foreign settlement in russia under catherine ii

Australia and New Zealand Slavists’ AssociationNew Zealand Slavonic Journal

Foreign Settlement in Russia under Catherine IIAuthor(s): ROGER BARTLETTSource: New Zealand Slavonic Journal, No. 1 (1974), pp. 1-22Published by: Australia and New Zealand Slavists’ AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40920953 .

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The New Zealand Slavonic Journal 1974, No. 1

ROGER BARTLETT

Foreign Settlement in Russia under Catherine II

Like the New World, Russia in the 18th century appeared to many Europeans as a land of promise. It retained some of the charms, and the terrors, of the unknown. At the same time, in the second half of the century, the vogue for things Western in the upper circles of Russian society, and particularly in the increasingly cosmopolitan society of the capitals, offered rich opportunities for the enterprising or those down on their luck. The German scholar August von Schlözer, looking back on St. Petersburg as he had known it in the 1760's, remembered

a continuous influx of foreigners, especially of Germans of which the half had been thrown up on the snores of Russia by the storms of ill success, strange adventures and cunning projects. At that time everybody was allowed in who was able to show a passport from some unheard-of little town, and no questions asked.1

Such people might try their skill as tradesmen and artisans, usually dealing in articles of conspicuous consumption, or - notoriously - offer themselves as tutors to noble families. At a higher lever, the Russian government was glad to welcome, and often itself recruited, entrepreneurs and technical experts. Such were the Dane Christian Lieman, the real founder of mechanised cotton-printing in Russia, or the Scot Charles Gascoigne, former director of the Carrón Company of Falkirk, Scotland, a highly successful industrial organizer and courtier.2 The St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences drew many of its members from the overcrowded academic world of Germany3 - Schlözer himself began his career in this way; and the French Revolution brought a new type of immigrant, ranging from the nameless royalist rank and file, through the petty nobility which clung tenaciously to its connections at Court in hopes of fortune by Imperial favour, to aristocrats such as the Duc de Richelieu, who after a distinguished career in Russian service returned to be Prime Minister of France under the Restoration.4

All these immigrants came as individuals. But Catherine's reign was notable for official interest in the wider possibilities of immigration from abroad, an interest realized in the large-scale programme of recruitment and settlement, begun in 1763, which attracted tens of thousands of foreigners to Russia in the last third of the 18th century. The initiative for the programme came from the Empress herself, and was expressed in Imperial Manifestos of 1762 and 1763; these provided the framework for almost all subsequent immigration in the reign.5

Catherine's mass immigration scheme was not of course in any way a novelty. Such policies were commonplace in Europe at the time, and 1



particularly in the years following the Seven Years' War. Britain and France sought settlers for colonies in the New World; earlier in the century the British government had also settled Germans in Ireland. Spain created German colonies in the Sierra Morena; Denmark tried to settle Jutland with foreigners, and Austria similarly to populate the south-eastern territories of her Empire. The exponent par excellence of foreign colonization was, however, Frederick the Great of Prussia, who continued in this respect a Prussian policy dating from the middle of the 17th century. By the end of Frederick's reign (1786) about one fifth of his subjects were either foreign immigrants or their descendants.6

This widely-held concern with the recruitment of foreign immigrants was in fact merely one facet of a wider preoccupation with the question of population levels and population increase as an aspect of political economy. The 18th century showed in general a steady growth in population throughout Europe; but levels remained low relative to state requirements, or at least they were thought to be so. On the other hand, mercantilist and cameralist doctrines, and the later theories of the Physiocrats, all stressed the connection between economic prosperity and a large population. It was a commonplace of 18th-century thought that "the wealth and power of a state depend upon the numbers of its subjects"; and means proposed to increase those numbers included measures to influence birth, death and fertility rates, to improve medical services, to encourage immigration - even to legalise polygamy. There were some dissenting voices - Malthus had his precursors in the 18th century - but the middle decades of the century, and particularly the 1760's and I770's, were the heyday of what has heen called "populationism". The trend was particularly strong in the absolutist states of central Europe, Prussia and Austria, and it was they who produced the most influential theoreticians of the time: for instance the Austrian Sonnenfels, the Prussians Justi and Bielfeld. But in Britain and France, where such ideas had had earlier currency, they also found very wide public acceptance. In 1763, for example, they served the Wilkite paper, "The North Briton", in an attack on Britain's recent extensive gains from France in North America:

I believe it is a point which even none of the Scotch writers will deny, that the richness of any country does not proceed from the greatness of its extent, but from the number of its inhabitants ... That we have acquired a large extent of territory no one will deny, but we -are to consider, first of all, how this territory is to be peopled, before we think of raising its importance or making it of any account.7

The ideas of "populationism" were equally well-known in Russia by the middle of the 18th century, and generally accepted there. Lomonosov's letter to I.I. Shuvalov "On the Preservation and Increase of the Russian People" (1761) is fully in this tradition and recommends, among other things, the recruitment of foreigners to

2 settle in the Empire.8 Other writers followed. Catherine herself was an



ardent supporter of these views, even before her accession. She showed the greatest interest in this side of affairs in the early years of her reign; and besides her measures to promote foreign settlement, the 1760's produced a new Medical College, Betskoy's Foundling House in Moscow, and the introduction of population statistics on the Swedish model.

Catherine's concern in this field - as indeed that of all theoreticians and practitioners of "populationism" - was closely connected with developments in other areas of the national economy. Russian industry and trade grew rapidly in the last third of the 18th century. Both the actual economic situation in the country, and the government's attitude to economic expansion, favoured a vigorous population programme. The government was well aware of Russia's under-used natural resources, and there were in addition special reasons for populating some of the peripheral areas of European Russia. Thus the first major foreign settlements of the reign were made in the 1760's on the lower Volga, at this time the frontier region of Russian cultivation and settlement as they advanced slowly down the river.9 Catherine had already as Grand Duchess commented on the economic significance of Russia's south-eastern trade, for which the Volga was a major artery.10 Similarly, particularly after 1774, colonization efforts were concentrated on the newly-acquired lands north of the Black Sea. At the very beginning of the reign, the British Ambassador had noted the economic and political significance attached to the Black Sea by the Empress and her advisers.1*1

So there were compelling reasons to increase both the population as a whole, and the density of settlement in specific regions. And this concern for economic advance harmonised fully with the practice, already long-established, of seeking foreigners individually or in small numbers to supply particular skills needed by the government. The famous Manifesto to foreigners issued by Peter I in 1702 was addressed primarily to soldiers, then to artisans and merchants.12 And it was the latter category which provided some of the best-known enclaves of foreigners in the Empire. The Western merchants of Archangel, Moscow, St. Petersburg, had counterparts of different nationality in the south. The old-established Armenian trading colonies of the W. Ukraine and Poland were followed by later communities in large Russian towns and in particular, at the end of the 17th century, in Astrakhan. From the same period dates the celebrated Greek Brotherhood of Nezhin in the Ukraine. Both the Astrakhan Armenians and the Nezhin Greeks were encouraged by the Russian government, which had high hopes of the contribution such foreign merchants could make to Russian commerce. The foreigners benefited from considerable privileges and the right to local self-government; and this advantageous position served both as an incentive and as a precedent for later Greek and Armenian immigrants entering Russia.13 The Astrakhan Armenians also partici- pated in Catherine's immigration programme. 3



