Heimat is History and History is Our Order!

About the Origins of This Calendar for 2002
The Ordeal of Selection!

At the encouragement of readers and in accordance with the decision of the Historical Research Society, our third wall calendar was to be dedicated to great German Russians. However, it soon turned out that this idea was not easily put into action. More than one hundred names of great people were on the list: biologists, musicians, pastors, historians, scientists and various others, all of whom, without exception, deserved to be included in the gallery of great people. Unfortunately, from the shorter list that was carefully drawn up, only 12 people could be included in this calendar.

Another nearly impossible problem derived from our practice that our wall calendars should always be published with color pictures, in this case with portraits. This automatically led to the next problem because, almost without exception, we had to rely on black and white images which were sometimes very small and blurry. We searched among our own people and found a person who in our opinion is a very talented painter of portraits, Johannes Niederhaus, a 59-year-old man from Paderborn, who has lived in Germany for seven years. He took on this difficult task and in an amazingly short period of time, relying on very poor quality images, he managed to produce 12 oil portraits which are presented here to the reader. Johannes Niederhaus is presently working on a wide battery of great people known worldwide. In addition to Pope John Paul II, our 12 countrymen are now also included and cataloged in this exhibit.

The panel of judges was in despair because original pictures could not be found of all the selected persons. Thus, with deep regret, we had to forego the short biography of Samuel Kontenius (born in 1750 in Westphalia, died in 1830 in Josephstal/Yekaterinoslav), a true pioneer when the German colonies were founded. Our worldwide research showed that in previous times farmers near the Black Sea had his picture hanging in their living rooms; however, neither originals nor copies could be found, even though his name was often cited in books.

When the battery of pictures was completed, it was revealed that 12 important men were represented, but not a single woman. Our “selected woman” fell onto the German Princess Sophie Friederike Auguste of the house of Anhalt-Zerbst, who had been brought to Russia at the age of 14 through European marriage politics and converted to the Orthodox faith. She married Karl Peter Ulrich from Holstein-Gottorp and in 1762 was proclaimed the Russian Czarina, Catherine II. Between 1763 and 1765, she invited more than 27,000 Germans to Russia and settled them along the Volga River (see here Calendar 2001). Although other Russian czars had already brought Western Europeans and Germans to Russia, this enlightened monarch introduced a mass immigration of German farmers and skilled craftsmen, she settled her “children” in closed colonies and granted them their own self-administration and cultural autonomy. We owe it to her that the “German-Russian” phenomenon came into being and that the closed colonies became a model for undeveloped areas of land. Critics say that she was to blame for everything; supporters say that we owe it to her that the German Russians appeared on the stage of history and made such notable achievements of which we can be proud. We can say with certainty that if there had been no Catherine II, the 12 people presented here, as well as the German Russians as a whole and today’s Aussiedler- und Spätaussiedler (ethnic German repatriate immigrants from the former Soviet Union), would not exist, so despite some harsh criticism of her amorous lifestyle, a well-deserved place was given to Catherine on the title page of this calendar.

The 12 pictures are in chronological order, one after another, so that they cover two and a half centuries of the entire German Russian history - beginning with Georg Velden extending to Boris Rauschenbach. In any case, we are proud that there were so many important people, from whose ranks we may present 12 of the best in this wall calendar for 2002!

In this spirit, the publisher wishes all Landsleute and friends of German Russians everywhere great enjoyment when they read the third calendar for the year 2002!

Anton Bosch, Vorsitzender
Chairman

Design: Linda Bosch, Munich, [Germany]
Printing: Hofmann, Regenstauf, [Germany]
Photographs and final editing: Reinhard Uhlmann, Schwabach, [Germany]

Translation from German to English of the 2002 Calendar prepared by the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, North Dakota State University Libraries, Fargo, ND, with private funding.