1.2 The Russian colonization of Bessarabia

After gaining Bessarabia in 1812 and the victory over Napoleon (1813), Tsar Alexander I began with the colonization of Bessarabia. Immediately, his government adopted measures to ascertain the ownership of the existing (sedentary) population and to settle uninhabited lands of the steppes. In the south there were Bender, Akkerman, Ismail and several other settlements as established settlements, the rest of the land, an endless steppe and grassland was criss-crossed by nomadic Tartar tribes and their flocks of sheep.

The tsar seemed obsessed with settling the conquered border region with dependable and diligent people in order to develop the large areas agriculturally. Bulgarians ¹⁾ and Germans were in the Russian opinion the best-suited peoples for the task. They were supposed to serve as examples for the other nationals of this region and officiate as exemplary farmers. Russian farmers were not considered seriously, since they had been enslaved and thus not capable to independently work their own farms. The slavery of farmers was abolished finally in 1861.

The Russians were familiar with the German ways from other colonization efforts (for instance the Volga settlements and the settlements of the Black Sea region around Odessa) the settlement of Bessarabia was a systematic continuance of colonist settlement. In order to win Germans over to settle and cultivate Bessarabia, the promises and grants were repeated, which had already served Tsarina Catherine the Second so well when she settled the Volga regions. (Manifest of July 22, 1763) Alexander the First repeated those promises in settling the Black Sea region to the Caucasus (Manifest of February 20, 1804). (See 1.3, The Origins of the German Colonists of Bessarabia)

Alexander the First recruited German settlers especially for the colonization of Bessarabia in his edict of November 29, 1813, where he called for “Independent Emigrants for Russia.” (See exact wording at 10.1, Documents and Reports from Government and Administration) He especially targeted the inhabitants of the Duchy of Warsaw, which had been established as a dependant state by the grace of Napoleon of 1806 and occupied by Russia after the fall of Napoleon. ²⁾ This area, which had been divided with the three partitions of Poland (1772-1795) and split between Austria and Prussia, had originally been settled by German colonists, mainly from the southwestern regions of Germany. These people had suffered a lot in the Napoleonic Wars.
When the Tsar sent his recruiters to the Duchy of Warsaw in 1813, they found many open ears among the German settlers. They were promised a number of concessions to make the settlement attractive and get a quick start on it. (See below, Colonist Statutes)
The Russian colonist recruitment started a virtual emigrant flood from Poland to Bessarabia. More than 1,500 families went on the journey between 1814 and 1815 alone.

Many took their chances and advantage of the opportunity of a new beginning and escape from misery, although they had to leave their immobile belongings without compensation for them and be debt free in order to be given permission to leave.

Image 3: Copied from Wikipeda
Sitaniec/Schitonitz, is roughly indicated here. A group of Krasna emigrant families came from there.

Aside from these so-called Warsaw colonists, people of the bordering regions to the Prussian state, for instance from West Prussia, immigrated to Bessarabia. The Russian call-up of November 1813 was met with interest in the rest of Germany, as well, especially in Württemberg, where the long lasting wars had done a lot of damages. The law against emigration had been rescinded there. (See 1.3, Origin of the German Colonists of Bessarabia)

The Russian government denoted South Bessarabia (the Budshak region) as the original settlement area for the German emigrants.
The Budshak was surveyed and a general plan was made, the area divided into different sized parcels. ³⁾ Each parcel received either a number or a letter.
Three settlement areas were planned:

1. For German colonists, the central part:
   German colonists were supposed to settle the central river areas of the rivers Kogälnik, Tschaga, Tschiligider and Sarata with a strip of land 10-25 kilometers wide and 75 kilometers long. (The area between the later colonies of Leipzig in the northwest and Sarata in the southeast) The Imperial Plan envisioned an enclosed settlement area with fifteen parcels of land comprised of 115,548 desjatines ⁴⁾) and 1943 square faden. Added to this came the land which the Tsar had given to Lendl ⁵⁾ (divided into 3 parcels and measuring 131,600 and 1,800 square faden). Both areas together made about 131,600 (about 143,700 hectares).
2. For Bulgarian colonists, the western part:
   West of the strip of land earmarked for the Germans, Bulgarian settlers were settled to the shores of the Pruth (on 73 parcels of land, measuring 557,609 desjatines). They were granted (1819) the same rights as the German settlers.
3. For Russian crown-farmers and land owners__, the eastern part:
   The regions yet unsettled as of 1823 east and northeast from the German settlements were
   
   • Settled by Russian crown farmers, who only received a part of the privileges granted the German and Bulgarian colonists, otherwise they were bound by the laws of the land.
   • Given to high-ranking dignitaries, some of them of German origin, by the tsar.
     They often established large holdings, (areas ranking from 1,000 to 10,000 hectares), a total of roughly 173,000 ⁶⁾ they often had their land worked by Russian small farmers “for a half.” ⁷⁾

Russian agencies carried out the settlement of the German emigrants in Bessarabia according to plan. In the year of 1814 the first three colonies were founded: Tarutino, Borodino and Krasna.
Within the structure of the state run Russian colonization, 24 villages of German settlers, called mother colonies ⁸⁾ came into being in the Budschak. Twenty-three villages were inhabited by Evangelical Lutherans, one village (Krasna) by Catholics ⁹⁾.