Of a somewhat different nature was the immigration directed to the southern Ukraine in the 1750's, the decade before Catherine's accession: the notorious "Serbian" military colonies of New Serbia and SI avy ano serbia. Founded by Serbian officers formerly in Austrian service, they provided a focus for immigrants of all Balkan nationalities. New Serbia's population included a number of Montenegrins recruited in the 175O's under a separate government programme, and some of whom had settled initially in Orenburg Province. In the cases both of the Serbs and the Montenegrins, the initiative for the migration to Russia came from the foreigners themselves; and the Serbian settlements were remarkable for the wide autonomy granted to their commanders in matters of administration and self-government.14

The 1750's saw other projects for foreign colonies in the Ukraine, proposing however to use Western settlers, and in several cases linked with the Seven Years' War. One project suggested the establishment of textile production by French Protestants; another the settlement of Prussian deserters. And the government, in considering these proposals, showed great interest in the experience of Western nations which had undertaken such ventures: the fate of the Huguenots in Britain and Prussia, the (hitherto very small) success of Denmark's attempts to attract foreign settlers. Nothing came of these plans, which were impracticable under the circumstances of the later 1750's.15 But the recruitment of foreigners was at least widely canvassed and discussed in government circles, so that Catherine on her accession found ready understanding and acceptance for her own ideas.

All these factors - the widely-shared concern over population density and economic prosperity, the activities of other European states, previous immigration into Russia, and Catherine's personal interest - served to focus attention more sharply on what was in fact a perennial Russian problem: in S.M. Solov'yov's words, "that perpetual evil of the Russian land, the physical lack of people, the disproportion of the population to the area of the enormous state". ^ This disproportion was exacerbated by the effects of serfdom, which immobilised potential settler material in the central provinces, while the territories of the periphery remained empty. The apparent lack of free population for settlement purposes has been seen as one main cause of the government's search for settlers abroad; and it clearly did have some effect.17 But several other points must be considered. As has been pointed out, preoccupation with foreign immigration was a general European phenomenon. And even in the specific Russian context serfdom may have hindered, but it never halted, native settlement of peripheral areas. The population of the S. Ukraine, for instance, never grew more rapidly than between the third and fourth revisions: 1763-82. It grew principally through migration, and the majority of newcomers were Ukrainians and Russians.18 Disquiet over low population levels, at home and abroad, was not always well-informed. Catherine herself, for example, shared the common misconception that

4 the French population had declined in the 18th century (the reverse of



the truth).19 And such misconceptions were reinforced by the fashionable doctrinaire views on population in general. In any case, the traditional belief in the cultural and technical superiority of foreigners encouraged many supporters of Catherine's policy who laid less emphasis on the purely numerical side of the question; while the pure "populationists" were on the contrary primarily concerned simply to increase numbers - quality and geographical distribution took second place in an Empire "that supports twenty million inhabitants and could support two hundred million".20

Nonetheless, serfdom and its effects had close connections with Catherine's policy on immigration. Besides its other springs already mentioned, that policy derives significant interest from Catherine's keen concern, in the early years of her reign, with the social and economic position of the peasantry. To begin with, there was the fugitive problem. The flight of the peasantry to border regions of the Empire, and abroad, had reached huge proportions by the middle of the century. The authorities vacillated in their treatment of the problem, between harsh repression and military expeditions on the one hand, and offers of amnesty on the other. Neither approach proved very effective. At the same time it was increasingly accepted that such flight had strong justification: Lomonosov was not alone in denouncing pomeshchik oppression and recruit levies as its principal causes.21 From the "populationist" point of view, of course, the problem of flight took on additional gravity; and the very first steps towards an organized scheme of foreign immigration were closely intertwined with relatively liberal measures designed to win back fugitives from abroad.

In the years immediately following Catherine's accession, however, the peasant question was the subject of much more far-reaching debate in Court and official circles. There is no need to recount here Catherine's interest in the question of property rights and the amelioration of the peasants' condition. The evolution in this respect of her Instruction, the activities of the Free Economic Society, the debates in the Legislative Commission, have been much discussed.22 One field rather less well-known is the activities and personalities of Baltic serf-owners and their opponents at this time. As will be seen, some provisions of the immigration programme bear a close resemblance to the abortive projects of Pastor J.G. Eisen von Schwarzenberg, a German settled in Livonia and an avowed foe of serfdom, who found some favour at the Imperial court in the 1 760's and worked closely for a time with the brothers A. and G. Orlov. Eisen and his activities deserve fuller treatment than can be accorded them here.23

On 14 October 1762, less than four months after Catherine's accession, the Senate received the following decree:

... in accordance with the law and in consultation with the College of Foreign Affairs, for this is a political matter, [you are] to receive henceforth into Russia without further report to Us all persons 5



wishing to settle, except Jews. We hope in time by this means to increase the glory of God and His Orthodox faith, and the well-being of Our Empire.24

The first public step towards foreign immigration was an official Manifesto, published on 4 December that same year. Brief, and couched in general terms, it cordially invited foreigners to settle wherever they wished in the Empire; and at the same time it called upon all fugitive Russian subjects to return home, under promise of amnesty.25

The College of Foreign Affairs dispatched the proclamation to all Russian Ministers accredited abroad, to be published and acted upon immediately. Most Ministers were sympathetic to the idea; but several requested further information, and in particular greater details of what they could offer would-be immigrants.26 There followed some eight months of deliberations, in and out of the Senate.27 The discussions threw up a multiplicity of suggestions, including proposals for a special government office for immigration; and they also drew into the debate several related topics which are of interest for the light they throw upon the terms in which official circles were thinking. Immigration was considered and encouraged from all possible areas, from the Caucasus and the Balkans as well as from W. and S. Europe and Scandinavia. And, once the form of the proposed immigration office had been determined, other groups of the population were put forward for inclusion under its jurisdiction: widows and orphans without other means of support and, perhaps more relevant, slaves escaping from the Kirghiz of the Ural steppes, who were traditionally given asylum if they converted to Orthodoxy.28 Neither of these proposals was implemented; they remain simply interesting digressions. TTie first was presumably suggested by the exactly contemporary establishment of the Imperial Foundling House in Moscow.29

On 22 July 1 763 there appeared a second Manifesto, accompanied by two amplifying decrees.30 These announced the creation of a Chancellery of Guardianship of Foreigners (Kantselyariya Opekunstva inostrannykhj, which was to have special responsibility for immigrants until such time as they should become accustomed to life in Russia. G.G. Orlov, Catherine's favourite, was to be President of the new body - an indication of the importance attached to it by the Empress.3' The Manifesto itself struck, in its preamble, an interestingly mercantilist tone:

Whereas we, knowing the vast Extent of Lands in our Empire, find amongst the rest a great many very advantageous and convenient Places for the settlement and Habitation of Mankind, which remaine yet uncultivated, and amongst which many have unexhaustable Treasures of divers metals hidden in the Bosom of the Earth; and they having Woods, Rivers, Lakes, and Seas belonging to Commerce, enough, are very convenient for the increase and augmentation of many Manufactures, Fabricks, and

