Volhynia
Volhynia
Etymology
The name is thought to derive from the now-defunct Wolyn Castle, the settlement centre of the East Slavic tribe of the Volhynians or Wolynans.
Location
The historical region of Volhynia extends from approximately 52° to 50° north latitude and 27° to 24° east longitude. To the west, it is bounded by the western Bug; to the north, by the Pripyat and its tributaries, or rather the marshlands formed by them; whilst to the south and east there are no natural geographical boundaries. Here, Volhynia extends (or extended) roughly as far as Dubno or Zhytomyr. The area of the Volhynia region is approximately 90,000 square kilometres.
Topography
Volhynia, as the northern part of the Volhynian-Podolian Plateau, forms part of the East European Plain. The north and north-west are characterised by forests and marshes, which were virtually impenetrable until the start of partial drainage works in the 1930s and still form the largest contiguous marshland area in Europe today. To the south lie fertile loess plains, followed by the foothills of the Carpathians (the Volhynian Uplands, up to 250 m above sea level). This gently undulating landscape continues to the east.
Historical Geography
In the 9th and 10th centuries, Volhynia was part of the confederation of principalities known as Kievan Rus’; in the 11th century, it became an independent principality, and from 1199 onwards it formed part of the Principality of Halych-Volhynia, or Volodymyr. In the second half of the 14th century, Volhynia came under the rule of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, whilst Galicia became part of the Kingdom of Poland; after 1569, these two entities formed the Polish–Lithuanian Union. Towards the end of the 16th century, Volhynia also became a Polish voivodeship, which passed to Russia in the course of the Partitions of Poland in 1793 and 1795 (Volhynia Governorate). Under the Treaty of Riga in 1921, Volhynia was divided between Poland and Russia (the Ukrainian SSR, which became a constituent republic of the USSR in 1922). Today, the majority of the historical region of Volhynia lies within Ukraine (Volhynia Oblast, Rivne Oblast and the western part of Zhytomyr Oblast), with smaller parts in south-eastern Poland and south-western Belarus.
Common symbolism
Earlier coats of arms of Volhynia featured a white or silver cross pattée (with arms of equal length tapering outwards) on a red field. In the flag and coat of arms of the present-day oblast, however, the white cross touches the edges.
Prehistory and Early History
The area has been inhabited since the Palaeolithic period (Old Stone Age). An early settled culture already existed between the 6th and 3rd millennia BC; Bronze Age finds (c. 1700 BC) were made at Mizoch (now in Rivne Oblast).
Middle Ages
The founding of Zhytomyr dates back to the 7th century; it was granted town privileges two hundred years later. Medieval settlements include Dubno, Kovel (Russian: Kovel’), Ladomir/Volodimir (later Ukrainian: Volodymyr-Volynskyi; Russian: Vladimir-Volynskii; Polish: Włodzimierz), Lutsk (Ukrainian: Luz’k, Russian: Luzk, Polish: Łuck) and Vosvyagel (later Ukrainian: Novohrad-Volyns’kyj, Russian: Novograd-Volynskij, Polish: Nowogród Wołyński).
Following its foundation by Roman Mstislavich (also known as Roman the Great, 1150–1205), the Principality of Halych-Volhynia was one of the most important successor states to Kievan Rus’ in the 13th century. Under Prince Danilo (Daniel, 1201–1264), it came under Mongol suzerainty following the Mongol invasion of 1240/41. Danilo was crowned King of Rus’ (Rex Russiae) by a papal envoy in 1253; however, the hopes associated with this of a successful crusade against the Mongols were not realised.
Alongside Germans (German-speaking) merchants and craftsmen who had already settled in towns, German colonists, alongside Russians, Poles and Jews, were also involved in the resettlement of destroyed and depopulated towns in Volhynia. Towns such as Volodymyr-Volynskyj, Chełm/Cholm – which was expanded into a fortress under Danilo – and Lutsk gained in importance following the destruction of Kyiv (1240).
Modern times
Jewish communities began to emerge as early as the 12th century; thanks to a policy of tolerance, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) developed into the centre of Jewish life in Eastern Central Europe, whilst Zhytomyr in Volhynia became a centre of the Hasidic movement.
A significant influx of German-speaking populations began in the late 18th century with the arrival of Mennonites, most of whom emigrated to North America after 1870. At the beginning of the 19th century, settlers arrived from Silesia and Pomerania, as well as from the neighbouring provinces of Posen and West Prussia; people from the Palatinate and Württemberg also settled in Volhynia. Whilst the Silesians were predominantly drawn to the densely forested north-west of Volhynia for timber extraction and processing, the others established agricultural colonies, mainly in the south and south-east. In 1815, the Annette colony was founded near Nowograd-Wolynsk, which is also known as the ‘mother colony of the Volhynian Germans’[1] .
