Towards a Theory of Ethnic Identity and Migration: The Formation of Ethnic Enclaves by Migrant...

Towards a Theory of Ethnic Identity and Migration: The Formation of Ethnic Enclaves byMigrant Germans in Russia and North AmericaAuthor(s): Tony WatersSource: International Migration Review, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Summer, 1995), pp. 515-544Published by: The Center for Migration Studies of New York, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2546792 .

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Towards a Theory of Ethnic Identity and

Migration: The Formation of Ethnic

Enclaves by Migrant Germans in Russia

and North America1

Tony Waters

University of California, Davis

This article explores the determinants for the maintenance of ethnic

identity by comparing six groups of migrant Germans. The groups are

eighteenth century German peasants migrating to Volga Russia, thirteenth

century migrants to Latvia, seventeenth century bureaucrats and traders

migrating to Moscow/St. Petersburg, eighteenth century peasant migrants to Pennsylvania, nineteenth century Hutterite migrants to the North American Midwest, and eighteenth century Volga German migrants to the American Midwest. Notably, three of these groups assimilated into the host society, while three of them formed ethnic enclaves. Comparison of the six cases indicated that what determined whether a group would maintain its identity or not depended on whether individuals could move their inheritable economic base. This is because in the immigrant situation it is the inheritable economic base which determines who the primary reference group will be.

This study explores the determinants for the maintenance of an ethnic identity in migrant populations. The purpose is to understand why one ethnic group - Germans - has both in North America and in Russia formed ethnic enclaves in some circumstances and in other cases not done so. This comparative study reveals that the main determinant of enclave formation for Germans was the free mobility of human capital and/or the free market in land within the larger host society.

Here, six groups of migrant Germans are considered, three of which migrated to Russia and three to North America. These groups were picked for the

contrasting sets of results for each group. In Russia, two of the three groups formed German ethnic enclaves and one assimilated. In North America, one group quickly assimilated, one group formed an ethnic enclave in Alberta, and the third, in Pennsylvania, initially formed a distinct group which eventually assimilated.

Whether a group formed an ethnic enclave or assimilated depended on the individual mobility of what I call the "inheritable economic base," a concept which is more narrow than group rights per se, and focuses on the intergen? erational transmission of social status. Thus, while this article is ultimately

The help of Jack Goldstone in the development and preparation of this article is gratefully acknowledged.

IMR Vol. xxix, No. 2 515



516 International Migration Review

about group identity, it is postulated that the establishment of an enclave by migrants is dependent on whether individuals can 'move' their inheritable economic base, be it land, labor, class status or guild membership, freely in the

country to which they migrate. Restrictions on the movement2 of the inherit? able economic base determines who the primary reference group will be, which in turn determines which image - old or new - will determine collective

identity. On the basis of the data described below, the process I am postulating for migrant Germans is as follows.

The internal logic of migration means that among other things, immigrant groups are confronted with two immediate necessities upon arrival (see Figure I). First, there is the practical need to establish a source of economic subsistence. In the case of farmers, this is typically land and farms, while in the case of technicians or government bureaucrats, it is jobs. There is also a second need,

though, which is a need for a group-based social identity. Young (1976:41) calls this a subjective self-concept and notes that the role definitions assumed are highly dependent on a relation with "relevant others" in a social arena. In stable situations, these two needs are interrelated and self-reinforcing. This is because the perpetuation of the social bond that is the basis of group identity is generally tied to a form of economic subsistence.

However, long-distance migration disrupts social bonds, including those that tie group identity to a particular economic base. Because the social bond is weakened during migration, whether a group assimilates or forms a plural enclave becomes dependent on whether the connection between the individ? ual's economic base and group identity is reestablished. What happened in each case of the German migrants is that group identity, i.e., role definitions, became vulnerable to change in the context of migration. Thus, if there was individual access to the economic subsistence base through free markets in land and labor, assimilation into the new social identity was likely to result. On the other hand, if the new group dealt with the new country as a corporate group and came to depend on a restricted group base for their economic livelihood,

e.g., through the mechanisms of mir membership, feudalistic landholdings, or a corporate control of trade monopolies, an ethnic enclave rooted in old

patterns of behavior was the consequence. In practical terms, what this meant was that when the mobility of individuals

was insured through secure individual land tides (as opposed to no tides or

group tides), Germans have typically assimilated with host populations. On the other hand, when secure individual tides were not available, ethnic enclaves were maintained. In other words, if a migrant group assimilated, it was in the material interests of individuals to do so, while if they did not, there were

corresponding material advantages to forming an ethnic enclave. Such group dynamics determined whether the collective identity through which ethnic

The word 'move' as used here can refer to the 'alienability' of land, the transfer of saleable skills, or maintenance of social status.



