Country: Russia
Group: Volga Germans
Date Finalized: 4/12/2022
Team: Erin Fagan (lead), Ash Pessaran, Gabby Staker
Content Warning: physical violence, ethnocide, discrimination
Approximate Time Period: 1910s-1940s
The Volga Germans in Russia were subjected to lethal violence between the 1910s and 1940s in various ways.
.Beginning in the 17th century, after Catherine the Great’s proclamation awarding Germans land, Germans settled in Russia along the Volga River. In 1924, the German ASSR was established, but soon disbanded during the war (Minority Rights Group, 2020). Joseph Stalin launched a plan that aimed at boosting Soviet industrialization, which he did by declaring agricultural land state property. In doing this, he caused mass famine in the Volga region causing mortality between 300,000 to 400,000 (Watson, 2020). Along with this, between the years of 1915-1945 Volga Germans experienced mass executions, forced labor, and violent deportations, often resulting in death (Watson, 2020). Currently, many Volga Germans have been able to naturalize as German citizens, and in turn, the population of Volga Germans in Russia has significantly decreased.
Data Quality: Rated a 2/3 because there are multiple sources, but none of them are peer-reviewed.
Sources
- Genocide. Welcome to the Volga German Website. Watson. F (2020). Retrieved March 27, 2022, from https://www.volgagermans.org/history/genocide#:~:text=In%20all%2C%20from%201915%20to,deliberate%20starvation%2C%20and%20brutal%20deportations.
- Minority Rights Groups. Russian or Volga Germans (2020). Retrieved March 27, 2022, from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/russian-or-volga-germans/