There were two groups of German colonists, the “Schwaben” and the “Kaschuben”. The South German colonists were considered Schwaben. Their dialect, specifically the Suebian dialect of Württemberg, became prevalent among the colonists of all of Bessarabia. Only Krasna had a dialect leaning toward the Palatinate speech of the Pfalz region.
“Kaschube” was a belittling kind of a nickname for the colonists from northern Germany and their dialect of “platt-deutsch”. They were not related to the actual Slavic tribe of Kaschubs from the region around Danzig.

The mother colonies came into being in 4 phases of settlement:

• Immigration from Poland (1814-1821) 14 communities
• Division of existing communities of the first phase (1823-1824) 3 communities
• Immigration from Württemberg (Lendl followers) (1822-1834) 3 communities
• Settlement by re-settlers from Poland and offspring from the communities already existing in Bessarabia and the Cherson region of Odessa (1834-1842) 4 communities
  

Image 4: This image was copied from Wikipedia.de
Krasna was located there within 24 German mother colonies.

These colonists were often divided into two groupings: Warsaw colonists (21 colonies) and Württemberg Bavarian colonists (3 colonies) The land areas designated for German colonists were settled as follows:

Image 5: The colonial land of the Germans in Bessarabia (in 1827) sketched after the original map
The dotted lines indicate the borders between the German colonies.

From the beginning of the settlement of 1814 until the end of state run settlement activities in the year of 1842; roughly 11,000 people ¹¹⁾ immigrated to Bessarabia.
Initially they were predominantly from the Duchy of Warsaw, which is now central and northwest Poland, some came from West Prussia and surroundings (roughly 9,800 people); later families emigrated directly from South Germany. A small portion of south German families who had come to the South Russian Cherson area (near Odessa) moved on toward Bessarabia, as well.

The state-run Russian colonization ended in 1842 with the founding of the final mother colony (Hoffnungstal). No more immigrants came from Germany. When farmland became scarce within the 24 mother colonies due to growth and expansion, an internal colonization effort of the Bessarabian Germans already living there, began. They bought or leased land from major Russian landowners and founded new villages, the so-called daughter colonies. By 1914, there were 125 daughter colonies, including farmsteads. As a result of the agricultural reform in Rumania of 1918-1921, 15 so-called hectare villages were formed after 1920. These parcels came from land taken from owners who had more than 100 hectares of land and distributed to the landless at 6 hectares apiece.

The colonization of Bessarabia was the last link in the settlement of Germans in Russia; the government utilized its experience concerning requirements for the colonization efforts of new settlers.
The most important privileges (See tsar’s edict, November 29, 1813) were the freedom from taxation and payments in kind for a period of ten years, freedom from military service and freedom of religion. The settlers were also given the right of self-government and establishment of schools. Each family received 60 desjatines of land (65 hectares) and the bare necessities to build a provisional settlement house, called crown’s home, since the crown paid for this dwelling. In contrast to the Russian farmers, the colonists were not slaves, but free people.
The promises made to the colonists are reflected in the government instructions for governing.
Instructions for internal affairs and administration of the New Russian foreign colonies were established around 1800 and expanded to govern the Bessarabian colonies. They existed with little or no changes until the colonist status was rescinded in 1871 ¹²⁾

In regards to land ownership and order of the land, the following rules were of great importance for the later colonial development. (See 4.2, Land owner and inheritance laws in Bessarabia)

• All lands set aside for colonial settlement, the “crown’s land” was provided them as a lasting possession which could be inherited, but not as a personal possession, but as communal property of each colony.
  
• Crown provided land was inherited by the youngest son (Minorate). This inheritance law only concerned crown’s land.

The Bessarabian colonists were taxed by the state. After the exemption time had passed, taxes and tributes had to be paid. (See 4.10, Taxes and Tributes, Tributes in Kind)

An important factor of the colonist statute was the regulations pertaining to self-government. The community assembly was the decision maker. The assembly elected the village mayor and two assistants. The country communities were ordered into a districts and had a district office, formed by the village mayor and the two assistants. Until 1871, the Welfare Committee was the state governing authority, which was not subject to internal government but responsible directly to the crown. (See 4.8 The administration)

It is interesting to note the special regards to church and school. The colonists had been assured of their freedom of religion; the school was closely connected to the church. The communities were responsible for the schools and had to fund them on their own.
See note 5, Church, schools and associations

In spite of the German colonists’ great contributions to the modernization of Bessarabia, they came under political pressure during the second half of the 19th century. Many Russians saw the privileged position of the colonists as a thorn in their eye. This resentment escalated until the once promised privileges were rescinded under the framework of the upcoming Slavic Nationalism movement. (See note: 2.3, The changes from the second half of the 19th century (ca 1860-1918)

The colonist status was abolished in 1871 and the colonies were placed under the common state institutions. From then on the German colonists were common Russian subjects and since 1918 Rumanian subjects.
The introduction of military service lasting several years and lack of land led to the exodus of many colonists starting in 1874, they targeted especially North America, Brazil, and Argentina.
In the years following 1880 the German independence became more and more difficult. Finally, Bessarabia got tangled into the confusion of the Russian October Revolution and ended up under Rumanian government. (See 2.4, Belonging to Rumania and the Soviet Union (1918-1940)

The Bessarabian Germans left the land in the fall of 1940 due to the division of land according to interest between the Soviet Union and the German Reich. (See 2.5.1, The Resettlement) Thus ended the phase of German settlement in Bessarabia after a settlement time of 126 years (1814-1940)