In Touch with Prairie Living, June 2025
By Michael M. Miller
North Dakota State University Press has published an impressive new book, "History & Memory in German-Russian Country." The book is part of the NDSU Press Heritage Guide Series. Essays are written by Jessica Clark, Thomas D. Isern, Carol Just, Debra Marquart and Steve C. Martens. The book is available from GRHC in our online store.
Dr. Tom Isern, NDSU Distinguished Professor of History, wrote in the preface, "The German-Russian survival on the northern plains and its emergent consciousness in the late twentieth century, as described in the chapters to follow—where we see some folk drawing a veil, but others casting it down—are brought to a critical head by the course of events in the homeland. A tree cut off from the roots dies unless it has runners to grow and are tended where they are. This volume, then, is a gesture toward that, sort of heritage husbandry. As we tend our orchard here, let us, who know our own history, lend both remembrance and assistance to those still embroiled in it." Isern wrote the essay, German-Russian Country.
Isern wrote, "The Germans from Russia are the largest ethnic immigrant group in North Dakota, and their impact on the culture and landscape of the northern plains is profound. German-Russian culture dating back to the 1880s predominates in south-central North Dakota. Because of the hunger of the German-Russians, an agricultural people, for land, their settlement culture also sprawls across north-central and western North Dakota into the Prairie Provinces of Canada. Three counties in the German-Russian heartland of North Dakota—Emmons, Logan, and McIntosh—have come to refer to their region as German-Russian Country, recognizing the richness of their ethnic immigrant ancestry and encouraging travelers to explore it."
Dr. Jessica Clark, Vice President of Academic Affairs, Bellevue College, Washington, received her Ph.D., in History at NDSU. Jessica directed GRHC's Dakota Memories Oral History Project from 2005 to 2009. The 199 interviews are available at www.digitalhorizonsonline.org. Clark wrote the essay, The Landscape of Memory in German-Russian Country.
Clark shared, "After collecting nearly two hundred oral histories, organizers of this project discovered that these interviews revealed a new landscape of memory for descendants of German-Russians. By employing a variety of oral history techniques, like the landmark and cemetery walks, Dakota Memories oral historians discovered that the second- and third-generation German-Russians have a new, complex story. Their constructed narrative—the German-Russian story – was a story of hardship as well as happiness."
Steve C. Martens is a retired Professor Emeritus in Architecture at NDSU, and is past President of the North Dakota State Historical Board. Martens wrote the essay, Great Depression Buildings and the Social Value of Work in German-Russian Country.
Martens wrote, "A series of field trips sponsored by the grassroots organization Preservation North Dakota in 2012 afforded a stimulating opportunity to revisit the rich heritage of Depression era buildings in German-Russian country. Depression buildings and landscapes tell a story about the importance of work in sustaining communities on the northern Great Plains. The poignant story of the Dust Bowl survival and federal work relief programs are reflected in buildings constructed in North Dakota's ‘Sauerkraut Triangle,’ at the core of German-Russian settlement."
Martens covers these WPA projects: Wishek City Auditorium, Emmons County Courthouse, Venturia Armory, Lehr City Hall and Fire Station, Hettinger County Courthouse, Hague Fire Hall, Zeeland Hall, Streeter Public School, Medina Auditorium, Steele City Hall and Whitestone Battlefield.
Debra Marquart, native of Napoleon, N.D., is a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts at Iowa State University. She was Poet Laureate of the State of Iowa. She wrote the essay, Refusing Nostalgia: Memory and Place in German-Russian Country.
Marquart shared, "Where I grew up, Napoleon, was a small midwestern town in America. It often felt like an eighteenth-century European village that just happened to have televisions and automobiles. My grandfather made sausage and rhubarb wine in the basement. In the root cellar were rows of gleaming jars full of pickles and beets. Chores had to be done, and animals needed tending. My father's idea of a family outing was to pile us all into the car on Sunday evenings and drive us around to look at the crops.
"In this village of my hometown, rotund old men sat around on the park benches gossiping with each other in German and whiskery grandmothers endlessly baked, canned, sewed and gardened. In the local cafes, along with American foods like roast beef or hamburgers and french fries, on the menus were choices like choices like knoephla soup, sauerkraut and fleischkuekle."
Carol Just, native of Berlin, N.D., is a historian and preservationist. Just appears in three award-winning Prairie Public documentaries of the Germans from Russia Series. She has been closely involved with the preservation of St. Andrew's Lutheran Church, McIntosh County, N.D. She wrote the essay, The German-Russian Voice.
Just wrote, "I always wondered why our foodways more resembled Jewish or Ukrainian delicatessen food. Halupsi and borscht are not foods one associates with typical German cuisine. Words like bashtan or halvah are definitely not part of the standard German lexicon. Grandpa knew what he was doing. He died shortly after his gift of photography and memories, but he knew that if he gave me a taste of history, I would need to know more. I began reading anything and everything about Germans from Russia. The writings of Adolph Schock, Joseph Height, Richard Sallet, Monsignor Aberle, Nina Farley Wishek, Adam Geisinger and Karl Stumpp gave me a framework.”
For more information about donating family histories and photographs, or how to financially support the GRHC, contact Jeremy Kopp, at jeremy.kopp@ndsu.edu or 701-231-6596; mail to: NDSU Libraries, Dept. 2080, PO Box 6050, Fargo, N.D. 58108-6050; or go to www.ndsu.edu/grhc. You may also contact me directly at michael.miller@ndsu.edu or 701-231-8416.
June column for North Dakota and South Dakota weekly newspapers.