Siberian Germans

ETHNONYMS: none

Orientation

Identification. Approximately 400,000 Germans live in the southern regions of western Siberia today. They consider themselves an ethnic group and trace their origin to the German people of central Europe. The Germans living in Siberia are divided into groups, named after their place of origin, and include the Schwabs (Suabians), Bavarians, Dutch, Austrians, and others. Before their arrival, three significant groups had already formed in Russia, some of whom later also migrated to Siberia. These were the Ukrainian Germans, the "Volynskie," and those from the Volga region. In 1941, at the beginning of the war between Germany and the Soviet Union, a large segment of the Volga German population was deported to Siberia. Since then, approximately one-half of all the Germans who live in Siberia have now lost contact with their origins, consider Siberia their motherland, and call themselves Siberian Germans.

The extent of German ethnic and cultural consciousness in Russia was conditioned by the fact that they emigrated at a time when Germany consisted of many states and when the general norms for a literary language were being formulated. Settlers leaving at that time often maintained some traditions that had already disappeared in Germany. In Siberia the Germans settled in separate groups and sustained their distinct local characteristics. Because of the great distances between them and bans on marriages between people of different confessional groups, the settlers were isolated from each other, which fostered the preservation of many elements of their cultures and languages.

Linguistic Affiliation. There are strong linguistic differences among the different groups of Germans. According to the Soviet linguist V. Zhirmunskii (1933), "the native language of the Germans appears to be the local peasant dialect, which they use in everyday speech with the family and countrymen; every colony speaks in its own special dialect, transferred by the settlers from Germany or learned in the new land from a mixture of different dialects." These dialects include Suabian; Saratovskii; Zhitomirskii; Volyner; and the language of the Mennonites, Plattdeutsch.

The Mennonites occupy a special place among the Germans. When the Mennonites left the Netherlands in the sixteenth century and resettled in Prussia, they did not see themselves as sharing a common origin. Among them were people of Flemish, Dutch, Frisian, and Lower Saxon ancestry. Two basic types of speech had been maintained by the Mennonites—molochnenskii and khortintskii. However, they took as a common language a Low German dialect (Plattdeutsch). As a result of their religious isolation, the Mennonites did not mix with the local peoples and thus maintained their traditional customs. At times they joined their different confessional groups into one ethno confessional unit. During and since the resettlement the Mennonites have been officially registered as Germans; most scholars think of the Mennonites as Germans. The Siberian Mennonites themselves trace their ancestry to Germans, although they also emphasize their Dutch origins.

All groups of Germans in Siberia are typically bilingual—they also speak Russian fluently. The specific dialect of the group is used most, Russian second, and the German literary language third. Only a few people know the last. These are mostly younger people who studied German in school.

History and Cultural Relations

The start of the mass settlement of Germans on Russian soil is dated to 1764-1765, when by the decree of Empress Catherine II thousands of people leaving the German principalities, Austria, and the Netherlands were resettled on the barren outskirts of Russia and guaranteed various privileges. The majority of the German colonists came from western Germany: the Rhineland, Hessen, Pfalz, Alsatia, and Baden-Württemberg.

Some of the main reasons for their migration were agrarian overpopulation, high taxes, and army duty in western Germany. For the Mennonites, however, resettlement was part of an effort to pursue their religious life-style. From 1789 until 1811, masses of Mennonites left Prussia for Russia, having escaped from the Netherlands earlier. This general relocation of Germans to Russia continued intermittently for almost 100 years. Waves of German settlers varying in composition and origin moved to the southern provinces of Russia, the Causacus, and the Volga region.

Following the law of inheritance, allotted land went only to the oldest son, which left many landless settlers who moved east, to Siberia, where land was cheaper. These settlers became accustomed to the wide Siberian steppes and endless pastures and they took up sheep breeding. By the end of the nineteenth century, masses of Germans had moved to Siberia. During the Russian agricultural reform period of 1906-1910, hundreds of new settlers came to the southern portion of western Siberia. It was then that a large population of Germans gathered, especially in the regions of Slavgorod and Omsk.

Settlements

Unique German customs were preserved within the home, but the home types and settlement patterns underwent a significant change during the emigration to Russia. The character of the environment was different, there was a shortage of traditional building materials such as stone and wood, and government rules set the village plan. Thus, instead of the typical western German "heap village (Haufendorf ), the German Siberian village adhered to a linear pattern (Strassendorf ).

The Germans did not adapt Russian peasant dwellings but made their own, combining traditional patterns with available building materials. In the southern steppes of Siberia the houses are of clay or brick; modern buildings are of brick. In the northern regions, rich in forests, wood houses predominate. There are a number of house types. In one style, the rooms in a house are arranged in a line, with a narrow front facing the street. This is often referred to as a gable-house (Giebelhaus ). In another style, houses are positioned on an axis along a street, with windows of a number of rooms facing the street. Quite popular are four-room houses in which the rooms are arranged in the shape of a cross around the main hearth or stove rather than successively. The typical Russian stove is rarely found. The floor, ceiling, and stove are painted with oil colors.

One essential element of a German farmstead is the summer kitchen (Sommerkueche ). Almost every farmstead has a special smokehouse, a barn, a bathhouse, and a yard for dung and fowl. All dwellings are arranged in a U-shape and connect under one roof.

