UND Senior English Lecturer Vossler Offers A Taste Of Germans from Russia History Through Jokes

By Amy Riveland, UND Relations Student Writer

University of North Dakota Media Relations, Grand Forks, North Dakota, June 7, 2001

Ronald J. Vossler, Senior English Lecturer at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, reflects on the history of the Germans from Russia in the Dakota's in his new book, "Not Until the Combine is Paid and Other Jokes: From the Oral Traditions of the Germans from Russia in the Dakota's". Through both modern and not so modern jokes, Vossler offers insight into what remains of the fast-disappearing oral traditions of one of North Dakota's unique ethnic groups.

"The first pioneers, the Germans from Russia farmers, left few, if any, direct records, like diaries and the like, of their settling the Dakotas," writes Vossler. "That is at least one reason why this material may have additional importance. Constituting the literature of a distinct people, and revelatory of long-hidden attitudes, these jokes point towards a deep ethnic culture."

The book's material came from short anecdotes, stories, and jokes jotted down over the past decades. The jokes focus on the themes that are near and dear to the humorous heart of this ethnic group. Vossler is a descendant of German colonists who settled near the Black Sea in Russia and immigrated to North Dakota in the 1880s and 1890s.

"My hope is that readers will not only laugh, or at least smile, at some of these, but that they also come away from this small collection with a better sense of the Germans from Russia, and their descendants," said Vossler.

Set in the small towns and farms of the central Dakotas where the members of this ethnic group originally settled between 1884 and 1914, the material tells of a different time and a different place, where the rough humor reflects the hard times of the people who settled it.

"Someone once told me that members of this ethnic group had both a hard nature and a strong faith in God. To those two attributes, I hope readers of this collection might add one more attribute: the strength of laughter," said Vossler.

The book grew out of a 1998-1999 Larry Remele Fellowship that Vossler received from the North Dakota Humanities Council, a fellowship that focused on the humor of the Germans from Russia. In addition to the some 75 jokes and short anecdotes the book also includes Vossler's
introduction, as well as cover art, and illustrations by the author's son, Joshua Vossler.

The book is a part of the North Dakota State University Library's Germans from Russia Heritage Collection. As a freelance writer, Vossler's contributions to this collection, which also include such works as his 1990 collection of short stories, "Horse I am Your Mother".