Migrant Germans in Russia and North America 517

In equilibrium, group solidarity is based on normative standards which may or may not be dependent on relation to inheritable subsistence source

i

Long*distance migration results in severance of social bonds, with resultant vulnerability fo assimilation processes, if present

i

Upon arrival in new country, there is ac\ immediate search for (a) means of subsistence, and (b) group-based social identity resulting in either

Establishment of group identity based on corporate ethnic identity, e.g? m/V membership, feudalistic landholdings, or formation of other corporate identity which controls inheritable subsistence source

Individual access to inheritable subsistence source, i.e., free markets in land and labor

4 I Formation of pluralistic social identity Assimilation info dominant

preexisting social identity

FIGURE I Processes Leading to Assimilation or Pluralism in Migrant Groups

boundaries are reproduced are passed to succeeding generations. The German

examples described here illustrate well the different dynamics which such

processes can take.

A THEORETICAL QUAGMIRE- THE PROBLEM OF EXPLAINING ETHNICITY IN IMMIGRANT GROUPS

For the last twenty years, discussion of ethnicity has revolved around "primor? dial" approaches (see Stack, 1986; Spicer, 1971; Gans, 1962; Geertz, 1973:259-260; Connor, 1984) and more structurally oriented "circumstantial"

approaches (seePatterson, 1975; Hechter, 1978; Smith, 1981). (For discussions of the debate, see, e.g., Scott, 1990; Bendey, 1987:24-27; Yelvington, 1991;

McKay, 1982.) Among those who have proposed either synthetic or interactive

approaches focusing on the nature of symbolic or economic conditions under which "ethnic nationalism" is activated, even after several generations of

postmigration stewing in the proverbial melting pot, are Gans (1979), M. Waters (1990), Horowitz (1985:64-92), Alba (1990), and Glazer and Moyni? han (1975). Important in these latter writings are the distinctions between




nostalgic symbolism, which often does not provide a basis for group solidarity during stress, and structure, which does provide such a basis.

What this article asks is when and how one form of stress, migration, interacts with the other determinants of ethnic identity, be it structural or

symbolic, to lead to the formation of an ethnic enclave. In other words, how does the 'logic of migration,' which inherendy involves uprooting and reset- dement, affect ethnic identity?

The German examples discussed here illustrate the paradoxes that the more traditional approaches to ethnicity present, be they primordial, circumstantial or synthetic arguments. In three of the cases presented (Latvia, Volga Russia, and North American Hutterites) the primordial ideal is maintained despite the introduction of mixing institutions which established strong circumstantial incentives for a German ethnic identity to disappear. In two cases (Moscow civil servants and Midwestern U.S. Volga Germans), the primordial ideal

disintegrates in the face of circumstantial incentives to assimilate with host

populations. In a sixth case, seventeenth and eighteenth century Pennsylvania, an intermediate case is observed where, at least on the surface, primordial and circumstantial models alternatively seem to explain the empirical evidence.

This study steps back from the existing theories and offers a simpler and more comprehensive model to explain the six German cases. The explanation offered comes out of more general theories of group identity and solidarity offered by Jurgen Habermas's (1987) theory of communicative action. Using such an approach is important because it permits a consideration of the unique stresses - and opportunities - for group identity offered by migration events. Habermas emphasizes that the principles from which group solidarity is found

emerge out of a group consensus which is the basis for society. In this respect, this approach is consistent with what Yancey et al. (1976) and Nagel (1986) have written about the importance of structure in shaping opportunities for the reemergence or disappearance of ethnicity.

ETHNICITY AND ASSIMILATION- WHEN DOES AN ETHNIC GROUP STOP BEING AN ETHNIC GROUP?

The persistence of ethnic identity is well documented, particularly in the United States (seeGordon, 1964; Greeley, 1974; Glazer and Moynihan, 1975; Herskovits, 1958; Alba, 1990). Recendy, of course, it has become well recog? nized that this is a nuanced process during which assimilation and accultura? tion occur in the context of what are often only situationally significant symbolic markers of identity (Gans, 1979; M. Waters, 1990; Young, 1976;

Nagel, 1986). Such studies, while important, beg a basic question about the nature of ethnic identity in the context of migration, i.e., when does an identity stop being one and start being another (see Pedraza-Bailey, 1985:10, for an

exception.) In part, this has resulted in efforts to measure degrees of white ethnic




assimilation while ignoring the broader issue of how and why groups like the Germans studied here sometimes lose that identity and other times do not.