German houses are distinguished by their durability, and the villages by their cleanliness. In many villages competitions are held for the title of best farmstead. The Germans maintain their traditional ties to their house, considering it a place not only of habitation but of cultural and even spiritual value, as well as a symbol of prestige. The outer trimmings of the house are painted in oils of two or three contrasting colors. The facades of the houses and the gates and fences are painted with drawings of flowers and swans. The interiors of the dwellings are also heavily decorated. Wooden furniture—dressers, beds, baby cribs, tables, and chairs—is carved and painted with drawings of plants. Carpets (woven of cloth or painted canvas) depict landscapes and pastoral scenes. Rugs, napkins, curtains, and bed sheets are embroidered in satin stitch depicting flowers, birds, and scenes from the Bible. The interior is further decorated with many tin and wooden boxes and cases.

The Siberian Germans have become highly urbanized, a process that has been accompanied by the disappearance of elements of their traditional material culture, including the foot-driven spinning wheel, wooden shoes (Shliory ), and items of clothing such as red knee stockings of sheep wool. In the past German women wore long, wide, dark, one-colored cotton skirts; colorful blouses; aprons; and scarfs. Dresses for special occasions had bright embroidery. The women knitted sweaters, vests, socks, and mittens. The Mennonites dressed in dark tones without adornment.

Economy

The main productive activities of the Siberian Germans are agriculture and animal husbandry. They have always produced a large marketable surplus and sold butter, meat, sheep's wool, and vegetables. The blacksmith's and joiner's trade are also practiced. Germans buy clothes and shoes and sometimes trade with one another.

Foods of the German national cuisine were retained, including many varieties of soup: noodle soup, potato soup, soup with dumplings, and fruit soup with sour cream. Germans also enjoy different salads, cakes, buns, and dumplings as well as variations of strudel. In the winter, meat and fish are smoked, fat is salted, and a variety of sausages are made. Coffee is considered a German drink. During festivals and ceremonies such as weddings and funerals, special German national dishes are mandatory. No German Christmas is celebrated without a roast goose and cabbage. The local Germans prepare their own food daily, but they also adopt specialties from the neighboring Slavs and Kazakhs.

Marriage and Family

The typical Siberian German marriage is monogamous. The man is the head of the family. The woman raises the children, takes care of the household, and is in charge of the money. In German peasant households there were always many children (approximately six to ten). Even today, such a large family is not unusual, although the trend is toward a smaller unit. The traditional importance of the family is expressed in family rites. Germans celebrate children's birthdays and christenings. The Baptist and Mennonite christening rite, considered most important, is conducted when the child has come of age.

Traditional marriage practices have been especially well maintained. The major features of the German wedding include the festive procession through the village, displaying the bride to the guests; traditional wedding songs and parting words to the young; and various frolicsome games (for example the stealing of the bride's shoes). Before everyone leaves to go to sleep, it is customary for someone to take a wreath of wax flowers from the bride's head. Marriage rites do not vary among the various German groups.

Sociopolitical Organization

In the past decades a pan-German consciousness has come to prevail over group identity. To a large extent, this is connected to the desire for an autonomous German republic, which did exist in the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1941. At that time there were five institutes that taught German, a series of German pedagogical colleges, German basic and higher general schools, three German theaters, and one German publishing house. Today German culture and language are being revived. Areas of Siberia, where Germans often live close to one another, seem to form a German quasi-national region, with German-language television and radio programs, newspapers, and journals. In German village schools, German is taught intensively, and the University of Omsk has established a department that teaches a variety of courses in German.

Religion and Expressive Culture

A large percentage of the German population belong to the Protestant church, many of them Lutherans and Evangelicals. There are also some Roman Catholics. The Mennonites see themselves as "a community of saints" that sings only religious songs; even their lullabies are religious. Mennonites observe only religious holidays, which are celebrated in homes and in the communities during prayer gatherings.

This mixed assemblage is directly related to the heterogeneous character of the German population. Today piety is part of the ordinary consciousness of the people. The characteristic isolation of representative religious assemblies has practically vanished. Now scarcely anyone pays attention to religious differences. For example, in the past, before a wedding, it was required that one of the partners in a mixed marriage change religion. But today even many pious Germans are less stringent about such matters.

Germans everywhere celebrate Christmas (Weihnachten ) and Easter (Ostern). In the past Siberian Germans celebrated Troitsa, the celebration of harvest on the day (June 25 in the West) of Ivan Kupaly (Saint John the Baptist). This was accompanied by outdoor public feasts during which people made bonfires and danced around them. Girls wove straw dolls and burned them. Even today folk celebrations and feasts are accompanied by dancing to accordion music, by the enactment of playful scenes, and by singing. Many of the songs come from parts of ancient German folk songs. The most popular are the vernacular romances, the comic couplets called Schwank, and colonial songs that appeared in the new homeland. This rich heritage is maintained by folk ensembles that perform in many of the German villages.

Bibliography

Ipatov, A. N. (1978). Mennonity. Moscow.

Naumova, O. B., and S. V. Cheshko (1989). "Sovremennye etnokul'turnye protsessy u kazakhov i nemtsev Kazakhstana" (Contemporary ethnocultural process of the Kazakhstan Cossacks and Germans). Etnokul'turnye protsessy v natsional'no-smeshannoi srede, 30-77. Moscow: Institut Etnografii.

Zhirmunskii, V. M. (1933). "Itoqi i zadachi dialektologicheskogo i etnograficheskogo izucheniia nemetskikh poselenii SSSR" (Dialectal and ethnographic results and problems in the study of the German settlements of the USSR). Sovetskaia Etnografiia 2:87-105.

TATYANA BORISOVNA SMIRNOVA (Translated by Clementine Creuziger)