Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2007)
Autonome Sozialistische Sowjetrepublik der Wolgadeutschen
Автономная Советская Социалистическая Республика Немцев Поволжья
Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
Autonomous republic of the Russian SFSR
←
1918–1941 →
 
→
Flag Coat of arms
Flag Coat of arms
Location of Volga German Republic
Capital Engelsa
Chairman (Central Executive Committee)
 -  October 1918–March 1919 Ernst Reuter
Legislature Supreme Council
History
 -  Established 19 October 1918
 -  Disestablished 28 August 1941
Political subdivisions 14 cantons
a. Known as "Pokrovsk" or "Kosakenstadt" before 1931.
Streckerau, 1920 (Novokamenka).
Volga German cities and settlements

The Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (German: Autonome Sozialistische Sowjetrepublik der Wolgadeutschen; Russian: Автономная Советская Социалистическая Республика Немцев Поволжья Avtonomnaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika Nemtsev Povolzh'ya) was an autonomous republic established in Soviet Russia. Its capital was the Volga river port of Engels (known as "Pokrovsk" or "Kosakenstadt" before 1931).

Contents

History [edit]

The republic was created following the Russian Revolution, by October 29 (some claim 19th)[1] Decree of the Soviet government, Volga German Workers' Commune, giving Soviet Germans a special status among the non-Russians in the USSR.[2] It was upgraded to the status of Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on February 20, 1924 (claims of December 19, 1923),[1][2] by the Declaration of the All-Union Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR. It became the first national autonomous unit in the Soviet Union after the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic. It occupied the area of compact settlement of the large Volga German minority in Russia, which numbered almost 1.8 million by 1897. The republic was declared on January 6, 1924.

The ASSR was divided into fourteen cantons: Fjodorowka, Krasny-Kut, Tonkoschurowka, Krasnojar, Pokrowsk, Kukkus, Staraja Poltawka, Pallasowka, Kamenka, Solotoje, Marxstadt, Frank, Seelmann, and Balzer.

After the Russian Revolution the deeply religious Volga Germans, 76%[citation needed]of whom were Christians of the Lutheran faith, immediately came into conflict with the anti-religious Bolshevik revolutionaries.

As of 1919, pastors were labelled counterrevolutionary propagandists and sent to gulags in Siberia.[3]

During the Russian Civil War some Volga Germans enlisted with the White Army and, as a result, fierce attacks by the Red Army on Volga German communities took place. In the aftermath of the war, the famine that swept the USSR took the lives of one third of the Volga German population.[citation needed]

To the moment of declaration of the autonomy an amnesty was announced. However it eventually was applied to a small number of people. According to the politics of korenizatsiya, carried out in 1920s in the Soviet Union, usage of German language was promoted in official documents and Germans were encouraged to occupy management positions. According to the 1939 census, there were 605,500 Germans in the autonomy.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 marked the end of the Volga German ASSR. On August 28, 1941, Joseph Stalin issued a formal Decree of Banishment abolishing the ASSR and, fearing they could act as German spies, exiling all Volga Germans to the Kazakh SSR and Siberia. Many were interned in labor camps merely due to their heritage.[2] The Republic was formally extinguished on September 7, 1941.[2]

After the war, they were forced to sign contracts that promised they would never return to the Volga area.[citation needed]

Following the death of Stalin in 1953, the situation for Volga Germans improved dramatically. In 1964, a second decree was issued, openly admitting the government's guilt in pressing charges against innocent people and urging Soviet citizens to give the Volga Germans every assistance in their "economic and cultural expansion". With the existence of a socialist German state in East Germany now a reality of the post-war world, the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was never reestablished. The land area is now part of Saratov Oblast.

Beginning in the early 1980s and accelerating after the fall of the Soviet Union, many Volga Germans have emigrated to Germany by taking advantage of the German law of return, a policy which grants citizenship to all those who can prove to be a refugee or expellee of German ethnic origin or as the spouse or descendant of such a person.[4] This exodus has occurred despite the fact that many contemporary Volga Germans either do not speak German or have a poor grasp of the language. In the late 1990s, however, Germany made it more difficult for Russians of German descent to settle in Germany, especially for those who do not speak the German Volga dialect.[citation needed]

Population [edit]

The following table shows population of the ethnic groups of the Volga German ASSR:[5]

1926 census 1939 census
Germans 379,630 (66.4%) 366,685 (60.5%)
Russians 116,561 (20.4%) 156,027 (25.7%)
Ukrainians 68,561 (12.0%) 58,248 (9.6%)
Kazakhs 1,353 (0.2%) 8,988 (1.5%)
Tatars 2,225 (0.4%) 4,074 (0.7%)
Mordvins 1,429 (0.3%) 3,048 (0.5%)
Belarusians 159 (0.0%) 1,636 (0.3%)
Chinese 5 (0.0%) 1,284 (0.2%)
Jews 152 (0.0%) 1,216 (0.2%)
Poles 216 (0.0%) 756 (0.1%)
Estonians 753 (0.1%) 521 (0.1%)
Others 710 (0.1%) 3,869 (0.6%)
Total 571,754 606,352

Leaders [edit]

Head of State [edit]