6 other Works.32



In amplification of the general offer of December 1762, all foreigners settling in Russia, and their descendants, now received a comprehensive range of promises and guarantees. They could enter and leave the country freely (with certain adjustments by the Customs authorities); they would receive travelling expenses for the journey to Russia, and free travel and maintenance within the Empire. They could choose their own profession, and their own place of residence. Freedom of religion was guaranteed and, for those "desirous to settle themselves not in the City's or Towns, but separately in the open Fields, by Colonys or by Places", the right to build churches; though they might not set up monasteries, nor try to convert native Christians to their own confession. Only Muslim subjects of the Empress were fair game - to be converted, and even enserfed. Freedom was promised also from all dues and taxes for a fixed number of years: least in the capitals (five years), most in the "Colony's" and "Places" (30 years). Immigrants were likewise to be free, in perpetuity, from all kinds of compulsory service, civil or military (except local "public works" duties). Separate settlements also received the right to internal autonomy, and to hold fairs without payment of the customary toll. In general, all necessary assistance was promised, including land grants and cash loans, to help establish the newcomers. And a special clause concerning entrepreneurs guaranteed still further privileges for those introducing new industries into Russia: ten-year exemption from duties on all imports, and the right (open also to any foreigner setting up a new enterprise) to purchase serfs for its labour force.33 Finally, anyone dissatisfied with the conditions offered could negotiate other terms with the Chancellery of Guardianship.

These privileges amounted, at least on paper, to a very great deal; and they provided the basic legal framework for the immigration of foreigners into Russia over the next forty years. Initially, the government's intention was to conduct its recruitment of foreign immigrants directly through the Russian Ministers abroad; and copies of the second Manifesto were duly dispatched to them all. The only exception was Obreskov in Constantinople: even the first Manifesto had been considered too offensive to the Turks for him to publish it openly, and now the clause on the enserfment of Muslims made his position even more delicate. Most Russian Ministers in the West also had to act carefully, since the principles guiding Catherine in the field of foreign settlement were also those of many European governments. The Russian representatives in Berlin and Paris could not proceed openly in view of existing legislation. Austria and Sweden, which had permitted publication in their newspapers of the first Manifesto, banned the second; and Austria issued further decrees restricting emigration.34 Many states of the Holy Roman Empire already had similar laws. In sum, the only areas where recruitment of foreigners could be carried on openly were, on the one hand, a few countries such as Britain and Holland, which with reasonably high standards of living, with domestic peace, and with colonization programmes of their own, did not offer very good prospects; and on the other, those smaller states of war-torn Central 7



Europe, largely in S. Germany, which had no legislation against emigration or were too weak to prevent it.

This fact explains the predominance of Germans among the foreign immigrants into Russia, a phenomenon which subsequently gave cause for much ill-founded nationalistic comment, both German and Russian. Germany was the great hunting-ground and a main source of settlers for all the powers then engaged in "internal colonization"; and reality was quite contrary to the stubbornly persistent view that the German colonists in Russia were a special fifth column of Frederick the Great, a part of the Drang nach Osten, or else the favoured countrymen of the German woman on the Russian throne.35 The equally persistent claim that German settlers were especially prized for their culture and technical expertise is also wide of the mark for Catherine's reign, though it has some justification for the early 19th century?6 In fact, Russia in the 1 8th century recruited foreigners for settlement wherever practicable; and while Germans sailed in across the Baltic, Caucasian immigrants were founding the frontier outpost of Mozdok near the Caspian,37 and the already established Balkan immigration was continuing through the south.

The diplomats to whom recruitment had been entrusted set to work at once, some without waiting for the more detailed provisions of the second Manifesto. They were hampered, however, by all the circumstances of their office: their official position, residence in the capitals, lack of close contact with the lower classes and in particular with the bulk of the population, in the countryside. The only effective publicity media available to them were newspapers and individual handbills; and there were other problems. Typical of the troubles which had to be faced was the experience of A.R. Vorontsov, the young and zealous Ambassador in London. He succeeded in engaging locally some two to three hundred recruits, and began paying them maintenance of "a few shillings a day". A ship was hired - the "Sally" - under Capt. Alexander Murray, who agreed to take the emigrants as far as Libau. While these arrangements were being completed, however, the would-be settlers became the objects of rival agents recruiting for N. America. Despite contractual obligations, Vorontsov's numbers dwindled, and finally just 68 set sail in the "Sally". Even so, difficulties had only begun. The ship suffered storm damage in the North Sea, and put into a Dutch port for repairs. There a number of the passengers got drunk; and finally, after a quarrel with the crew, most of them categorically refused to sail further. Some appealed to Gross, Russian Minister at The Hague, to send them overland. Gross would not act in the matter, and the settlers were finally dismissed, to go where they pleased. The "Sally", returning to England, foundered; and the Russian government found itself obliged to pay the full sum and interest due by contract to the owners, especially as the British Minister in St. Petersburg intervened in the matter. The British Government meanwhile was incensed at the manner of Vorontsov's operations, since he had failed

8 to seek permission for his recruits to leave the country.38



Few of the other Russian representatives abroad were quite so unlucky as Vorontsov. But the disadvantages of relying solely on Russian diplomats had become obvious. Accordingly, the Chancellery of Guardianship adopted another method: the use of special recruiting agents. This practice was widespread in Europe at the time; there were many professionals, often ex-officers who had gained commissions by raising troops in the recent wars, who hawked their services to any taker. The first to suggest an alternative procedure was Simolin, Russian Resident in Mitau and one of the most active of the diplomats in the matter of recruitment.39 But overtures were being made at the same time to other Russian Ministers in the West, and the Chancellery in St. Petersburg received requests and proposals of a similar nature. Special instructions for this new departure had to be sought from the Empress, who gave her permission with the warning that "all must act cautiously in respect both of [national] interest and of policy".40

Most of those engaged as agents were French and German, though in the south they included a retired Hungarian colonel, a Serbian priest, and a government interpreter of Moldavian origin. Three types of agent were engaged. Firstly, accredited Crown Commissioners were established in Lübeck, which became the principal point of departure from N. Europe, in Ulm, and in Frankfurt am Main. They received a salary, and had official written instructions regulating their conduct.41 Secondly there were those, such as the agents mentioned in the south, who undertook to supply a given number of settlers on a contractual basis, at a set price per head. The third category, who shared with the second the title vyzyvateV, contracted to supply settlers not in return for money - although they received loans to help them in their work - but in return for a land-grant on which their recruits were to be settled. Their profit lay in exploiting the land so granted - and, as it later turned out, the settlers on it as well.42

Most of the agents proved to be both enterprising and unscrupulous; and they enjoyed great success. They were in any case considerably helped by general conditions in many parts of Europe, then still suffering from the effects of years of war. Besides the agents' recruits, other migrants made their own way into Russia. Such individual immigration occurred especially in the south, principally through Kiev, where the recruitment and reception of foreigners was directly in the hands not of the Chancellery of Guardianship or its representatives, but of the Governor of the newly-created Province of New Russia, Lt.-Gen. A.P. MeFgunov.43 The special privileges offered also attracted some Western merchants and entrepreneurs, though numbers were small, and the enterprises set up largely ephemeralf4 while the Astrakhan Armenians grasped the opportunity to increase their numbers still further, translated the Manifesto into Armenian, and dispatched copies to "our reliable friends in Persia". They later claimed a significant increase in the number of their fellow-countrymen arriving from that country.45

