Caucasus Germans

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Caucasus Germans are part of the German minority in Russia and Soviet Union. They migrated to the Caucasus largely in the first half of the 19th century, forming colonies of ethnic Germans in the North Caucasus, Georgia, and Azerbaijan.

Between 1816 and 1818, Swabian separatists moved into southern Georgia. Approximately 500 families founded eight colonies in 1818 near Tbilisi, assisted by the Imperial Russian government. The largest community was Katharinenfeld, where 95 families lived. The name was chosen in honour of Queen Catherine of Württemberg, sister of Tsar Alexander I of Russia. In the town were five football teams, a German newspaper, a primary school, a Lutheran church with choir, a hunting club, a theater group, and a town park. Elisabethtal and Alexanderdorf caused much gossip because of their paved streets.

The first German colony in Azerbaijan was established in 1818 as Alt Katherinenfeld and abandoned a year later. Soon afterwards the town Annenfeld was created on the other side of the Shamkhor. Helenendorf, present day Khanlar City was founded in 1819. The Swabians continued to come via the North Caucasus and Tbilisi into Azerbaijan. Between 1888 and 1914 six more German communities were founded and given names such as Grünfeld (Greenfield), Eichenfeld (Oakfield), and Traubenfeld (Grapefield). They claimed the fertile foothill steppes for farming and later concentrating on viticulture.

After the 1917 formation of an independent republic in the South Caucasus, the German colonists came together to form the Transcaucasian German National Council (Transkaukasischen Deutschen Nationalrat), with its seat in Tbilisi. The council published the German-language newspaper Kaukasische Post. After the occupation of Georgia and Azerbaijan by the Soviet Union in 1921, Katharinenfeld was renamed Luxemburg (becoming Bolnisi in 1944). Elisabethtal became Asureti and Helenendorf Khanlar, while Alexanderdorf was merged into Tbilisi.

In the 1930s, the German colonists in the Caucasus suffered harassment and political persecution. In 1935, 600 Germans were deported from Azerbaijan to Karelia. In Georgian Luxemburg 352 inhabitants were arrested, displaced, or murdered. In 1941, all Caucasian Germans who were not married to natives were resettled by Joseph Stalin to Kazakhstan or Siberia after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa during World War II.

Few Caucasus Germans returned to the Caucasus after the war. As of 2002, there are approximately 30 old women left in Bolnisi of German ancestry. The German town cemetery leveled under Stalin is marked today by a memorial honouring the memory of the Georgian colonists. Recently, there has been increasing interest on the part of local youth to find out more about their German heritage. Often this desire is closely related to Protestant beliefs, so as a result the Georgian Lutheran Church works intensively with these young people as part of its regular youth programs.

[edit] References

Translated from German article de:Kaukasiendeutsche as of 22/02/06. The references below are from that article.

• M. Friedrich Schrenk: Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien. In: Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien in Transkaukasien. Tiflis 1869
• Paul Hoffmann: Die deutschen Kolonien in Transkaukasien. Berlin 1905
• Werner Krämer: Grünfeld, ein deutsches Dorf im Südkaukasus. o. O., o. J.
• Max Baumann, Peter Belart: Die Familie Horlacher von Umiken in Katharinenfeld (Georgien)
• Andreas Groß: Missionare und Kolonisten: Die Basler und die Hermannsburger Mission in Georgien am Beispiel der Kolonie Katharinenfeld; 1818 – 1870. Lit, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-8258-3728-9
• U. Hammel: Die Deutschen von Tiflis. In: Georgica. Bd. 20 (1997), pp 35-43
• Immanuel Walker: Fatma. Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland, Stuttgart, 1966 3. Edition