Chances are, I'm a folklorist because I'm a German-Russian. In high school I listened to history lectures about generals, congressmen, presidents, and statesmen, knowing that my people had never in their fifty years tenure in this country produced anything more than three generations of migrant farm laborers and factory workers. I read Faulkner, Hemingway, Cather, and Frost, but found no mention of Koehlers, Weyandts, or Schwindts. My people, it seemed, had no art in the galleries, no music in the concert halls, no gourmet dishes, no ballet, no heroes, no giants.
But I knew better, or at least I hoped I did. The determination and integrity of my grandparents was certainly no less than that of Washington or Eisenhower, their spiritual strength no less than Lincoln's. In my Aunt Anna's cellar and in Mother's quilts was an art that made the paintings I had seen in the university gallery look silly by comparison. To me, the tinkling fury of the hammered dulcimer seemed no less an accomplishment than what I had heard in concert halls. The Krautpirogs rye bread, and Broda of my mother's table are a feast without comparison.
The power of my people, I decided, is not so much in extraordinary accomplishments by unique individuals as within the daily processes and craft of the culture as a whole. That is, the contribution of the German-Russian people to man's cultural tapestry lies within their traditions, folklore, and day-to-day accomplishments. That teachers and scholars ignored the power of my people's tradition--and almost all other traditions, including the American, for that matter--was their loss, it seemed obvious to me, and it would by my loss only insofar as I accepted the narrowness of elitist studies.
Settlement in Russia
The world-wandering of the German-Russians began in the late eighteenth century when they and so many others were leaving war-torn Europe for other parts of the world they hoped--usually in vain--would be more peaceful. Germany lay at the commercial and military crossroads of the continent. If France fought Poland, it was across Germany's breast. When Catholics fought Protestants, it was all too often on German soil. If petty dukes squabbled or emperors and popes fought for new territories on earth or in heaven, their armies trampled German fields.
Just as large numbers of Germans escaped that tumult and came to America about the time of this country's revolution, becoming Pennsylvania "Dutch," many others followed the German Empress Catherine to Russia. She issued a generous invitation, a manifesto, to her German countrymen, and even today its provisions are attractive: full religious freedom, exemption from military service, full autonomy in local government, school, and church matters, free transportation from Germany to the Volga Valley, approximately eighty acres of free land--a huge holding in conventional European terms even today--interest-free loans of five hundred rubles, and a tax exemption for ten years.
The response of land-hungry, war-weary Germans to the tsarina's generous offer was overwhelming. Germany was finally forced to close her borders to emigration to prevent crippling depopulation. Russia, too, was surprised at the response to the manifesto and had trouble meeting its promises to the colonists of developed farms and villages. But despite minor disappointments, the
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