The greatest success with recruitment was achieved in Western and 9



Central Europe in the years 1763-66: some 30,000 emigrants entered Russia, of whom 17,886 came from Lübeck in 1766 alone.46 But this very success aroused still further the hostility of European governments and finally resulted in a ban, imposed in 1768 by Joseph II, on all emigration from the states of the Holy Roman Empire. At the same time, success brought its own internal problems. The administrative system set up to deal with the immigration was overwhelmed; and these difficulties, political and organizational, led to the suspension of Russian operations abroad already in 1766.47

In the actual formulation and execution of policy on immigration, government thinking in the 1 760's showed two somewhat conflicting tendencies. Both had certain presuppositions in common: a concern with "empty spaces" and underpopulation in certain parts of the Empire, and the hope that foreigners could supply some of the technical skills lacking in Russian society and the economy. Beyond this, however, views diverged. The first tendency was concerned, primarily, to attract a maximum number of immigrants, with little attention to quality or profession. And if any preference was expressed in the latter respect, it was usually for those engaging in crafts, industry, and trade. This trend can be seen in the preamble to the 1763 Manifesto, and in some of the deliberations of the Senate. In December 1 762' Catherine herself ordered that body, as part of the immigration programme and

for the acquisition of great advantage to the state, to recruit foi settlement in Russia foreign craftsmen and skilled workers of different types, who are to be allowed to settle not only in places assigned, but may also according to their wishes live in all Russian towns and earn a living by their skills ...48

For the proponents of this view, the reference in the 1763 Manifesto to "those who come over by many Familys and by whole Colony's and settle themselves on the open Fields or uncultivated Grounds", who were to enjoy the 30-year tax immunity and other privileges mentioned, did not imply exclusively agricultural settlement. One striking example of this was the government's approval of the Moravian colony of Sarepta near Tsaritsyn, whose economy was not based in agriculture, and whose textile and craft products became known throughout the Volga region and beyond.49 Catherine herself went further still and in 1765 explicitly applied the relevant clause of the Manifesto to the essentially urban Armenian community of Astrakhan.50 The grant of larger immunities to independent settlements was also in harmony with recent prohibitions on further industrial development in the two capitals.51

It was this approach to immigration which dominated the early stages of recruitment. Little care was taken to select suitable people, and the earliest arrivals - from Danzig, Stockholm, and Hamburg -

10 were largely craftsmen and factory hands.52 The Chancellery of



Guardianship, however, took a somewhat different view. It shared the high hopes of Western technical expertise widespread among the Russian upper classes. Orlov in one report to the Empress claimed that "Your Imperial Highness' native subjects in various places may learn various crafts hitherto unknown to them, the amelioration of ploughland, and particular aspects of agriculture itself" from the newcomers.53 The Chancellery also viewed the immigration programme largely in terms of rural settlement, interpreting in this sense §2 of its Instruction,54 which required that foreigners be persuaded, but "without coercion", to settle in "empty places". And this, in turn, was taken to mean primarily agricultural settlement.55 The rather different emphasis of the Chancellery of Guardianship had in some respects unfortunate results for the immigrants. The 1763 Manifesto offered them free choice of profession and domicile, and a list had been appended to it specifying land in various regions available for settlement. In March, 1764, however, the Chancellery chose a stretch of territory on the Volga around Saratov, which was to be an area of exclusive foreign settlement;56 and to it were directed, with few exceptions, all the immigrants who arrived in St. Petersburg. A special Commissioner, Ivan Kuhlberg, ostensibly appointed to record the colonists' wishes in this matter, sent on even those who specifically wished to go elsewhere or to join the army. A few resisted, "despite much exhortation to them on my part that they should pursue their trade together with agriculture", as Kuhlberg reported to the Chancellery. But the names of even these recalcitrant few appeared in the lists of Saratov colonists.57 The result of this policy was to create a very ill-assorted population in the Saratov settlements, a population in part quite ignorant of agriculture.

Between 1764 and 1767, 104 villages or "colonies" were established on both sides of the Volga, above and below Saratov.58 However, if the Saratov kolonistsky okrug was by far the largest, it was not the only settlement of the 1760's - some immigrants did avoid Kuhlberg's impressment. In 1765 foreigners waiting at Oranienbaum, near the capital, to be sent on to Saratov, were informed of "H.I.H. pleasure" that some colonies should be established near St. Petersburg itself; and 60 German families signed an agreement with F. Udolov, the manager of Tsarskoye Selo, to whom the project had been entrusted. In the following two years a total of six villages was created, with a total of 177 families59 The rights and obligations of the St. Petersburg and other similar colonists - the term became standard usage after 1 764 - were set out, unlike those of the Saratov colonists, in contracts to which all heads of household subscribed. Colonies were set up on this basis at Ostrogozhsk near Voronezh (Riebensdorf, 1766, 81 families); near Riga, in Livonia (Hirschenhof and Helfreichsdorf, 1766-9, 81 families); near Tsaritsyn, south of the Saratov colonies (the Moravian or Herrnhuter settlement of Sarepta, already mentioned); and between Nezhin and Kharkov in the Ukraine (the six Belovezh colonies, 1766, 167 families).*© 1 1



While Sarepta was subordinated directly to the Chancellery of Guardianship in St. Petersburg, and the colonies outside the capital came under the jurisdiction of the Tsarskoye Selo administration, all the other separate colonies mentioned stood under the local regional authority. For them the Chancellery remained merely a court of appeal in case of infringement of their contract. The Belovezh colonies were administered by the Little Russian College, whose President, Rumyantsev, also had charge of the settlement of immigrants arriving through Kiev who did not go to New Russia. On the suggestion of the Chancellery of Guardianship a new department was created in the College in 1767, for the purpose of supervising these newcomers and encouraging further migration, particularly from the Danubian principalities?1 Those migrants from that region who had already entered Russia also negotiated a contract to settle near Kiev.62

Settlement by contract was not confined, however, to agreements between government bodies and immigrant groups. In 1765 the Chancellery of Guardianship published a scheme extending it to private estates as well, at first only in Ingermanland (around St. Petersburg), later - in 1767 - throughout the country.63 There were two possibilities. Firstly, landlords were allowed to settle foreigners on their own lands, by mutual agreement. The landowner took over the colonists' financial obligations to the Chancellery, which thereafter had no interest in the settlers except in cases of breach of contract. Orlov stressed that many immigrants wished to settle like this, "that is, partly with owners of villages, partly with merchants, and especially with factory owners, who ... wish to take them for work in all sorts of crafts".64 Secondly, land-grants were made available to any applicant, on condition of peopling the land with immigrants or with "free people living here already". The poselitel', as recipients of such grants were called, had ten years to fulfil his norm of settlement, the land reverting to the Crown in case of default. As in the first procedure, great stress was laid on the personal rights of the settlers, and the binding force of the contractual agreement. The timing and the provisions of this system are strikingly close to the work of Pastor Eisen, who in the years 1764-66 was planning inventories and contractual tenure for Russian Crown peasants on estates newly granted to private individuals in the St. Petersburg region.65 The second procedure was in any case a common method of settlement in the south, where it continued to be used to good effect.