Russian map depicting the location of the Volga German republic in the Soviet Union (yellow, bottom of the map).
Central Executive Committee Chairmen (see Ispolkom)
  1. 1918-1919 Ernst Reuter (1889–1953) (German statesman, diplomat, Mayor of Berlin)
  2. 1919-1920 Adam Reichert (1869–1936) (teacher, journalist, kolkhoznik)
  3. 1920 Alexander Dotz (1890-1965+) (World War I participant, Russian statesman)
  4. 1920-1921 Vasiliy Pakun (Russian statesman)
  5. 1921-1922 Alexander Moor (1889–1938) (World War I and Russian Civil War participant, Russian general, Russian statesman, Turkmenistani statesman, Uzbekistani statesman, shot in Tashkent)
  6. 1922-1924 Wilhelm Kurz (1892–1938) (Russian statesman, entrepreneur, shot)
  7. 1924-1930 Johannes Schwab (1888–1938) (Russian statesman, shot)
  8. 1930-1934 Andrew Gleim (1892–1954) (Russian statesman)
  9. 1934-1935 Heinrich Fuchs (?-1938) (Russian statesman, shot)
  10. 1935-1936 Adam Welsch (1893–1937) (World War I participant, chekist, regional party leader, Russian statesman, shot)
  11. 1936-1937 Heinrich Lüft (1899–1937) (Russian statesman, shot)
  12. 1937-1938 David Rosenberger (?-?) (Russian statesman)
Supreme Council Chairman
  1. 1938-1941 Konrad Hoffmann (1894-?) (World War I participant, railways worker, Russian statesman)

Head of Government [edit]

Sovnarkom of the Republic

Created on January 12, 1924 by the declaration at the first session of the Central Executive Committee of the Republic

  1. 1924-1929 Wilhelm Kurz (1892–1938) (Russian statesman, entrepreneur, shot)
  2. 1929-1930 Andrew Gleim (1892–1954) (Russian statesman)
  3. 1930-1935 Heinrich Fuchs (?-1938) (Russian statesman, shot)
  4. 1935-1936 Adam Welsch (1893–1937) (World War I participant, chekist, regional party leader, Russian statesman, shot)
  5. 1936-1937 Heinrich Lüft (1899–1937) (Russian statesman, shot)
  6. 1937-1938 Wladimir Dalinger (1902-1965+) (Russian Civil War participant, security forces officer, Russian statesman, entrepreneur)
  7. 1938-1941 Alexander Heckman (1908–1994) (engineer, Russian statesman, GULAG survivor)

State Security Directorate [edit]

State Political Directorate
  1. 1926-1929 Yakov Bodesco-Michali (1892–1937) (World War I (Austria-Hungary) and Russian Civil War participant, chekist, Russian officer, shot)
  2. 1929-1932 Andrey Adamovich (1891–1948) (World War I and Russian Civil War participant, Russian general, chekist, fired from NKVD administration (1939), Order of Red Star)
NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs)
  1. 1934-1935 Aleksandr Bubennov (temporary placed)
  2. 1935-1937 CPT Samuil Denotkin
  3. 1937 1LT Wladimir Dalinger
  4. 1937-1938 1LT Illya Ressin
  5. 1938 LT Ivan Shuster (temporary placed)
  6. 1938-1941 CPT Aleksandr Astakhov
  7. 1941 MAJ Vladimir Gubin (1904–1972) (Komsomol activist, party leader (Ukraine), chekist, Russian statesman, Order of the Badge of Honor, Order of the Red Banner of Labour, Order of the Red Star, Order of the Patriotic War)

References [edit]

  1. ^ a b Encyclopedia of History of Communist Part (Russian)
  2. ^ a b c d J. Otto Pohl (1999). Greenwood Publishing Group, ed. Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR, 1937-1949 (illustrated ed.). pp. 29–37. ISBN 0-313-30921-3. 
  3. ^ Brief history of Volga Germans
  4. ^ Barbara Dietz, "German and Jewish migration from the former Soviet Union to Germany: Background, Trends and Implications", Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 26, No. 4 (October 2000): 635-652.
  5. ^ http://demoscope.ru

See also [edit]

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Volga German ASSR
By name
Coat of arms of the Soviet Union
By year
established
   

1918–1924  Turkestan
1918–1941  Volga German
1919–1990  Bashkir
1920–1936  Kazakh (Kirghiz)
1920–1924  Mountain
1920–1990  Tatar
1921–1990  Adjar
1921–1945  Crimean
1921–1991  Dagestan

1922–1990  Yakut
1923–1990  Buryat1
1923–1940  Karelian
1924–1940  Moldavian
1924–1990  Nakhchivan
1924–1929  Tajik
1925–1990  Chuvash
1930–1992  Abkhaz
1932–1992  Karakalpak

1934–1990  Mordovian
1934–1991  Udmurt
1935–1943  Kalmyk
1936–1944  Chechen-Ingush
1936–1944  Kabardino-Balkar
1936–1990  Komi
1936–1990  Mari
1936–1990  North Ossetian
1944–1957  Kabardin

1956–1991  Karelian
1957–1990  Chechen-Ingush
1957–1991  Kabardino-Balkar
1958–1990  Kalmyk
1961–1990  Tuva
1990–1991  Gorno-Altai
1990–1991  Karachay-Cherkess
1991–1992  Crimean
1 "Buryat–Mongol" until 1958.
Historical
Diaspora
Europe
Elsewhere
Balkans and Southeastern
Elsewhere
Asia
Oceania
See also
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Volga_German_Autonomous_Soviet_Socialist_Republic&oldid=554774400"