Radio Free Europe interviews Michael M. Miller

It's Happening at State, published by the Office of the President/University Relations, North Dakota State University, Fargo, April 13, 1994

While visiting Munich, Germany, in late-February, Michael M. Miller, Germans from Russia bibliographer, NDSU Libraries, was interviewed by the Russian Service of Radio Free Europe. The one-hour interview also included Peter Hilkes, East European Institute in Munich. Hilkes visited North Dakota's German-Russian communities in October 1993.

The interview will be broadcast this spring throughout the former Soviet Union. Although it was conducted in German, it will be translated into various Russian dialects.

"Wherever there are lots of German-Russian people, the interview will be translated into Kasach, Russian and Ukrainian, for example," said Miller.

"Hopefully many people will be able to hear the interview because it had so much information about the Germans from Russia projects we are currently pursuing, and about the families we are able to help locate for these people."

Miller spoke of the consistently higher numbers of individuals from the United States and abroad who contact him requesting information about their family history.

Hilkes and Miller discussed where many German-Russians live in the United States today. Volga German-Russians are concentrated in Kansas, while Black Sea German-Russians live primarily in the Dakotas and Canada. North Dakota's population is made up of approximately 35 percent Black Sea German-Russians and their descendants.

Miller said he was asked about American agricultural practices. The people in the newly formed Commonwealth of Independent States realize they need help in their farm cooperatives and are extremely interested and hopeful of getting help from American farmers.

They also are interested in many aspects of American life, including dialects used in North Dakota among the German-Russian, the religious community and traditions of faith, and the role of German-Russians in politics of North Dakota. Miller spoke of the tradition that German-Russians prefer to distance themselves from active involvement in politics and service to the community.

NDSU has developed close cooperations with the "Osteuropa-Institut München" that includes plans for common publications, information and research residencies, also in the former Soviet Union, as well as lectures and seminars.