Following the Polish November Uprising of 1830–31, a wave of migration began, with Germans moving from RussianCongress Poland to Russian Volhynia; this was primarily driven by political and economic factors. This movement intensified after 1860, triggered or facilitated by various factors: including the shortage of agricultural labour following the abolition of serfdom in Russia (1861), the expropriation and expulsion of landowners involved in the Polish January Uprising (1863–64), and relative overpopulation in Central Poland. Immigration from Bohemia also began around this time and was motivated and structured in much the same way. The German immigrants of this period were predominantly Evangelical Lutheran; most came from Central/Congress Poland and, without state assistance, usually settled on leased land – often on the initiative of landowners – under initially harsh conditions. The main areas of German settlement were between Nowograd-Volynsk and Zhytomyr, and between Lutsk, Rožyšče (Russian: Rožišče; Polish: Rożyszcze) and Torčyn (Russian: Torčin; Polish: Torczyn).
In the late 1880s, legislation was introduced which prohibited foreigners from acquiring or leasing land and restricted the inheritance of existing landholdings. The aim was to curb further uncontrolled immigration and to encourage immigrants who had already settled to accept Russian citizenship.
As a result of these and other legal restrictions, by 1895 around 30,000 Germans had emigrated overseas, primarily to Brazil.
In 1904 and 1905, anti-Jewish pogroms took place in Kovel and Zhytomyr.
Contemporary History
During the First World War, the land holdings of people of German descent were confiscated; in the summer of 1915, the Germans were evacuated as the German front line advanced; some of them returned after 1917–18 to the villages near the front – some of which had been severely damaged – or to their farms, which were now inhabited by Ukrainians or Poles, whilst others emigrated permanently, for example to Germany. During the interwar period, Germany stepped up its efforts to support Germans living abroad financially and culturally, to strengthen their German identity and to encourage them to stay.
In the eastern, now Russian, part of Volhynia, a famine occurred between 1931 and 1933 (Ukrainian: Holodomor), the causes of which, in addition to crop failures, included increased compulsory levies, collectivisation and the persecution of independent farmers (so-called ‘dekulakisation’), and which claimed at least 3.5 million lives in the territory of the Ukrainian SSR.
On the basis of the Secret Additional Protocol to the German–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, the so-called ‘ethnic Germans’ were resettled from those parts of Poland now ceded to the Soviet Union (SU). In the winter of 1939–40, the resettlement of Germans from Western Volhynia, organised by the Central Office for Ethnic Germans (VoMi), took place. After registration and the recording of their assets, a total of approximately 66,400 people left their home towns heading west by rail and on foot. Following stays of varying lengths in various camps – which were often overcrowded and structurally unsuitable – resettlement was carried out by the Central Office for Immigration (EWZ): Only a small proportion (13.2 per cent) were sent to the so-called ‘Altreich’; the majority (85.5 per cent) were designated as settlers in the German-occupied eastern territories (Reichsgau Wartheland, General Government) for the purpose of ‘Germanisation’, the remainder were classified as ‘special cases’, a category which included ‘foreign-born’ individuals and ‘doubtful cases’. Prior to the resettlement of the ‘ethnic Germans’, Poles and Jews were systematically and abruptly expelled so that the former could take over their houses and farms.
During the war, Western Ukraine – and with it Volhynia – was a key theatre of genocide and the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi organisations and the German Wehrmacht. The region’s history of violence also includes massacres of the Polish civilian population committed during the war by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
When German troops withdrew from Russia in 1943, 40,000 Germans also left eastern Volhynia. The Volhynian Germans settled in the Reichsgau Wartheland and the General Government fled westwards at the end of the war. From the Soviet Occupation Zone, some were deported to labour camps in the Soviet Union; they returned only years later or remained there until their departure as late resettlers. In 1945, 73 families were resettled as new farmers in Linstow, Mecklenburg. In the western occupation zones, the district of Uelzen in Lower Saxony was a focal point for resettlement, although this did not take place in a systematic manner.
