|  Homesteaders
on the Steppe: Cultural History of the Evangelical-Lutheran Colonies
in the Region of Odessa, 1804 - 1945
Book review by Edna Boardman, Bismarck, North Dakota
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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