Prompt - Invite To Dinner
I would invite my fifth great grandfather on my maternal side. Johann Georg Krikau. He was born circa 1723 in Wolfenhausen, Hesse, Germany. It is near the present day city of Limberg about 40 miles northwest of Frankfurt. Apparently the State of Hesse was the region where the most German colonists were recruited by Russians.
This was a time of the Seven Year War (1756 -1763) involving European powers and their colonies. In Germany there was some 2000 principalities and each with its own ruler. The peasants were treated as serfs and forced to fight for their rulers. Life was constant battle with little return. They did not own the land they worked on. Often this strict unjust government wanted more despite crop failures followed by years of hunger.
After the Turkish Wars, Russia had acquired more land in Southern Ukraine, Catherine the Great needed to colonize this area to work the land and thus produce more revenue for Russia. Catherine the Great issued her Manifesto of 1763 inviting all foreigners to settle in this area. She added incentives such as traveling expenses and means for traveling to the area, freedom of religion and ability to build their churches and schools. They were exempt from taxes for some number of years. They were given parcels of land. Of course many of these incentives were not realized by the colonists and in fact they were mostly revoked by the mid 18th century, but none the less the Germans immigrated to Russia.
The 1798 Warenburg census shows only one Krikau family. Johann Georg Krikau was one of the original settlers to this new land. He was a grain farmer.
I would lead the after dinner conversation to this historical account of life at that time. I would need to hear from my fifth great-grandfather if this was a true accounting of his time. Was he in search of a better life in this new country? Or was it in part "wanderlust" that I feel runs in this side of my family? As the incentives were not realized did he regret leaving his German homeland? Did he see a good future in Russia despite all of this? I would ask him to recount the actual trip from Wolfenhausen to Saratov along the Volga River where he settled. Was it smooth sailing?
I am told that for the first settlers life was near unbearable in Russia as no construction material or tools were ever brought to them that first year. As the Russian winter approached many were forced to dig mud caves along the Volga riverbank for some protection. Did he live in one of these abodes? I would have him explain how through all this his faith grew stronger. I would want to know about his wife and children.
Mostly I would let him know that his descendants thanked him for his courage and sacrifice to take the chance to move to a new country. I would let him know that he was not the only Krikau to move away from home in search of a better life in another country.
I would let him know that I was a proud descendant of The Volga Germans from Russia.
Wendy
This is the Lutheran Church in Warrenburgh. This picture was owned by my grandmother Maria Krikau born in Warrenburgh, Samara Province, Volga Valley, Russia on June 8, 1903. The picture was gifted to her nephew who paid for a researcher to follow the Krikau line back to Johann Georg Krikau. This was the church in Russia where my grandmother was baptized. This was the same area that Johann Georg Krikau settled in some 200 years earlier.
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