Economic and Cultural Development

AHSGR, Work Paper No. 5, February 1971

(Excerpts)

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Economic and Cultural Development.

There was a great difference in the economical development of the Volga and Black Sea Germans. The Volga colonies practiced the so-called "Mir" system. According to this the land ided [sic] among the inhabitants. This slowed down the economic development to a large degree. At the Black Sea, though, the original colonial land had to stay with one member of the family. The others had to look out for themselves. Thus the whole village had to look for the needed room or land for the next generation. The so called "mother colonies" had to buy again and again land for the so-called "Landlosen" i.e. those of the colony who were without land. On the newly bought land originated the "daughter colonies." At the Volga, the government twice added land to the original amount; about three million acres. Nevertheless, the need for more land remained. The surplus of the population stayed and was an obstacle in the economic progress.

(Excerpt, p. 27)
Every year more land came into the hands of the German colonists, for they were thrifty and industrious people.

(Excerpt, p. 28)
The civil rule of the colonies was executed by the Committee of Guardians in Saratov and Odessa. The direction of the religious matters lay in the hands of the General Consistory in St. Petersburg. (26) The language used in school and church was the native German language. The government did not contribute to the maintenance of the church nor the schools. They were all maintained by the colonists. There was seldom found a person who could not read or write. Illiterates were practically unknown among the Russian-Germans, while according to the census of 1897 the Russian population was as high as 78% illiterate. (27)

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During the First World War the infamous government of Czar Nikolas II issued the Acts of February 2 and December 13 of 1915 (MY NOTES: Why? What is the background on this?) by which the German colonists lost all rights to their land and property. He could not live up to the execution of these laws for, as we know, he and his family were executed in Katharinenburg. Kerensky postponed the execution of these laws, but the Communists had their chance to realize the ideas of Nikolas. They deprived all Germans in European Russia of their possessions and sent them to Siberia or to Turkestan. Not a single German village is left on the European soil of Russia. But in spite of all the desaster [sic], as we hear, the German colonists came slowly back. (28)


NOTES:
(26) The Catholics were under a German-Russian Bishop who resided at Saratov.
(27) Stumpp, Karl. Die Russlanddeutschen. p. 28.
(28) Ibid. Die hetigen Wohngebiete unde berufliche Aufgliederung der Deutschen in der Sowjetunion. Heimatbuch 1959. p. 3-15.