To avoid the ambiguities inherent to this discussion, examples of German

migration were selected that were clear-cut in either their persistence or assimila? tion. For example, no one today argues that Philadelphia is a German city, or for that matter even that rural western Pennsylvania retains more than an extremely residual German population. Yet there is wide agreement that Pennsylvania in 1750 had established distinct German and English communities.

There is also little argument about the fact that there were distinct German communities in Latvia and in Volga Russia in 1914, several hundred years after the first major groups migrated. Both groups considered themselves German and were considered so by out-groups from Russia and Germany.

METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES

Since the outcome of immigration is taken as the dependent variable here, several different cases of modern German setdement have been chosen to

develop these principles. These are the cases of the Baltic Germans, Volga Germans of Russia, German civil servants in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and three migrations to North America (Pennsylvania, the Midwest, and midwestern Hutterites). The comparative characteristics of the groups selected can be followed in Table 1.

All six groups have a long time-line in geographical areas with established literatures. In addition, all six are completed migrations, meaning that, except for the unassimilated Hutterites, the story of the people has been concluded. In the cases of two of the groups studied in the Soviet Union (i.e., Baltic and

Volga), this story was completed by forcible expulsion. Another group, the German civil servants of the Czars, apparendy assimilated into upper-class Russian society. In North America, except for the Hutterites, the groups in the United States have assimilated into mainstream English-speaking society and no longer maintain separate social institutions.

A final methodological point to ask about is how to tell when a group has assimilated. The latter is typically not too difficult because unassimilated minorities go to great lengths to assert their identities, and reproduce obvious markers to define group boundaries. Such markers typically include language, dress, political units, residential patterns, schools, religion, etc. A creation myth or other memory of common origin with roots in some kind of migratory event is also common (Weber, 1978:390; Barth, 1969; Alba, 1990:37-39).

However, while ethnic enclaves are easy to identify, assimilation is not. By its very nature, assimilated groups lack the symbolic markers upon which social scientists (or others) might remark. By definition, such groups make an overt effort to obscure national differences and through this very act of obfuscation make study difficult. In the assimilation process, evidence or 'memory' of an




TABLE 1 Summary of Group Characteristics and Responses

Moscow Midwest Midwest Latvia_Volga St. Petersburg Pennsylvania Volga Hutterites

Migrated From Years

Result

Class

Religion

Social Status % Local Population Ethnic Persistence Result

Intermarriage Free Land Free Labor Feudal Aristocracy

Lubeck Hesse Rhineland Volga Prussia/ Baltic

1180-1230 1763-1767 1500-1800 1686-1760 1870-1910

Persistent Persistent Assimilate Slow

Nobles Traders Lutheran

High 6%

760 Years

Expulsion 1940 Rare No No Present

Assimilate Assimilation

Peasant Civil Service Indentured/ Free Farmers Free Farmers

Lutheran/ Orthodox Protestant/ Lutheran/ Catholic Pietist Catholic Middle/Low Middle/High Low Middle 20% 4%/l% 30-40% N/A

Black Sea

1871-1879, 1951 Persistent

Communal Farmers Mennonite

Middle N/A

180 Years ?

Expulsion 1941 12% No Yes Present

Assimilation

Common Urban N/A Yes Yes

3-4 Generations Assimilation

Common No/Yes No/Yes Present/ Absent

1 Generation 100+ years

Assimilation Persistent

Common Yes Yes Absent

Rare No Yes Absent

origin different from that of the new identity is minimalized as the symbolic markers of the new group are accepted. And yet again, despite this inevitable obfuscation, the logic of the migration indicates that assimilated immigrant groups inherendy must have gone through such a process of adjusting an

identity to new social and structural circumstances. The practical problem for this paper then is how to determine when, if, and

how specified groups of Germans - i.e., those in the U.S. Midwest, St.

Petersburg, Moscow, and Pennsylvania - did assimilate. Because of the prob? lems described above, each case is approached from a different angle.

