|
 Homesteaders
on the Steppe: Cultural History of the Evangelical-Lutheran Colonies
in the Region of Odessa, 1804 - 1945
By Joseph S. Height
Germans from Russia Heritage Society, Bismarck, North Dakota,
1975, 431 pages, hardcover.
Review by Edna Boardman, Bismarck, North Dakota (EBoard@minot.com)
After Paradise on the Steppe had been out for awhile,
many asked Dr. Height to gather similar
information about some of the key protestant
colonies. (Seventy-seven percent of the Germans
living in South Russia were protestants of various
kinds.) This book was the result, mostly but
not entirely about the Lutheran colonies. Because
conditions were similar for all the German
people who went to Russia, a few portions of the
first book were reprinted in the second. Height
describes the journey down the Danube and the life of
the villages, treating fashion, wedding
customs, games and entertainments, songs, and the
growth in quality of the agriculture. The
names of the original settlers are great fun to pore
through.
A striking inclusion is the report of a sophisticated
German, J.G. Kohl--a sort of German Alexis
de Tocqueville* -- who visited Lustdorf in 1838, just
30 years after its founding, and wrote a
romanticized version of what he saw. Lustdorf was a
special project of the Duc de Richelieu, the
governor of Odessa, so was among the best developed
of the colonies at this time. Kohl
commented on the homes and food of the settlers, the
geography of the area, the energy of the
German women, relations with Russian neighbors--and
the love life of his host's daughter Babele
(not a very GR name). Dr. Height also found that
State Councilor E. von Hahn, a president of
the Colonists' Welfare Committee, had urged mayors
and schoolmasters to write historical
records of their villages. These first-hand accounts,
six of which are included, are a real treasure.
Even in a general book like this, there may be things
of great personal value to the person of
German-Russian descent. On the town plat of
Alexanderhilf, I found my mother's family name,
Zweigle, several times. My foster grandmother Kathryn
Eisemann Berg Fischer Keller, as she
approached her one hundredth birthday, told me that
she recalled running across the street to her
grandparents' home in the village of Hoffnungstal
(Cherson). I learned from this book that
Hoffnungstal was a separatist village that was
granted religious freedom by a special ukase or
order of Czar Alexander II. In the lower left hand
corner of the town plat, there are the homes of
families named Eisemann, across the street from each
other.
In the final chapters, Height tells of the
dissolution of the colonies under communism.
* Alexis de Tocqueville was a French historian and
political philosopher who visited the United
States in 1831-1832. He is closely studied even today
because of his incisive comments on
political and social institutions.
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| Christkindly and
Belzenickl (C. Spindler). |
Church at Grossliebental,
Liebental District. |
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| Brass band at Grossliebental,
circa 1902. |
Evangelical Church,
Glückstal, Glückstal District. |
Homesteaders on the Steppe
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