The German settlements in Bessarabia
Subtitle: a study of the German immigration to, successful settlement in, and ultimate abandonment of Bessarabia
By: Burkett W. Huey
Publisher: TIPS Technical Publishing
Published: 2016
Place of publication: Carrboro, NC
Language: eng
Number of pages: 497
ISBN-13: 9781890586485
Copyright date: 2016
Subjects: Germans; History; Russian Germans; Ethnic relations; Emigration and immigration
Description: This study uses currently available demographic, economic, social, political and religious data to consider the history of the German settlements in Bessarabia from 1814-1940. The German settlers struggled until they learned and mastered the different crops and animals suited to the steppe environment. By the 1850s, the German colonies were successfully established with better food supplies and retained earnings from agriculture than they had had in Western Europe. Following the Crimean War, the grain trade to Western Europe from Odessa and the development of regional and national trade links within Russia further improved economic prospects for the Bessarabian Germans. World War I, the Russian Revolution, and Bessarabia's 1918 absorption into Romania brought a major economic setback. The German settlements only slowly and partially recovered. In 1940, the Soviet Union suddenly took control of Bessarabia. An agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union offered Germans a terrible choice: abandon Bessarabia and resettle or accept the changes of Soviet rule. Perceiving that remaining in Bessarabia would mean the loss of significant personal freedoms, property, and religious rights, virtually the entire population of nearly 90,000 Germans left for a bitter, temporary stay in occupied Poland.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 459-478) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Limited sources shape the study of German Bessarabia; title: Surnames and the origins of the first German settlers in Bessarabia; title: The economic situation of German peasants in eighteenth-century Prussia, Württemberg, and the Upper Rhineland; title: The German immigration to Bessarabia, 1814-1847; title: The founding of the German colonies in Bessarabia; title: The German colonies in Bessarabia had to overcome many difficulties to establish themselves on firm ground; title: Settled and communal life in mid-nineteenth-century German Bessarabia; title: Demographic data reveal conditions and customs in German Bessarabia; title: The German colonies expand in Bessarabia and Russia starts to view them differently, 1860-1870; title: The decrees of 1871 and 1874 significantly change the legal rights and responsibilities of German settlements in Russia; title: The German immigration from Bessarabia, 1875-1914: Pushes and pulls; title: German Bessarabia, 1870-1914: Economic growth, increasing prosperity, territorial expansion; title: German Bessarabia, 1914-1940: The disaster of World War I and a partial recovery of the province of Romania; title: The resettlement; title: Epilogue.