Administration
Several administrative units existed within the territory of the historical region of Volhynia. Lutsk was the capital of the Volhynia Voivodeship in Poland until 1795 and again between 1921 and 1939; the present-day Ukrainian oblast is also governed from Lutsk. Only whilst it was part of the Russian Empire was the more easterly-situated Zhytomyr the provincial capital. During the German occupation in the Second World War, Volhynia, together with the neighbouring Podolia to the south, formed an administrative district of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, with Rivne as its capital.
Other towns and seats of subordinate administrative units were, or are, Dubno, Kovel and Volodymyr-Volynskyi.
Population
The majority of the region’s inhabitants were Ukrainians, and the population was multi-ethnic until the Second World War. In many towns, Jews made up the majority of the population, whilst Ukrainians and Germans lived predominantly in rural areas. After German immigration had largely come to an end at the end of the 19th century, the ethnic composition of the population in the Volhynia Governorate, as recorded in the 1897 census, was as follows[3] as follows:
| Total | Ukrainians | Jews | Poles | Germans | Russians | Czechs | Others |
| 3 million | 2,095,000 | 395,000 | 184,000 | 171,300 | 104,900 | 27,700 | 22,100 |
| 100% | 70% | 13.2% | 6.1% | 5.7% | 3.5% | 0.9% | 0.6% |
The Polish censuses of 1921 and 1931[4] show the following percentages (rounded) for the Volhynia Voivodeship (i.e. Western Volhynia)[5]:
| Year | Total | Ukrainians s (Ruthenians) | Poles | Jews | Germans | Russians |
| 1921 | 1,579,600 | 1,073,600 (68.4%) | 263,500 (16.8%) | 164,800 (10.5%) | 26,700 (1.7%) | No information provided |
| 1931 | 2,086,000 | 1,445,000 (70%) | 326,000 | 208,000 (10%) | 47,000 (2.3%) | 23,000 (1.1%) |
In the 1920s, the Polish Voivodeship of Volhynia, with 48 inhabitants per square kilometre, was one of the most sparsely populated parts of the country (the national average was 70 inhabitants per square kilometre).[6]
The Germans constituted a small minority overall; as a result of targeted settlement, ethnically homogeneous settlements – so-called ‘colonies’ – initially sprang up, particularly in the towns, whilst later, through the acquisition of land, the population in the villages became more mixed. The overwhelming majority of Germans and Ukrainians lived in rural settlements, whilst the Polish and Jewish populations were largely concentrated in the (small) towns. In the summer of 1941, the systematic persecution and murder of Jews by the German Wehrmacht and other Nazi organisations began.
Economy
In the densely forested areas, timber extraction and processing predominated; elsewhere, agriculture was the main activity, with productivity depending crucially on soil quality and cultivation methods. Trades catering to immediate needs were mostly based in the colonies, but there were also settlements specialising in particular crafts. Agricultural co-operatives had already begun to emerge before the First World War, but their growth accelerated in the 1920s and 1930s in order to alleviate economic hardship, speed up post-war reconstruction and halt rural depopulation. Industrial and commercial production mainly comprised wood and metalworking, weaving, paper manufacturing and milling.
Military history
The castle in Dubno (Rivne County) was expanded in the 19th century into a strategically important fortress, which was severely damaged during the First World War. The subsequent Polish–Russian War (1919–21) caused further destruction and delayed the reconstruction of rural settlements as well, particularly in the area around Lutsk.
During the Second World War, a German-Soviet tank battle took place in June 1941 between Dubno, Brody and Lutsk.
Society
Community life in the colonies was characterised by a strong and sober piety; socialising remained largely confined to the family and the church. The main types of associations were co-operatives and mutual aid societies/support funds, whilst trombone bands and choirs remained within the church framework.
After the First World War, greater efforts were made to create and consolidate a shared identity amongst the various German groups in Poland. In the process, the Germans in Western Volhynia also came more into the spotlight; the initiative usually came from Germans in Central Poland and led to the founding of associations such as the Association of Germans in Volhynia, established in 1921, which initially focused primarily on addressing the economic hardships faced by the Volhynian Germans. The pastors of the Protestant Church also played a central role in shaping the identity and social life of the German population.
In the towns, the small number of Germans included not only craftsmen, tradespeople and labourers but also entrepreneurs, lawyers, doctors and others; however, there does not appear to have been a more extensive social and cultural life amongst the Germans.
History of Religion and the Church
The religious composition of the population was just as diverse as its ethnic and national composition. Alongside aChristian Orthodox majority, there was a significant Jewish population, as well as members of the Roman Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran (and Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Augsburg Confession) churches, to which the majority of the Germans of Volhynia belonged. There were also smaller Pietist communities and Anabaptists (Baptists, Mennonites), as immigration was partly religiously motivated.
