East European History

13-23

Authors: Vladimir N. Shaidurov

Russia and Germany have centuries-old cultural, economic, and dynastic ties.Until the end of the 17th century, the German diaspora in Muscovy was small and concentrated in the German Quarter in Moscow.In the reign of Emperor Peter the Great (1682–1725), the Russian service was joined by many Germans, who made their careers in the army, administration and science.Until the middle of the 18th century, there was no state policy on the German population in the Russian Empire, as the ethnic group was an integral part of the Russian nobility and highest aristocracy.The reign of Catherine the Great (1762–1796) featured an active campaign carried out in Russia to engage foreign colonists in the economic development of vacant lands on the outskirts of the state. The greatest dynamism was demonstrated by the subjects of the German principalities, which at that time were ruined by the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) and the policy of Prussian King Frederick the Great (1740–1786). In Russia, the colonist districts emerged in the Volga region and New Russia, which were home to dozens of thousands of Germans in the early 19th century. Resettlement processes in Russia were predisposed by different factors based on various groups of colonists. German colonies in the Volga region were founded by settlers from an array of German principalities. They were Catholics and Lutherans, whose dream was to build a prosperous life in their new homeland. The 1780s Novorossiya saw numerous new colonies of Mennonites who emigrated from Gdansk to protect their way of life and religion from harassment by Prussian King Frederick the Great. The isolation of German colonies in Russia helped them preserve their German identity and prevented their assimilation in the Russian and Ukrainian population. Protectionism on the part of the tsarist administration contributed to an economic boom in German colonies, which became a full-fledged process in the late 19th and early 20th century. German colonies became a driver behind Russian agrarian capitalism in the Volga Region and South Russia. Germans' active engagement in the Russian economy raised the issue of the historical investigation into the German colonization in Russia, the nature of the development of the colonies from their start until the end of the 19th century. The turn of the 19th and 20th centuries witnessed the growing scientific interest to the past course of the German colonization and German colonies in Russia. At the same time, a large number of journalistic works appeared, which dealt with various aspects of life of the German population in the Russian Empire. These published works will form the basis for various research areas in historiography. They have retained their major scientific and historical value so far. Many of these works are also historical sources, since they contain abundant statistical information on Russian Germans. This article will analyze only one of the subjects in historiography – the German colonization in the second half of the 18th century. This article is based on the material published in the Russian language in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century.

32-39

Authors: Viachaslau I. Menkouski

Some twenty five years ago, we witnessed the breakup of the Soviet Union, with the now-former Soviet republics gaining (or regaining) state sovereignty. That marked the end of the history of a country that had been preconceived as a state of a totally new type, hoped to be turned into the “Worldwide Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”. Yet, researchers still use the term ‘post-Soviet’ in relation to those independent states, as to many of them the various issues and achievements of the Soviet past still bear some relevance for this day and age. In Belarus and Russia, the attitude of both the authorities and the public toward the Soviet past and Soviet history has mostly been a complicated one. This array of issues definitely incorporates the history of Stalinism in all its dimensions and ramifications. Presently, the objective analysis of the historical experience of the Stalin period of the Soviet history is becoming, afresh, a matter of common civic significance. It has become the primary objective of national historiographies to “develop new national histories” and alter the paradigms created in the Soviet years. The search for national self-identification is naturally accompanied by criticism of the previous historiographical model, which was intended to provide a historical rationale for co-existence within a single state. It is worth noting, in this regard, that historical science performs the function both of “a policy oriented toward the past” and of a science that shapes the future.