[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Emmigration Pommern to Volhynia

[Jerry Frank]

Richard is correct in stating that there was no major threat against the 
Germans in Russia until at least 1905.  Over 200,000 Germans still living 
in Volhynia alone in 1900 can't be wrong about that.  If this was a serious 
threat, it may have been an isolated incident involving your specific 
family or it may have been an exaggeration.  Note that it was about 1888 
and the few years following that Russians did begin to clamp down on German 
culture.  As one example, Russian was enforced as the language of 
instruction in schools and Germans were not given long to make this change.

As for the reasons for migration, I hold to 2 things:

1.  The most common reason for migration anywhere is economic.  People like 
to give altruistic or exciting reasons but they are often not the complete 
story.  For example, the Mennonites always assert that they migrated to 
Russia because they were promised freedom from military service, something 
very important to their pacifist theology.  My question for them is - how 
many would have gone if they did not also get free land?  I am convinced 
the numbers would have been significantly lower.  Quoting from the posting 
earlier today about the show in Zhytomir, "The main stream of the Germans' 
resettlement into the Northern Ukraine fell on the last third of the 
nineteenth century, predominantly colonist peasants attracted by the lure 
of cheap land."  That is an ECONOMIC reason and it probably applied whether 
the migrant was from Pomerania or Russian Poland or some other place.

2.  You cannot apply one family's experience in migration to yours without 
connecting the 2 families in some way.  I have heard people claim that 
their family migrated under the invitation of Catherine the Great when in 
fact their family migrated 100 years after her death from a place not 
impacted by her invitation to a place for which she had no plans to 
encourage settlement!  I have even seen this rational applied to migration 
in Prussia and Galicia (Austro-Hungary) where she didn't rule!    If your 
family migrated to the Volga River area in the 1760s, you can lay claim to 
the migration taking place under the terms of her Manifesto.  If your 
family came to Volhynia in 1860, there must be a different reason.  In 
either case, there was probably some form of economic motivation.




At 04:58 PM 08/01/2003 -0500, Marlo wrote:
>My husbands grandparents emigrated from the area of Pommerania, Stolp,
>Lauenburg or Rummelsburg to area Volhynia, villages of Elisabethin.
>Elzbiecin. I think the largest city near by was something starting
>with Rosz---.
>I know this isn't much but I wonder why they emigrated to Volhynia
>around 1878.   My mother-in-law once told me they had to leave
>Volhynia in 1888 or be killed. That's when they came to America and
>settled in SW Michigan.  She never explained any more.  Can someone
>help?
>The information about Volhynia villages is out of the St. Petersburg
>birth records.
>Marlo

Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta
jkfrank at shaw.ca