The colonization process in the far south, the area of settlement of the Serbian colonies, was continuing parallel to the newly organized immigration programme of 1762-3. But Catherine's accession brought changes here as well. New Serbia and Slavyanoserbia had remained a focus for immigration throughout the 1750's. Their commanders, however, and particularly Col. Khorvat in New Serbia, had shown

1 2 themselves quite unprincipled; and in addition the military effectiveness



of the settlements was negligible. Khorvat had powerful friends in St. Petersburg, and managed repeatedly to stave off retribution. But his continuing misdeeds brought about a reckoning, and Catherine's policy of asserting central control over peripheral parts of the Empire led to a complete reorganization of the area's administration. Following a high-level investigation, Khorvat was banished, the regiments composing the settlements were broueht fully under the control of the Governor-General of Kiev, and their territory was renamed the Province of New Russia. The Governor of the new Province was to be Lt .-General Mel'gunov, a former Commander of the region and a member of the investigating commission.66

One of the first tasks assigned to Mel'gunov was the creation of a new legal and administrative structure for New Russia. An instruction of 1763 stipulated that the new framework should be based on the official rights and privileges granted to New Serbia, and that Mel'gunov should have particular regard to factors conducive to immigration from abroad, "in accordance with Our personal decrees and Manifestos concerning the immigration of fugitives and foreigners"?7 The results of MeFgunov's deliberations were published in March 1764 under the title "Plan, concerning the distribution of state lands in the New Russian Province for their settlement".68 The primary considerations in the composition of this document were the critical border position of the province, jutting as it did into the "free lands" of the Zaporozhian Cossacks and lying exposed to Tatar attack. Its character remained military, and the demands of military efficiency were paramount. But in many respects the Plan shows close parallels both with the regulations governing the Saratov colonies and with other features of the legislation of 1762-3. Much attention has been devoted to the Plan in recent works on the S. Ukraine, in particular that of Polons'ka-Vasylenko. She points out the Plan's "populationist" features, and the subordination of the entire life of the province to the needs of colonization. The Plan also included high-minded (but unrealized) provision for hospitals, foundling houses, and even - exalted dream - for the free education of all children of both sexes.69

The basic prescriptions of the Plan, governing land allocation and the rights and obligations of settlers, had great significance in the development of the S. Ukraine throughout the remainder of the 1 8th century. As new areas in the south were annexed or ceded to the Russian Empire, the Plan was extended to each in turn, and facilitated their settlement both with native and with foreign elements.70 The population of the area grew very rapidly in this period, particularly (as has been remarked) between 1760 and the 1780's. While the majority of newcomers were native Ukrainians and Russians, many Moldavians and Wallachians also settled. The largest single group of foreign settlers were some 31,000 Greeks and Armenians, Christian subjects of the Crimean Khan, who moved in 1778 from the Crimea to new lands on the Sea of Azov.71 1 3



After the conclusion of the Russo-Turkish war in 1774, by the treaty of Kutchuk-Kaynardji, the conditions of foreign settlement in Russia changed to some extent. All immigration was now directed to the south, to the enlarged New Russia which emerged after the gains of the treaty and the crushing of the Zaporozhian Cossacks in 1775. With these advances, and the annexation of the Crimea in 1783, Russia gained control over a huge sweep of territory stretching from the Caspian to the river Bug, an initially insecure acquisition demanding rapid action to consolidate the Russian hold upon it. A further unifying factor, from the point of view at least of state policy, was the subordination of this entire region to the authority of Prince G.A. Potemkin, whose position as favourite had been confirmed during the latter stages of the war.72

Under Potemkin's direction, a series of measures was taken towards ensuring the security of the region. Notable among them were changes in military organization, and steps to encourage settlement both native and foreign73 Potemkin recruited foreign colonists principally through his own private agents or by negotiation with any who approached the Russian authorities of their own accord. It is striking that foreign settlement now seems to have become just one tool among many others for the development of the south, losing much of the absolute theoretical significance attached to it in the 1760's.

In the eastern part of Potemkin's domain, the North Caucasus region, the Prince built a new chain of fortified frontier posts, running from Mozdok to Azov: the Caucasus Line, begun in 1777 and completed at the beginning of the 1780's. It replaced the obsolete Tsaritsyn Line and guaranteed the North Caucasus Viceroyalty against incursions by the mountain peoples. In connection with his new project, Potemkin reported to the Empress in 1777:

I consider it essential to communicate personally with our Ministers at various foreign Courts, so that they ... without exposing themselves to suspicion, should try to attract useful inhabitants of any status, not excluding even Jews, such as possess however large capital, for migration to the new Mozdok [i.e. Caucasus] Line, which abounds in everything needful for life.74

Nothing very much came of this and similar plans for foreign settlement in the North Caucasus, although a Manifesto was published in the West in 1785 inviting settlement there, without any attempt at secrecy?5 The only Western settlers were in fact some of the Saratov colonists, who tried to establish a village on the river Kuma in 1785; but they were soon forced to abandon their new home76 MoTe realistic, and more fruitful, were hopes placed on immigration from Transcaucasia. The 1780's were a period of rapid Russian penetration into the Caucasus, marked by negotiations with local potentates and by plans for a military expedition against Persia, in connection with hopes of

1 4 reuniting Armenia under Russian protection. Armenians in particular



continued to enter Russia, swelling the existing communities in the N. Caucasus region. The town of Grigoriopol, founded on the western border of New Russia in 1792, originated in negotiations with the Transcaucasian Armenians in 1784.77 And when, at the end of Catherine's reign, a Transcaucasian expedition was finally undertaken, it brought back on its recall by Paul a considerable body of Armenians, who received certain privileges and 15,000 desyatins of land on the Kuma, where they founded the town of the Holy Cross.78

For New Russia, a somewhat more hospitable region, Potemkin was able to find a wider range of foreign recruits. The Prince's activities in this area represented a continuation and amplification of previous policies. In terms of foreign settlement, he continued to encourage the traditional Balkan and Transdanubian immigration, as well as looking to S. and W. Europe for settler material. The Westerners who responded to the overtures of his recruiting agents, or themselves asked leave to settle, were a very varied collection. Swedish peasants from an island in the Baltic; Greeks and Corsicans driven from their homes in Minorca; Danzigers facing economic decline; even British convicts offered for deportation - all were considered suitable. 880 Swedes duly made their way to Yekaterinoslav Province, forming the village of Staroshvedskoye. Danzig furnished nearly 1000 "Danzig colonists" in 1786; and from the same area the following year (and again in 1804 and later) came considerable contingents of Mennonites, subsequently the best and most successful of all the peasant farmers of New Russia. The Greeks and Corsicans, some 1000 in number, proved very poor settler material. Shipped from Leghorn, they included a variety of elements from the coastal towns of Italy. The final shipload of about 200, a motley collection of 180 Italians with a sprinkling of Greeks, Slavs, Swedes, Germans, Maltese, French, and Spaniards, mutinied, tried to seize their ship, and were brought into Kherson in irons. They were quite unsuited to agriculture, to which they were first assigned, and finally dispersed among the coastal towns of the Black Sea.79

