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 Russian-German
Settlements in the United States
By Richard Sallet
Translated by Dr. LaVern J. Rippley and Dr. Armand Bauer
Published By North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies, North
Dakota State University Libraries, Fargo, ND, 1974, 206 pages, softcover.
Today's increasing interest in the rich ethnic background of the
people of the United States is without a doubt a strong indicator
of the attainment of a political and cultural maturity and strength
in our nation. A large group of Russian-Germans and their descendants,
residing in the United States for almost a century, certainly represents
and impressive ethnic minority, for which their valuable contributions
to the fabric of our country and for their distinctive mark made
on the American scene, deserve a long neglected recognition.
Richard Sallet's book about the Russian-Germans in the United
States was originally published in German in 1931 and now available
in a superb English translation by Dr. LaVern J. Rippley and Dr.
Armand Bauer. Available for the first time, this translation gives
the general North American public a well-organized historical background
and an interesting socio-political interpretation for viewing the
way of life within this large group of German immigrants. As Germans
from many parts of Germany, they immigrated to Russia approximately
two hundred years ago, at the invitation of Russian rulers.
The German-Russians settled heavily in the southern part of this
vast empire, where they established special "colonist" status (rather
than citizenship) for almost a century, living peacefully and prosperously
as Germans - ethically, lingusitically, and culturally. However,
in the later part of the nineteenth century, their colonist privileges
were revoked to ordinary citizen status on account of political
repression by the Russian government which had changed its original
benevolent attitude toward them. They were forced to abandon their
adopted new homeland and to immigrate again to a second move to
a new country. This time to the North American continent where a
large percentage of them populated the open prairies of the west
and gradually adopted, as their new Fatherland, the United States
and Canada.
By 1920, according to the census of the United States, there were
116,539 persons here who were born in Russia but still spoke German
as their mother tongue. At this time a total of 303,532 Russian-Germans
living in the U.S., scattered in approximately 1500 settlements
throughout the country but being especially numerous in the prairie
states between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and the Rocky
Mountains.
During their stay in Russia, the Russian-Germans had settled in
closed colonies along the banks of the Volga river and along the
northern shore of the Black Sea, some even extending their settlements
into Bessarabia (Moldova), Dobrudja (Romania) and the plains south
of the caucasus. Divided between Protestants and Catholics, these
intensely religious people had established, in Russia clannishly
separated settlements according to the church of their birth or
choice. They maintained the same general religious pattern when
they resettled on the North American Continent. And as was the case
in Russia, so also in America, they used German, their original
mother tongue.
Most of Sallet's book is a detailed picture of the geographical
distribution of the Russian-Germans throughout various regions of
the United States. Additional historical data and explanations provide
the origin and the names of many localities which were settled by
the Russian-Germans during the western frontier advances of the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Special Chapters,
the author describes in interesting detail: the customs and the
way of life of the immigrants, their religious institutions, their
newspapers and their political and civic organizations.
One chapter also relates the rather disturbing years during the
First World War which brought distress and personal tragedies to
many Russian-German settlers because of their strong ethnic loyalty
to their German ancestry and background. A final chapter points
out the irrestible process of American assimilation among the Russian-Germans
-- especially in its younger generations. And in conclusion, the
author foresees, within a brief time, the distinctive Russian-Germans,
as a strong ethnic component in the United States, will belong to
history.
Russian-German Settlements in the United States
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