[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] german russians?

[Krampetz at aol.com]

Most Germanic peoples that had spread out of East & West Prussia
had no sense of nationality.   My own Grandfather, born in  1884
near Lipno,  gave his 'nationality' as Russian when he emigrated
in 1904.  But he spoke on Russian, or Polish.  He spoke  German,
hence he was "ethnically" German as decided by the emigration
officials.    
Poland, until 1796 was a huge country.  Covering all of today's
Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Estonia (what'd I forget?)
Russia, Austria and Prussia spilt up control then, and not until
around 1860, did Russia begin demanding Russian as the language
of their piece.  Eventually, the Germans (and the slave I'm  sure)
began thinking of themselves as "Russian", Ethnically German,
and living in Russian controlled Poland.   It'd be interesting  to
know how the 'common' person there then,  considered themselves.
 
I recently spoke with another researcher who's grandfather was
from the same area but came a bit later,   before WWI.   
He told me his grandfather, another German only speaker,  had 
never heard the word Germany and thought he was Russian until 
he arrived in the U.S.
 
There is a book I'd like to get and read that addresses this 
rising sense of nation-hood and nationality, titled:
Germans, Poles, and Jews: The Nationality Conflict  in the Prussian East, 
1772-1914 - 
It's at Amazon.com,  used for $50 & up.   
 
Bob K.
 
 
In a message dated 02/10/11 11:05:49 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
wjmilner at shaw.ca writes:

A funny  thing happened when I started researching my mother's side of 
the family  and discovered she was born in Rovno, Poland.  Looking 
through Polish  history as found in various publications, there wasn't 
much, if any,  mention of an ethnic German population.  Same thing for 
Ukrainian  history when I found  Rovno  was a city  in post war  Ukraine.  
I was somewhat confused, but over time I discovered my  mother was a 
Wandering Volhynian.   Other  discoveries:

The Partitioning of Poland
German Migration to  Volhynia
The Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
Polish-Soviet War  1919-1920.
The Aftermath of  World War 1 and Revolution in  Russia
World War 2 and relocation.

Before all of this, I just told  my Ukrainian friends my mother was 
German speaking, born in present day  Ukraine, but was German, not 
Ukrainian. She came to Canada with her  parents in 1907.  Now I just say 
they were ethnic Germans because  Germany didn't become a country until 
1871.  Historically, ethnic  Germans from Volhynia were Russian and then 
Polish citizens until WW  2.

For some additional interest about citizenship  visit:

http://members.shaw.ca/d_y_g/5florentine.htm

History has  a way to focus only on the subject of interest and some of 
the people  spoken to by Gabrielle held that focus.

Yours truly,

Jack  Milner



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