For Western groups like Germans, the size of the historical literature is a

significant indicator of assimilation. History, which is the construction of a

group's biography, is indicated by the continued reproduction of the 'mythical' accounts which legitimate group cohesiveness. The 'disappearance' of a time line is, of course, an unlikely 'document' since there is only a void where history would otherwise be expected. However, because of this, a rough indicator of assimilation can be an examination of a bibliography such as is done in Table 2. Even the Subject search on the library computer catalog at the University of California can be used for such a purpose. In the latter database, disconti? nuities are seen in the amount of such historical production (see Table 2). As can be seen in Table 2, these bibliographic voids indicate indirecdy the assimilation of the elite Moscow and St. Petersburg Germans, who have yet to




TABLE 2 Bibliographic References for Different German Groups

Publications about Germans in Russia, 1700-1969, in 21 German Libraries Books

St. Petersburg Germans Moscow Germans Hutterite Latvian German Estonian German Baltic German Volga German (in U.S.) Volga German (in USSR)

Language German English

0 2 7

12 10 34 0 0

0 0

45 1 0 1

2Vi 4Vi

Articles General Publications about Germans in Russia 218 313

Moscow 0 3 St. Petersburg 0 11

Volga Germans 127 312 Black Sea Germans 120 227 South Caucasus 17 67 Volhynia Germans 7 12 Siberian Germans 26 39 Total Entries 515 970

_Melvyl Subject Command_

Russian

Source: Stumpp, 1971:111. University of California "Catalog" search on Melvyl terminals in 1991. Note: Content analysis of literature generated about eight German groups in a Bibliographic list of publications about German settlement in Russia (Stumpp, 1971) and by eight subject commands on the University of California General Catalog (Melvyl) Library terminals. In the case of Stumpp's bibliography, the totals for each of the numbered categories reflect Stumpps subheadings. The content analysis for articles about Germans hi St. Petersburg and Moscow was done for the category "General Publications" for this study.

attract as much attention from historians as the unassimilated lower-class/peas? ant groups such as the Volga Germans, the upper-class Baltic Germans, or the North American Hutterites.

Language use patterns can also be assessed, including the development of

bilingualism. Again, language does not necessarily correspond to "actual"

identity, though its practical significance in communication and as a boundary marker is not doubted (Alba, 1990:10-11). Also, the persistence of linguistic artifacts - particularly newspapers and books - makes study of these sources an important indicator of assimilation in literate societies. Studies of such artifacts are plentiful for colonial Pennsylvania.

Maintenance of separate religious communities is at times closely tied to a

persistent ethnic identity (see Horowitz, 1985:64-73). Sometimes a shift in

religious membership is indicative of assimilation into the host society. This is particularly true in a society like Russia where Russian identity is closely related to membership in the Russian Orthodox Church. Certainly religion is an important indicator for Hutterite identity as well.

No one method is prima facie indicator of a completed assimilation process; some subjective judgment must inevitably be used (Nagel, 1986:95-96). Such




ambiguity, though, should not be mistaken for the lack of significance or the

very real nature of the process. It is still possible to ask how the sense of group identity is preserved and whether or not common life-contexts disintegrate for whatever reason (wBlumer, 1958; Helchter, 1974; Patterson, 1975).

EXAMPLES

Russian

The 1897 All-Russian Census put the German population in Russia at 1,790,489, meaning ethnic Germans must have numbered about 2 million or about 1 percent of the Russian Empire in 1914. The Germans were broken into five general groups: the Baltic Germans; the colonists in the Volga Steppe; peasant colonists in the Black Sea Region; a large body of urban professional civil servants; and the Germans living in the provinces which are now Poland

(see Table 3). Three of the five German groups in Russia are used in this analysis. These

are: Baltic Germans who started migrating to Latvia starting in the twelfth

century; peasant colonists who migrated to the Volga Region in 1763-1767; the urban Russian civil servants. A subgroup of the Black Sea Germans, the Hutterites, is also discussed in the context of their migration to North America. These three groups had strikingly different social associations. The Baltic Germans were a noble elite and/or members of professional trading guilds, the

Volga setders were rural peasants, and the Moscow/St. Petersburg populations were well-educated government employees.

North America

To draw a contrast with the Russian examples, three of the many groups of Germans who migrated to the United States are analyzed. The first group migrated to Pennsylvania from 1683 to 1770 and included both German Pietists attracted by William Penn's promise of a Pietist State and indentured

peasants fleeing wars between the Netherlands and France. At the peak of this

migration in 1750, Germans formed one-third of the population of the

Pennsylvania colony, and there were thriving German social institutions includ?

ing general circulation newspapers, primary schools, and villages (see Schwartz, 1987; Pennypacker, 1899; Klein and Hoogenboom, 1973; Herrick, 1969).

