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Volga Germans

The Volga Germans (German: Wolgadeutsche, pronounced [ˈvɔlɡaˌdɔɪ̯t͡ʃə] ; Russian: поволжские немцы, romanizedpovolzhskiye nemtsy) are ethnic Germans who settled and historically lived along the Volga River in the region of southeastern European Russia around Saratov and close to Ukraine nearer to the south.

Wolgadeutsche

394,138[1]

200,000[2]

Recruited as immigrants to Russia in the 18th century, they were allowed to maintain their German culture, language, traditions and churches (Lutheran, Reformed, Catholics, Moravians and Mennonites). In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many Volga Germans emigrated to the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Argentina.


After the October Revolution, the Volga German ASSR was established as an autonomous republic of the Russian SFSR. During World War II, the republic was abolished by the Soviet government and the Volga Germans were forcibly expelled to a number of areas in the hinterlands of the Soviet Union. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, many Volga Germans emigrated to Germany.

(born 1939), American billionaire businessman.[39]

Philip Anschutz

(1908–1942), American USMC fighter pilot.[40]

Harold W. Bauer

(born 1947), American politician.[41]

Tom Daschle

(1949–2020), Argentine singer-songwriter

Sergio Denis

(1941–2013), American political philosopher and academic.[42]

Jean Bethke Elshtain

(born 1963), American former Zoo owner.[43]

Joe Exotic

(born 1984), German singer, dancer and entertainer.[44]

Helene Fischer

(born 1962), American musician.[45]

Tim Gaines

Sir (born 1958), Russian-born Dutch-British physicist and 2010 Nobel laureate.[46]

Andre Geim

(born 1944), American politician, 30th Governor of Wyoming.[47]

Jim Geringer

(1908–1965), German chess player who became woman's champion of the US.

Sonja Graf

(born 1978), Argentine football player.[48]

Gabriel Heinze

(born 1967), Argentine-born Peruvian football player.[49]

Óscar Ibáñez

(born 1948), Russian politician, governor of Tomsk Oblast, Russia.[50]

Viktor Kress

(born 1946), American musician, original bassist with the Eagles.[51]

Randy Meisner

(born 1988), Russian-German football player.[52]

Roman Neustädter

(born 1966), Kyrgyz-born German football player and coach.[52]

Peter Neustädter

(1915–2001), scientist, physicist in Russia.[53]

Boris Rauschenbach

(born 1937), Russian politician.[54]

Eduard Rossel

(born 1984 or 1985), American software engineer and labor activist.[55]

Cher Scarlett

(1934–1998), Russian composer.[56]

Alfred Schnittke

(born 1990), American singer of Big Time Rush.

Kendall Schmidt

(born 1985), Kazakh footballer

Heinrich Schmidtgal

(born 1999), Russian racing driver.

Robert Shwartzman

(1935–2019), Uzbek artist and art restorer.[57]

Alvina Shpady

(born 1988), German Internet celebrity active in China.[58]

Afu Thomas

(born 1987), American football player.[59]

Mitch Unrein

(born 1991), Argentine football player.[60]

Sergio Unrein

(born 1952), Bishop of Transfiguration at Novosibirsk

Joseph Werth

(born 1953), Russian politician and former Governor of Orenburg Oblast

Yury Berg

(spelled according to standard German pronunciation rules:) Mehr wolla mohl gaern in die sche gehl Kaerrich geha.

(in German:) Wir wollen einmal gern in die schöne gelbe Kirche gehen.

(in English:) We would like to go into the beautiful yellow church.

The greatest number of Volga Germans emigrated from Hesse and the Palatinate, and spoke Hessian and Palatine Rhine Franconian dialects[61][62] to which the colonists from other regions, and even from other countries like Sweden, assimilated.[63] Some Volga German dialects are very similar to Pennsylvania Dutch, another Palatine Rhine Franconian language; in either dialect, one could say:[61]


Some other common words:[61][64][65]


The above list only attempts to reproduce the pronunciation and does not represent how the Volga Germans wrote. The dialects of the Germans of Russia mainly presented differences in pronunciation, as occurs in the diversity of the English language. However, Volga Germans wrote and kept their records in Standard German.


Volga Germans only borrowed a few but anecdotal Russian words, like Erbus ("watermelon" from Russian арбуз "watermelon"),[66] which they carried with them on their subsequent moves to North America[62] and Argentina.[67]


The High German variety influenced by dialects and spoken by Volgan Germans who moved to Argentina is called Paraná-Wolga-Deutsch. It is also spoken in the Brazilian state of Paraná in addition to the Argentine province of Entre Ríos.[68]

Kazakhstan Germans

History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union

Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

Volhynia

Russian Mennonites

Baltic Germans

Merten, Ulrich (2015). Voices from the Gulag: The Oppression of the German Minority in the Soviet Union. Lincoln, Nebraska: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia.  978-0-692-60337-6.

ISBN

Koch, Fred C. The Volga Germans: in Russia and the Americas, from 1763 to the present (Penn State Press, 2010).

Mukhina, Irina. The Germans of the Soviet Union (Routledge, 2007).

Salitan, Laurie P. "Soviet Germans: A Brief History and an Introduction to Their Emigration." in Politics and Nationality in Contemporary Soviet-Jewish Emigration, 1968–89 ( Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1992) pp 72–83.

Waters, Tony. "Towards a theory of ethnic identity and migration: the formation of ethnic enclaves by migrant Germans in Russia and North America." International Migration Review (1995): 515-544.

The Volga German Institute at Fairfield University

Archived 2008-09-03 at the Wayback Machine

The Center for Volga German Studies at Concordia University

Germans from Russia Heritage Society

Flag

Volga Germans

American Historical Society of Germans from Russia

Germans from Russia Heritage Collection North Dakota State University

(in Spanish)

Germans from Russia in Argentina Genealogy

(in Russian)

Wolgadeutschen

The Golden Jubilee of German-Russian Settlements of Ellis and Rush Counties, Kansas

Germans from Russia in Argentina

German Memories - Volga Germans Migration Towards Americas

Elaine Frank Davison Germans from Russia collection at the Whitman College and Northwest Archives, Whitman College.