The largest religious communities according to the censuses of 1897 (Russian Governorate) and 1931 (Polish Voivodeship), expressed as percentages (rounded):
| 1897 | Orthodox | Jewish | Roman- e Catholic | Evangelical- , Lutheran |
| 71% | 13.2% | 9.9% | 5.8% |
| 1931[8] | Orthodox | Roman- e Catholic | Jewish | Evangelical- , Lutheran | Other |
| 70% | 16% | 10% | 2.6% | 1.4% |
Everyday culture
The everyday culture of the German-speaking population was shaped by a predominantly agrarian way of life. During the early settlement period, some of the settlers lived in earth huts; even after their return from displacement following the First World War, they continued to rely on this simple form of accommodation. Otherwise, timber-framed or log-built houses were the norm; larger farms consisted of a four-sided complex comprising a dwelling, stable, barn and shed, whilst smaller farms combined living quarters and stables under one roof. The cuisine was simple and based predominantly on self-sufficiency: dishes such as grain groats, flour soups, stews, potatoes, vegetables, fruit, bread, (sour) milk and little meat formed the basis of the diet, which showed influences from Russian and Polish cuisine. Clothing, too, was simple, practical and unadorned. Family structure and the division of labour were traditionally patriarchal; the age of marriage was low and the number of children high, not least because children were an important source of labour. Initially, the Germans’ language was shaped by their respective origins, being either Low German or High/Middle German (Silesian, Palatinate German, etc.); later, the dialects lost their prominence and a so-called ‘settlers’ German’ emerged – a form of High German enriched with Polish, Ukrainian and Russian loanwords.
Among the oldest surviving secular buildings is the castle of Prince Liubartas (1323–1383) near Lutsk (mid-14th century), alongside which churches, synagogues and monasteries dating from four centuries have survived, representing various architectural styles and national influences. Also worthy of mention is the Great Synagogue in Lutsk (built 1626–29), which displays influences from the Polish Renaissance.
Music
Musical life in the German-speaking settlements was predominantly shaped by the church and lacked variety. There were a large number of trombone bands and choirs, which mainly performed Pietist hymns and achieved only a low standard of musical performance; in the 1930s, attempts were made to raise this standard, including through the appointment of a ‘music director’ who trained the choir leaders, organised singing weeks, and so on.
The famous pianist Sviatoslav Richter (1915–1997) came from Zhytomyr.
Education
Most German colonies had a school and a place of worship, which usually formed a single building complex; lessons were taught by so-called ‘cantor’ or ‘sexton’ teachers. Apart from these elementary schools, there were no higher German schools and no German university or institution of higher education. The quality and quantity of teaching were generally low, as the children were needed as labourers in agriculture and the focus was on religious instruction. From the 1870s onwards, and more so after 1890, the state intensified its efforts to to establish Russian alongside, or in place of, German as the language of instruction; this met with resistance, particularly in the Evangelical Lutheran colonies, though it was also partly accepted as necessary for life in the Russian Empire, provided that the practice of religion in the German language remained unaffected. In 1904, the German teacher-training college in the Heimthal colony near Zhytomyr began its work, training cantors for five governorates. The small German educational elite consisted predominantly of pastors and teachers. The general level of education was low; in the early 1920s, the illiteracy rate in rural areas was in some cases over 50 per cent, a proportion that was similarly high or even higher among other sections of the population. It was not until the early 1930s that, following a ban on cantor schools in the Polish part of Volhynia, German primary schools were established under church sponsorship with qualified teachers; German language lessons were also offered in some state schools.
Bibliography
No German-language literary tradition was able to develop in Volhynia. Only a few individual German-speaking authors, such as the poet Herbert Henke (1913–?), who was born in the Annette colony, are recognised within the context of Russian-German literature.
Nor did an independent German-language political press exist in Volhynia. From 1927 to 1936, the Evangelical Lutheran Church published the *Wolhynischer Bote*, whilst the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession published the *Wolhynischer Volkskalender* (1935–38).
The writer Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) was born as Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski near Berdichev (Ukrainian: Berdyčiv; Russian: Berdičev; Polish: Berdyczów) in Volhynia.
Culture of memory and remembrance
As there was no distinct group identity as ‘Volhynians’, in the Federal Republic of Germany, Western Volhynians organised themselves within the ‘Landsmannschaft (LM) Weichsel-Warthe’, whilst Eastern Volhynians joined the ‘Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland’. The Wolhynia Historical Society, founded in 1975, is dedicated to the shared history of both groups.