This group is the 'test' for the theory proposed here, because it is a situation that began as an enclave, followed by assimilation in about 1740-1760. If the

theory proposed here is correct, it would be expected that there was a shift in land tenure practices in the years immediately prior to final assimilation. As the examination of the Pennsylvania case will demonstrate, this is indeed the case.

A second group of German migrants is analyzed in order to highlight comparisons between the Russian Volga Germans described above and the




TABLE 3

_German Populations in Russia in 1897_ Total German Population in Russia 1,790,489

By Geographic Location Baltic 165,627 Landed nobles 16,000 Hanseatic descendants 150,000 Riga 65,352

Moscow 17,717 St. Petersburg 50,780 Poland 407,274 Volga 400,000 Black Sea (1914) 660,000

By Social Status Colonists (Black Sea, Volga, etc.) 1,317,542 Nobility and distinguished citizens 50,000 Academic professions 50,000 Civil service and armed forces 35,000

_Hereditary nobility_24,854_ Source: Fleischauer and Benjamin, 1986: 13-16. Note: Estimates are based on All-Russia Census of 1897. The imprecision of the subcategories reflect irregularities in the classifications systems of the census takers.

experience of the German migrants to Pennsylvania. The Volga Germans

migrated to the United States Midwest between 1870 and 1910. As with the

Pennsylvania Germans, they have assimilated into an English-speaking popu? lation. This contrasts with the larger population of Volga Germans who remained behind in Russia to face famine and finally dispersal in Siberia during World War II (Koch, 1977; Giesinger, 1974; Kloberdanz, 1988:161-163).

Finally, German-speaking Hutterite migrants from south Russia to the United States and Canada complete the argument. This group, though small, has maintained itself as a religious communal society despite exposure to the sometimes coercive and assimilative forces in the United States and later Canada. Interestingly, this persistent ethnicity has been maintained in the context of communal landholdings similar to those decreed for all German colonists in Russia (see Bennett, 1969:246-270; Hostetler, 1974; Epp, 1974).

ANALYSIS

Baltics ? Latvia and Estonia

Germans from Saxony first began arriving in the area of what is today Latvia in the twelfth century, in what has been described as a "crusade" (Urban, 1975). They established a small settlement among the Liv tribe, the last

remaining group of a formerly dominant Finno-Ugric-speaking people. From their base, they initiated their crusade, a process which within 100 years was to bring Latvia firmly within reach of the emerging world economy of medieval




Europe, and led to the establishment of Christianity in the Baltics (Urban, 1975:33-45; Bilmanis, 1951:23-24; Wallerstein, 1974). In 1900, the German social descendants of these German groups still controlled both trade and land in Latvia. The 165,000 Germans represented 7 percent of the total population in the Baltics in 1892 (see Table 2). About 10 percent of the Germans (i.e., the

16,000 of the nobility) owned 60 percent of the land in Latvia and Estonia, while the other 90 percent (about 150,000 people) dominated urban affairs and trade through their hereditary membership in guilds of Hanseatic origin (Fleischhauer and Pinkus, 1986:14-15). Riga, itself then the fifth largest city in the Russian Empire, was described as being a "German" city with a

population 42.8 percent German, 25.1 percent Russian, 23.5 percent Latvian, and 5.1 percent Jewish. The city was controlled by two German guilds, one which controlled trade and the other artisanal crafts (Henriksson, 1983:1-2).

German social identity was the primary marker between the ruling and ruled classes. Membership of the City of Riga in the Germanic League of Hansa from 1282 until the final collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806

perpetuated the significance of this identity (Bilmanis, 1951:86-112). Later, control was perpetuated by what Fleischhauer and Pinkus, (1986:14) called "an ethnic group overwhelmingly conscious of its social origins . . . [which had] developed a historical tradition of their own which was quite unique," meaning that both the Hanseatic burghers and Teutonic Knights had strict exclusion formulae governing membership (Bilmanis, 1951:215). Conse-

quendy, the relationships between the German minority and the Latvian

peasantry were distant despite a close geographical relationship. This hierarchical arrangement explains well how German ethnicity was

preserved relative to the Baltic peasants, but it does not explain completely why the German elite did not assimilate with the Polish or Russian nobility/aris? tocracy which also played an important role in the politics of the Baltic area. As with the peasant classes from the Volga described below, I think that the reason lies in systems of mobility relative to the inheritable subsistence base which, in the case of the German Baits, were guild memberships and noble tides. Neither feudal estates nor guild memberships were negotiable on the