Hopes of a British penal colony foundered on the determined opposition of the Imperial Ambassador in London, S.R. Vorontsov: opposition for which, according to Vorontsov, Potemkin never forgave him.80 Britons did feature among the many foreign specialists whom Potemkin engaged individually for particular technical tasks. Along with such as the French viticulturist Joseph Banq and the Italian sericulture experts Parma and Notara, for example, we find the English gardener Gould, for many years in Russian service; also his fellow-countryman Henderson, who proved to be a "shameless deceiver".81 Potemkin sought Charles Gascoigne's advice on the development of metallurgy in the south, a project completed only in 1795 with the opening of an ironworks on the river Lugan,82 and Samuel Bentham, during his stay in Russia, also worked for Potemkin.83 1



With the Prince's death in 1791, the development of New Russia continued on much the same lines under his far less able successor, Platon Zubov, although the focus of activity now shifted to the Ochakov region acquired in the second Turkish war of 1787-91. It was here that the new masters established Odessa, founded in 1794 on the ruins of the Turkish fortress of Khadzhibey .84 In the growth of Odessa, and that of other towns of the region, foreign settlers were also expected tò play a large part; and as the new port developed in the following years, especially under the rule of the Duc de Richelieu from 1803 onwards, its basically Russian and Ukrainian population was overlaid by a vivid and variegated admixture of foreign craftsmen, merchants, and entrepreneurs.85

By the time of Richelieu's arrival in Odessa, Catherine had been dead some seven years; and one year after his appointment as the town's Commandant (Gradonachal'nik), in 1804, the Russian government published new legislation on foreign settlement which considerably altered the premises of Catherine's original policy, and set the tone for the very extensive immigration of Alexander's reign.86 Under Catherine's policies, tens of thousands of foreigners had entered Russia: the estimate of 75,000 offered by one historian is a conservative figure87 The great hopes laid upon foreign settlement - both by "populationists" and by those who looked to the colonists as cultural leaders - were, however, only partially realized. The cost of Catherine's and Potemkin's operations, both in financial and administrative terms, was enormous, and cannot be said to have justified itself fully either in the numbers or the quality of the settlers acquired. The Volga and the southern steppes were colonized essentially by native elements, among whom the foreigners ultimately formed larger or smaller enclaves. And the undoubted skill and industry of the best foreign settlers passed only to a limited extent to their neighbours. Neither the social and economic conditions of rural Russia, nor the usually exclusive way of life of the Western and other foreign colonists, was conducive to a wide-ranging dissemination of new techniques. But at a more realistic, local level, some positive results were nonetheless achieved. New subjects were drawn into the Empire; and some settlements, notably Sarepta on the Volga and the Mennonite colonies of New Russia, became famous as centres of culture and of technical and agricultural skills. They had a clear educative effect upon their immediate environment.88 If not on the grand scale, some at least of the hopes of Catherine and her followers were fulfilled.

16



Notes

l.Â.L. Schlözers offenes und Privatleben, von ihm selbst beschrieben. Erstes Fragment, Gottingen-Gotha, 1802, pp. 172-5.

2. N.N. Dmitriyev, Perviye russkiye sitsenabivniye manufaktury XVIIIv., Izvestiya Gos. Akademii Istorii MateriaVnoy KuVtury, no. 116, Moscow-Leningrad, 1935; Russkiy Biografìcheskiy Slovar' IV (Gaag-Gerbel), 258-9.

3. b. Amburger, Beitrage zur Ueschichte der deutscn-russischen kulturellen Beziehungen, Osteuropastudien der Hochschulen des Landes Hessen, Reihe I, Bd. 14, Giessen, 1961 , esp. pp. 29-39.

4. K. Miller, Frantsuzskaya emigratsiya v Rossii v tsarstvovaniye Yekateriny II, Paris, 1931, passim.

5. A considerable body of writing exists on foreign settlement in Russia. See the valuable bibliographies of Schiller and Stumpp, concerned principally with German immigration: F. Schiller, Literatur zur Geschichte und Volkskunde der deutschen Kolonien in der Sowjetunion für die Jahre 1 764-1926, Pokrowsk a.d. Wolga, 1927; K. Stumpp, Das Schrifttum über das Deutschtum in Russland. Eine Bibliographie, 3rd edn., Stuttgart, 1971. Recent Soviet work on the Germans and other nationalities is detailed in E.I. Druzhinina, Yuzhnaya Ukraina 1800-1825 gg., Moscow, 1971. The earliest attempt at a comprehensive survey, A.A. Klaus, Nashi Kolonii. Opyt istorii i statistiki inostrannoy kolonizatsii v Rossii, vypusk 1, St. Petersburg, 1869 (no more pub'd) has been reprinted (1972) by Oriental Research Partners, Cambridge, U.K.; it remains a standard source.

6. On population policy and settlement in 18th-century Europe, and for the following exposition, see M. Beheim-Schwarzbach, Hohenzollernsche Colonisationen, Leipzig, 1874; "Economie et Population. Les Doctrines avant 1800." Institut National d*Etudes Démographiques, Travaux et Documents, Cahiers 21 + 28, Paris, 1954; D. Haberle, Auswanderungen und Koloniegrundungen der Pfàlzer im 18ten Jahrhundert, Kaiserslautern, 1909; G.G. Pisare vsky, Iz istorii inostrannoy kolonizatsii v Rossii v XVIII v., Moscow, 1909; G. Schmoller, "Die preussischen Kolonisationen des 17ten und 18ten Jhdts.," in: Zur inneren Kolonisation in Deutschland, Schriftendes Vereins für Sozialpolitik XXXII, 1866; K. Schünemann, Die Bevölkerungspolitik Oesterreichs unter Maria Theresa, Veröffentlichungen des Inst, zur Erforschung des dt. Volkstums im Süden und Südosten in München und des Inst, für ostbayrischen Heimat forschung in Passau, Bd. 6, Berlin, 1936; M.M. Shpilevsky, "Politika narodonaseleniya v tsarstvovaniye Yekateriny II, Zapiski Imperatorskogo Novorossiyskogo Universiteta VI, Odessa 1871, 1-178.

I.Lloyds Evening Post, London, vol. XIII, no. 968, p. 298, Sept. 23-6 1763.

8.M.V. Lomonosov, Polnoye Sobraniye Sochineniy, Moscow-Leningrad. 1950-59, VL 382-403.

9. Cf. the case put forward in E.I. Druzhinina, Kyuchuk-Kaynardzhiyskiy Mir 1774 g.t Moscow, 1955, pp. 47-68. 17



IO. Sbornik Imperatorskogo Russkogo Istoricheskogo Obshchestva (hereafter SIRIO), VIL 99-100.

1 1 . Despatches and Correspondence of John, Second Earl of Buckinghamshire, Ambassador to the Court of Catherine II of Russia 1762-65. Ed. for the Royal Historical Society ... by Adelaide d'Arcy Collyer, London, 1902, II, 97-8.

12. Polnoye Sobraniye Zakonov Rossiyskoy Imperii, Sobraniye Pervoye (hereafter PSZ), IV, 192-4, no. 1910; cf. E. Amburger, Die Anwerbung ausländischer Fachkräfte fur die Wirtschaft Russlands vom 15 ten bis ins 19 ten Jhdt., Osteuropastudien der Hochschulen des Landes Hessen, Reihe I, Bd. 42, Wiesbaden, 1968, 75-6.