In Linstow, Mecklenburg, the Volhynian Resettlers’ Museum was established in the early 1990s as an open-air museum and cultural centre.
4. Discourses/Controversies
Following the partition of Volhynia in 1921 into a Polish and a Russian part, the Germans of Volhynia were also examined within two distinct historical discourses. Research into the Germans in Western Volhynia took place within the context of the Germans in Poland and had its origins there from the 1920s onwards, whilst interest in the Germans of Eastern Volhynia was limited, with the result that this small group within the German population in Russia has remained rather marginalised and comparatively under-researched to this day.
As the research into the German population of Volhynia, carried out in the 1920s and 1930s within the context of ‘language island’ studies, was conducted under political and ideological auspices (including the strengthening and promotion of Volhynian ‘Germanness’, demonstrating colonial or ‘racial’ superiority, and providing a basis for practical ‘ethnic community work’), their findings must be viewed critically.
Bibliography
- Nikolaus Arndt: The Germans in Volhynia. A cultural-historical overview. Würzburg 1994.
- Alfred Cammann: Wolhynia: A Homeland. 2 vols. Marburg 1985 and 1988 (Publications of the Commission for East German Folklore 33 and 41) [contains numerous memoirs by Germans from Wolhynia]
- Stephan Döring: The Resettlement of the Wolhynian Germans between 1939 and 1940. Frankfurt am Main 2001 (Military History Studies).
- Susanne Düwell: ‘A Temporary Home’. Sociocultural Development and Self-Perception of the Germans from Volhynia. In: Erik Fischer (ed.): German Musical Culture in Eastern Europe. Stuttgart 2012, pp. 143–160.
- Alfred Karasek, Kurt Lück (eds.): The German Settlements in Volhynia. History, Folklore, Issues of Daily Life. Leipzig 1931.
- Dietmar Neutatz: The ‘German Question’ in the Black Sea Region and in Volhynia. Politics, Economy, Mentalities and Everyday Life in the Tension between Nationalism and Modernisation (1856–1914). Stuttgart 1993 (Sources and Studies on the History of Eastern Europe 37).
- Hugo Karl Schmidt: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Volhynia. Marburg 1992 (Publications of the Commission for East German Folklore 59).
- Jörg Wiesner: The Social and Economic Status of German Peasants in Volhynia 1919–1939. Bonn 1980. [A concise compilation based on files from the Polish Homeland Information Centre, as well as publications on ‘linguistic enclaves’ and expert reports on resettlement; however, it lacks sufficient intellectual and linguistic distance from their ideological implications.]
Periodicals
- German Journal in Poland. A monthly magazine for Germans from Poland. 1924–31.
- Wolhynische Hefte. Published by the Wolhynia Historical Society (e. V.), Wiesentheid. 1 (1979) – 14 (2007).
Web links
- www.myvolyn.de (a private website, primarily for genealogists, containing numerous historical sources, documents and photographs)
- www.wolhynien.de (collection of information on Volhynia, with a focus on genealogy)
- umsiedlermuseum-wolhynien.de/ (website of the Resettlers’ Museum in Linstow)
- www.memorialmuseums.org/laender/view/26/Ukraine (memorials portal on places of remembrance in Europe)
Notes
[1] Arndt (1994), p. 46.
[2] Figures taken from: Döring (2011), p. 232ff.
[3] Henning Bauer et al. (eds.): The Nationalities of the Russian Empire in the 1897 Census. (Sources and Studies on the History of Eastern Europe 32 A and B) Stuttgart 1991, pp. 169, 173, 175, 184, 200. The question asked was not about nationality, but about mother tongue. This led to discrepancies particularly amongst Jews, 3.1 per cent of whom (across the entire Russian Empire) stated a language other than Yiddish as their mother tongue; in Volhynia, however, the degree of correspondence is likely to have been higher.
[4] In 1921, the question concerned nationality (narodowość), whereas in 1931 it concerned mother tongue.
[5] Historia Polski w liczbach. Ludność, terytorium [History of Poland in Figures. Population, Territory]. Warsaw 1994, pp. 157 and 164.
[6] Historia Polski w liczbach. Ludność, terytorium [History of Poland in Figures. Population, Territory]. Warsaw 1994, p. 134.
[7] Research on Germans in Volhynia has focused on the majority of them living in rural areas.
[8] The History of Poland in Figures, p. 162.
Citation
Heinke Kalinke: Volhynia. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2018. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32594 (accessed 24 August 2020).
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