JANUARY 2003

Richelieu Born 1766 in Paris Died in 1822 in Paris The Duke of Odessa

January 2003
Armand Emmanuel du Plessis de Richelieu – The Duke of Odessa

In France, Richelieu is honored as the “Duke of Odessa,” and in the harbor city by that name he continues to be lovingly revered even after 200 years. A street and a university there bear his name, and a memorial stands at the top of the steps that lead down to the Black Sea. Who was this Duke? Richelieu was born in 1766 into a famous family of nobility and, as a Loyalist, was forced to leave his home country following the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1789. In St. Petersburg he found residence and placed himself in the service of Catherine II, and at the royal court he served as an aide to the young Alexander, who upon ascending the throne remembered his services and in 1803 named him Governor of Odessa and in 1805 appointed him Governor of New Russia. Richelieu designated Odessa as the capital of the new region. The time of the first German settlements in and around Odessa coincided with his appointment. In 1803 he issued a manifesto to the residents of Southwest Germany, proclaiming that only skilled artisans willing to travel, and married tillers of the soil who had a team of horses and a plow plus at least 200 gulden of their own money, would be accepted. The first 29 German farming families arrived toward the end of August, 1803 and were personally welcomed by the governor. It is said that, working with Kontenius, he himself even laid out a few colonies. In his own garden, he cultivated unusual sorts of trees and useful plants, and he ordered the new settlers to plant white acacia and mulberry trees. From Western Europe he imported merino sheep to graze on the steppes, and he required the farmers to breed silk worms. Kontenius, in charge of the Office for Colonists, actively assisted him in all these projects and made sure that newly acquired knowledge was put into practice. An interesting side note is that the young poet A.S. Pushkin worked temporarily in this office, administered at the time by General Inzov, and began to make people take notice of himself by means of his poem “Gypsies roaming through Bessarabia.” Highly educated and interested in everything, Richelieu delegated much to his officials, who were more inclined to work for their own interests than for the benefit of the state. Tradition has it that, due to the plague that began raging through the area in 1812, immigrants from Wûrttemberg were held up from further travel for nearly two years, while being housed in former military barracks near Ovidiopol, and a large number of them died of yellow fever and dysentery. The Russian military supervisors reported to Richelieu that the newcomers were “lazy and unwilling to perform bodily work.” As a consequence, Richelieu ordered them to march before him, had them whipped and ordered to perform work for public purposes. At a later time, in letters to Kontenius, he admitted that he had been wrong and that he had come to regret his error.

Compiled from writings of Olga Konovalova and others, by Anton Bosch.

Translation from German to English by Alex Herzog, Boulder, Colorado