Catherine to Khrushchev

From Catherine to Khrushchev - The Story of Russia’s Germans
by Adam Giesinger
Copyright 1981, American Historical Society of Germans From Russia
Lincoln, Nebraska

Contents of the Books
1. SEVENTEEN SIXTY-THREE
      The conditions in Russian and Germany, Catherine II's Manifesto of 1763, the promises made.

2. NEW HOMES ON THE VOLGA
      The founding of the German colonies in the Volga region, and the difficult early years.

3. RUSSIAN EXPANSION WESTWARD AND SOUTHWARD
      The division of Poland and the conquest over Turkey, giving Russia control over the Black
      Sea region, giving Russia new territory for settlement.

4. GERMANS TO NEW RUSSIA
      The founding of German settlements in the Black Sea, the South Caucasus and Volhynia.

5. COLONISTS, NOT PEASANTS
      The special status of the German colonists in Russia, the local government and in the land
      holding system, and the Russian peasants condition.

6. LAND HUNGER
      The founding of the Volga daughter colonies, the land acquisitions of the Black Sea
      colonists, migration of Germans to Siberia, and additional German settlement in Volhynia.

7. THE EMPIRE THEY BUILT
      Information on mother and daughter colonies, location, dates founded, origins of founders,
      number of families, land holdings, and population growth.

8. GERMAN SERVANTS OF THE TSARS
      The Baltic Germans and the their role in in Russian affairs.

9. THE PROTESTANT MAJORITY
      The story of Lutheran and Reformed Protestant's in the German colonies.

10. THE MENNONITE COMMONWEALTH
      The religious development of churches and schools by the Mennonites in Russia.

11. THE DIOCESE OF TIRASPOL
      The founding of the German Catholic diocese of Tiraspol, and the churches and schools in the
      of the Catholic colonies of Volga and Black Sea regions.

12. BROKEN PROMISES SPARK EMIGRATION

      The Russian government no longer recognizes the promises in the manifesto of 1763.
      The German colonists start emigrating to the Americas.

13. BEFORE THE STORM

      The period of 1894 to 1914, the pre-World War I portion of the reign of Czar Nicholas II.

14. WAR AND REVOLUTION

      World War I, the Revolution in Russia and civil war in Russia, terror and famine.

15. COMMUNIST PARADISE

      The New Economic Policy, the Stalin regime, repression and terror, collectivization and slave
      labor camps, destruction of religion in Russia.

16. LIQUIDATION OF THE COLONIES

      Repatriation of Germans from borderlands annexed by Russia in 1939, deportation of the Volga
      Germans in 1941, the fate of the Black Sea Germans.

17. SURVIVORS IN RUSSIA

      The resurrection and whereabouts of the Russian Germans in 1955.

18. RELATIVES OVERSEAS

      The settlement of Germans-Russia in North and South America from the 1870 to the present.

Comments by Gary Martens

This book is one of the best sources of reading on the history of the Germans from Russia. The information on the formation of the colonies in various regions of Russia, and who settled in the area, is excellent. The book is available on a diskette as well as in book form from AHSGR.

The diskette form of the book is a large ASCII text file consisting of the book pages scanned and converted into text. No maps from the book are included, and neither is an index to the book. A big improvement would be to put this in a form similar to the standard Windows help pages, with random access to chapters. Making the book available in Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect format, with appropriate page and chapter breaks, and an index, would also be a big improvement.

If you like reading a book somewhere other than sitting in front of a computer screen, then I would recommend buying the book, instead of the diskette.

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This page last modified: Wednesday, December 2, 1998