13. On the Nezhin Greeks, see M.M. Plokhinskiy, "Inozemtsy v Staroy Malorossii, ch. 1: greki, tsygane, gruziny." Trudy XII Arkheologich. S'yezda, pod red. Gr. Uvarovoy, II, Moscow 1905, 175-236. The Armenian community in Astrakhan is described in articles by I. Yukht and V.A. Khachaturyan published in Izvestiya Akad. Nauk Armyanskoy S.S.R. (obshchestvenniye nauki), 1960 no. 12,47-60; 1963 no. 12, 57-68; 1965 no. 7, 77-87.

14. N.D. Polons'ka-Vasylenko, "The Settlement of the S. Ukraine 1750-75," Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S.A., Summer-Fall 1955, New York, 1955, gives a detailed account of its subject. It does, however, less than justice to the Montenegrins, on whom see G.I. Pylayev, "Ocherki pò istorii yuzhnoslavyanskoy i moldavano-volozhskoy kolonizatsii v Rossii v 50-60 gg. XVIII v.," unpub'd candidate's thesis, Moscow, Ped. Institut im. Lenina, 1950, pp. 210-245; V.N. Vitevskiy, /./. Nepluyev i Orenburgskiy Kray v prezhnem y ego sostave do 1 758 g., Kazan, 1889-97, HI, 473-81.

15. Pisare vskiy, op. cit., pp. 20-45. 16. S.M. Solov'yov, Istoriya Rossii s drevneyshikh vremyon, ed. L.

Cherepnin, Moscow, 1959-66, IX, 455. 17. Pisare vskiy, op. cit.t p. 28; Zh. Ananyan, "K voprosu o zaselenii

yuga Rossii Armyanami vo 2-oy të-e XVIII v.," Izvestiya A.N Armvamknv S.S.R. (ohshchestvennive nauki). 1963 no. 5.46.

_ - _ _ _ ~ f - ■- . . _ - v r - - |

- _______ _-_-_-

^

_ _-___^_

_ _- _

18. V.M. Kabuzan, "Krest'yanskaya kolonizatsiya Sev. Prichernomor'ya (Novorossii) v XVIII - 1 V_ XIX v.," Yezhegodnik po agrarnoy istorii Vostochnoy Evropy za 1964 g., Kishinyev, 1966, pp. 314-324.

19. P. Dukes, Catherine the Great and the Russian Nobility, Cambridge, 1967, p. 89.

20. A.L. Schlozer, Von der Unschädlichkeit der Pocken in Russland und von Russlands Bevölkerung überhaupt, Göttingen-Gotha, 1768, P.29.

21. Lomonosov, op. cit., paragraph 12. 22. Most recently by P. Dukes, op cit. 23. See Ya. Zutis, Ostzeyskiy vopros v XVIII v., Riga, 1946, pp.

334-339. Some of the problems involved here were explored in the present writer's paper "Catherine II and the Peasant Question in the 1760Y' read to the annual conference of the British Universities' Association of Slavists at St. Andrews, Scotland, April 1973. 18



24. Solov'yov, op. cit., XIII, 140; Pisarevskiy, op. cit., p. 48. This and all following dates are given in the Old Style.

25. PSZ, XVI, 126-7, no. 11720. For further resultant measures on furitives, see PSZ, XVI, 129-32, no. 1 1725; 140-1, no. 1 1738.

26. Pisarevskiy, op. cit., p. 49. 27. The discussions are recorded principally in the Senate records of the

period, contained in Senatskiy Arkhiv, St. Petersburg, 1888-1913 (hereafter SA), vols. XI-XI V, and in the Senate archives for the Chancellery of Guardianship, Central State Archive of Ancient Documents, Moscow (hereafter TsGADA), fond 248.

28. TsGADA, fond 248, kniga 3398, listy 321-4, Senate minutes of 31 July - 7 Aug. 1763; listy 117-78, minutes concerning escaped slaves, 3 June 1763 - March 1765; &4, XIV, 93, no. 87.

29 PSZ XVT 343-36.1. nn 1 1908 30. PSZ, XVI, 312-8, nos. 11879, 11880, 11881. 31. The Chancellery and its subordinate offices existed until 1782. A

useful general account of the administrative organization for immigrants can be found in M. Langhans-Ratzeburg, Die Wolgadeutschen: ihr Staats- und Verwaltungsrecht in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, Berlin, 1929.

32. PSZ, no. 11880; official contemporary English translation, TsGADA fond 248, kn. 3398, 1 1 .263-265a.

33. These were important concessions, the first facilitating acquisition of equipment and raw materials abroad, the second running directly counter to the 1761 prohibition on the purchase of serfs by non-noble entrepreneurs.

34. A detailed if somewhat uneven account of the recruiting operations of the 1760's will be found in Pisarevskiy, op. cit., part III. Cf. also comments in P.A. Shafranov, "Otzyv o knige G.G. Pisarevskogo 4Iz istorii ...'," Chteniya v Imp. Obshchestve istorii i Drevnostey Rossiyskikh, 1909 no. 4, Smes' 28-46.

35. See A.A. Velitsyn, Nemtsy v Rossii. Ocherk istoricheskogo razvitiya i nastoyashchego polozheniya nemetskikh koloniy na yuge i vostoke Rossii, St. Petersburg, 1893, passim (based on articles pub'd in Russkiy Vestnik, 1889); F.A. Red'ko, Kolonizatsionnaya politika russkogo tsarizma i nemetskiye kolonisty na Ukraine (s kontsa XVIII do nachala XX st.), abstract of unpub'd candidate's thesis, Kiev State University, 1952; E. Lewin, The German Road to the East London, 1916, pp. 298-301.

36. One Russian example is Zapiski F.F. Vigelya, Moscow, 1891, p. 21. Phrases such as deutsches Kulturwerk are commonplace in German writings.

37. B. Nolde, La Formation de l'Empire Russe, Paris, 1952-3, II, 342-3: SIRIO ■ XLVIÏI 555. no S7Q

38. Pisarevskiy, op. cit., pp. 60-62; Despatches and Correspondence of John. ... Earl of Buckinghamshire .... IL 122-3.

39. Pisarevskiy, op. cit., p. 63. 40. TsGADA, fond 248, kn. 3398, 11.541, Senate minutes of 17

November 1763. 4L Pisarevskiy, op. cit., pp. 98-101 . 1 9



42. ibid., part III, passim, pp. 182-204. 43. Polons'ka-Vasylenko,op. cit. p. 250. 44. Shafranov, op. cit., pp. 30-34. 45. SIRIO, CXXXIV, 159. This probably refers to the 1763 Manifesto,

rather than to that of 1762 as the text implies. 46. Dispatches from Lübeck: TsGADA, fond 283 (Chancellery of

Guardianship), opis' 1, delo 4, 1.186, Chancellery to Russian Minister in Lower Saxony concerning Commissioner Lembke's service record. The official total for arrivals 1762-75 was 30,623: G.G. Pisarevskiy, Khozyaystvo i forma zemlevladeniya v koloniyakh Povolzh'va v XVIII i I lA XIX v., Rostov-na-Donu, 1916, p. 23, note.

