![]() For the Volga-Germans, this meant the formation in 1924 of the Volga-German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (VGASSR in German Autonome Sozialistische Sowjetrepublik der Wolgadeutschen – ASSWD in Russian Avtonomnaya Sovietskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika Nyemtsev Povolzhaya – ASSRNP Communists preferred their acronyms without too many vowels). The Nationalities Policy established after the Communist Revolution of 1917 provided for limited territorial autonomy for many of the 100-plus non-Russian peoples living in what was subsequently called the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Additionally appealing to religious communities such as the Mennonites was the promise of exclusion from military service – later revoked, causing an emigration wave of Volga-Germans to the Americas (where many settled in the Plains areas of the US and Canada, where they could practice agriculture in a similar way as in their ancestral areas). Fact is, it was mainly Germans who responded to her offer – Germany suffering from large-scale poverty at the time, other European nationalities preferring emigration to America. Whether or not there was a special link between her country of birth and the direction of her plea, I do not know. In 1762, she invited Western Europeans to immigrate to Russia to farm and develop the sparsely inhabited parts of her Empire, promising them they could maintain their language and culture. ![]() ![]() Yekaterina, as she was known to her subjects, was born in Stettin as Sophie Fredericke Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst, a German princess. That story starts with one of Russia’s most influential monarchs, Catherine II the Great (1729-1796), whose enlightened rule lasted for almost the entire last third of the 18 th century. ![]()
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