland. She paced the floor barefoot late into the night learning the Russian language, and much against her father's wishes, she converted to the Russian Orthodox Church where she was renamed Catherine.

Peter proved to be an unfaithful husband, and an eccentric and very ineffectual ruler. He was deposed by a palace coup in 1762 and Catherine took over the throne. Throughout her rule Catherine was considered immoral by standards of the day, and she had many lovers during her lifetime. She could be ruthless and cruel, but she also pushed for modernization in Russia. She supported the arts and promoted education for the elite. She conducted many military campaigns against the Turks and others. This resulted in large additions of land to Russia, especially in the Ukraine and the area around the Black Sea – a fallow land that was under-populated.

Catherine issued invitations to other Europeans to settle in Russia, promising them freedom from taxes, freedom from conscription into the army, and the freedom to keep their own culture and religion if they would farm in certain areas of Russia. Another strict stipulation was that they not mingle with Russians. Germans responded in large numbers, partly for the free land and partly to escape German conscription into the army. They settled first along the Volga River where their presence made a barrier between Catherine's Russian subjects and the wild nomads to the east. Others settled in the under-populated area of the Ukraine and the areas around Odessa and the Black Sea. There was a distinct difference between the Volga Germans and the Black Sea Germans, and living as they did in isolated communities far from their fatherland of Germany, they developed differing dialects and customs that were revealed later when they met in America.

The Russian ruler's arrangement with the German settlers worked well during Catherine's rule and that of her son, Alexander I. He issued another a well-received invitation for Germans to settle in Russia in 1801. But when Alexander II came to power, he wanted more soldiers and more taxes, and he rescinded the German privileges. The Russian-Germans began to emigrate to North and South America in large numbers, leaving only a few reluctant remnants of their people behind whose descendants still live in Russia.

There had been German settlers who came to the plains of Texas as early as 1830 when it was still ruled by Mexico. When Catholic Germans from Russia started to arrive in the late nineteenth century, they often settled in already established German Catholic communities in Texas. The completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 made land available farther north - railroad land as well as the free land to be had under the Homestead Act of 1862. These new developments brought a flood of immigrants to America, among them the Russian-Germans. They settled in areas of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Montana and the Dakota Territory, and arrived in groups that had come from the same villages of Russia who practiced the same forms of Christianity. There were Catholics, Mennonites, Lutherans and Reformed Church members.

My husband's people settled in the Lutheran community of Streeter in western North Dakota. It had been settled by people who had come from the Black Sea area, probably from a village not far from Odessa. My mother-in-law said she once held a position as cook in the palace of a Russian prince in Odessa not long before she emigrated from Russia. She told me of the terror caused by rampaging Cossack horsemen in the streets of Odessa about the time of the Russian Revolution. I wish I had questioned her more about her experiences there.

Here is a good example why we should pay more attention to history. It isn't just dry old tales of rulers, dates and wars. Those rulers, dates, and wars had direct and vital consequences for our own families. Their stories explain to a great extent who we Americans really are. So get out your recorders and interview your family oldsters for their life experiences before it is too late. If they are like me, they will love to tell you.