47. PSZ, XVII, 1068, no. 12793; SIRIO, LVII, 546-8, nos. 1355, 1356. 48. TsGADA, fond 248, kn. 3398, 1.71, Senate minutes of 12 Dec.

1762. Cf. SA, XII, 202. 49. Cf. in general H. Hafa, Die Brüdergemeine Sarepta, ein Beitrag zur

Geschichte des Wolgadeutschtums. Schriften des Osteuropa-Instituts in Breslau, N.R., Heft 7, Breslau 1936. The most recent work on Sarepta is W.A. Kohls, "German Settlement on the Lower Volga; A Case Study: The Moravian Community at Sarepta, 1763-1892," Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society, XXII ii, Nazareth, Penna, 1971 , pp. 47-99.

50. PSZ. XVII. 7-9. no. 12307. 51. PSZ. XV.313-5.no. 10914: XVI. 88. no. 11689. 52. TsGADA f. 248, kn. 3398, 11.179-80, 210-210a: College of

Foreign Affairs reports to the Senate, 7 June and 9 July 1763; 1.492, Chancellery report to the Senate 21 Oct. 1763; kn. 3622, 1.171, report by G. Orlov to the Empress, approved 20 Aug. 1764; S/Ä/ö,LL44,no.721.

53. TsGADA, f. 248, kn. 3762, 1.196a, report from Orlov to the Emoress. aooroved 3 Aoril 1767.

S4 PSZnn 118fl1 55. SIRIO. LI, 69-70, no. 739: 126-7, no 768. 56. PSZ, XVI, 648-55, no. 12095. 57. G . Beratz, Die deutschen Kolonien an der unteren Wolga in ihrer

Entstehung und ersten Entwicklung ..., 2nd edn., Berlin, 1923, p. 43 and note.

58. A detailed list in ibid., pp. 284-291 ; detailed maps from the 1860's appended to Klaus, op. cit.

59. PSZ, XVII, 373, no. 12503; P. Keppen, "Ob inorodcheskom, preimushchestvenno nemetskom naselenii Sanktpeterburgskoy gubernii," Zhurnal Minis terstva Vnutrennikh Del, 1850, no. 11, 193-209.

60. Riebensdorf: TsGADA, f. 248, kn. 3762, 11.537ff., Senate minutes of 12 May 1769; Heimatbuch der Deutschen aus Russland, Stuttgart, 1958, 35-45. Livonia: W. Conze, Hirschenhof, die Geschichte einer deutschen Sprachinsel in Livland, Neue Deutsche Forschungen Bd.3, Berlin, 1934. Belovezh: PSZ, XVII, 701-2, no. 12655; TsGADA, f. 283, opis' 1 , d. 16, contracts of the Chancellery of Guardianship, 11. 128- 137a. 20



6Ì.PSZ, XVIII, 38, no. 12836; 391-2, no. 13015. 62. PSZ, XVIII, 35-49, no. 12836. 63. PSZ, XVII, 373-6, no. 12503; XVIII, 130-1, no. 12897. The

scheme seems to have been modified shortly afterwards: SIRIO, XXXVI, 24-5.

64. TsGADA, f.248, kn. 3762, 1.196, Senate minutes of 16 April 1767, approved report by Orlov to the Empress forming the basis for PSZ no. 12897.

65. Zu tis, loe. cit. 66. Polons'ka-Vasvlenko. od. cit.. dd. 75-94. 181-3. 61. PSZ, XVI, 293, no. 11861. 68. PSZ, XVI, 657-67, no. 12099. 69. Polons'ka-Vasylenko, op. cit., pp. 200-218. This account contains

certain inaccuracies and mistranslations: cf. Russian text in PSZ. See also H. Auerbach, Die Besiedelung der Südukraine Ld. Jahren 1774-87, Veröffentlichungen des Osteuropa-Instituts, München, Bd. 25, Wiesbaden, 1965, pp. 32-7; E.I. Druzhinina, Sevemoye Prichernomor 'y e 1775-1800 gg., Moscow 1959, pp. 58-66.

70. ibid., pp. 63-7, 121. 71.Kabuzan, op. cit., passim. On the Crimean Christians see also the

accounts in Pisarevskiy, Iz istorii, pp. 205-220; Auerbach, op. cit., pp. 81-3; A.W. Fisher, The Russian Annexation of the Crimea 1772-1783, Cambridge, 1970, pp. 100-105 - the latest treatment.

72. T. Adamczyk, Fürst G.A. Potemkin. Untersuchungen zu seiner Lebensgeschichte, Emsdetten, 1936, p. 17.

73. See Auerbach. on. cit.. eso. no. 55-70. 74. Pisarevskiy, Khozyaystvo i forma zemlevladeniva, p. 55. 75. PSZ. XXII. 428-9. no. 16226. 76. Pisarevskiv, op. cit.. oo. 54-60: PSZ. XXIIL 536-9. no. 1 7230 77. Zh. Ananyan, Armyanskaya koloniya GrigoriopoV, Yerevan, 1969,

gives a detailed history. IS. PSZ, XXIV.761.no. 18189: XXV. 619-20 no 18<m 79. Pisarevskiy, Iz istorii, pp. 221-340; Druzhinina, op. cit., pp. 68,

159-60, 164-6, 193. There exists a very extensive literature on the Mennonite colonies in Russia. A valuable scholarly survey is the unpubl. diss. (Stanford, Calif., 1933) by D.G. Rempel, "The Mennonite Colonies in New Russia. A Study of their Settlement and Economic Development from 1789 to 1914"; see also the same writer's article "The Mennonite Commonwealth in Russia: A Sketch of its Founding and Endurance, 1789-1918," Mennonite Quarterly Review, XLVII, 4 (Oct. 1973), 259-308 and XLVIII 1 (Jan. 1974), 5-54.

SO. Arkhiv Knvazva Voron tsova. Moscow 1870-9 S Xí 177_« 81. Druzhinina, op. cit., pp. 135-6. 82. ibid., pp. 241-4. 83. 1.R. Christie, "Samuel Bentham at Krichev," Slavonic and E

European Review, XLVIII, April 1970. 232-47. SA. PSZ, XXIII, 514, no. 17208; Druzhinina, op. cit., p. 201. 21



85. PSZ, XXIII, 686-8, no. 17320; 798-9, no. 17392. On the development of Odessa and the S. Ukraine as a whole in the early 19th century, cf. Druzhinina, Yuzhnaya Ukraina. The important German community in Odessa has been studied by F. Bienemann, Werden und Wachsen einer deutschen Kolonie in Südrussland, Odessa, 1893.

86. PSZ, XXVIII, 137-40, no. 21163. On colonization under Alexander I see "Istoriya i statistika koloniy inostrannykh poselentsev v Rossii," stafya II, Zhurnal Ministers tva Gos. Imushchestv, LIU, ii, 1854, 1-34. (The first part of this article, LI, Sept. 1854, 35-78, gives a useful factual survey of colonization in Catherine's reign).

87. Shafranov, op. cit., pp. 43-5. 88. See A.M. Fadeyev, Vospominaniya 1790-1867 gg., Odessa, 1897,

I, 48-50.

2 2