open market; by their very nature they were passed through hereditary proc? esses or conquest rather than purchase by an individual. Thus, German group identity in the Baltics seems to have flowed out of the need to ensure that the former (hereditary transfer) occurred smoothly, while the latter (conquest) did not. The coordination of activity required to maintain such a balance is an inward looking one which in this case seems to have caused a persistence of

existing structures of ethnic identity. Under such a system, disrespect for such limits would have been a threat not just to the bonds that tied individual to

group, but to the bonds that protected the entire group. Such a conclusion is of course speculative; however, the salience of such an argument becomes more evident as the other groups are described below.




Volga Germans

German migrations to the Volga Region were initiated under very different circumstances than the migration to Latvia. The migration lasted only four

years (1763-1767) and included primarily peasants and craftsmen. Likewise,

they were not Crusaders of any sort, but Catholic and Protestant "free

peasants," hired by the agents of Catherine the Great to establish a productive Christian presence on her eastern frontier. Despite the dissimilarities between the migrations, the net result was similar to that in Latvia: within 100 years, the colonists developed a position as a minority with an established group identity relative to the larger Russian society (wKoch, 1977; Bartlett, 1979;

Long, 1988; Stumpp, 1965). The large majority of the German Volga colonists were sent to colonize raw

lands on the Volga Steppe in what was then the southeast frontier of Catherine the Great's empire. In exchange, Catherine promised them special group rights, including a 30-year tax exemption, draft exemptions, free land, free status, religious freedom, the right to setde anywhere in the Russian Empire, and the right to enserf Muslims. And while the generous provisions were not

always honored, compared to other immigrant conditions, e.g., those migrat? ing with indentures into Pennsylvania, the Volga Germans were fortunate.

They were granted land, were exempted from tax and military service, and were never burdened with the loss of freedom through debt peonage, inden? ture, or enserfment.

Agricultural land in the 'colonies' was assigned to the village council under the collectivized mir system which was then common in Russia. This meant that a farmer and his heirs were allocated rights to an agricultural plot as long as the plot was cultivated. The village council, or Gemeinde, though, main? tained "incontestable and perpetual" ownership of the land (Koch, 1977:80). Failure to cultivate the plot resulted in the reversion of the plot to the village. Likewise, there were no mechanisms for the sale of land for cash. The result was that village identity was a critical variable in gaining access to farmland. In addition, to ensure that the authority of the collective group was recognized, the special office of Kontor, which was responsible for protecting German

rights, was established by the Russian government (Raleigh, 1986:28). Thus, in terms of mechanisms through which access to the inheritable subsistence base was gained, the peasant Volga Germans were not that different from the

upper-class Germans of the Baltic. For different reasons, access in both societies was dependent on group-based rights and responsibilities which, not inciden?

tally, were dependent on ethnic identity. A consequence of these political arrangements was the emergence of a Volga

German minority that had special group privileges - and obligations - in the context of the Russian Empire. While this situation was relatively stable for a

period - perhaps as long as 96 years (1775-1871) - value shifts were to occur; relative changes in group position were the consequence. On the other hand,




the period of about 96 years also gave the German minority a chance to gain strength of numbers, if not political power.

The position of the Volga German minority began to crumble in 1871 when Czar Alexander initiated his assimilationist Russification program. The origi? nal Volga German population had climbed from the original 25-30,000 to

270,859, reflecting a fantastic growth rate which, as in other areas of rural

Europe, was forcing peasants off the land (Long, 1988:11-12). Nevertheless, while Alexander's policies were implemented vigorously, /. e., German language schools were abolished, the office ofKontorwas abolished, the 26-year military draft was levied on village Gemeinde, and non-Orthodox churches were closed, the Russification policies were ineffective. Indeed, the Volga German minority persisted despite famines in 1904-05 and 1920-21 and persecution during World War I. Indeed, the German minority persisted in their Volga villages until at least 1941 when they were forcibly deported to Siberia.

Germans in Urban Areas ? Moscow and St. Petersburg

Populations of German traders became established in Moscow and Archangel at the time Muscovy was established. Until the time of Peter, this population was isolated in the gilded "German Suburbs" where separate social institutions based on Western European models were founded. Known for their wealth relative to the Russian masses, these groups were maintained as separate groups by both the autocratic rulers of the Russian Orthodox Church and the desires of the wealthier foreigners (wMassie, 1980:110-113).

Peter the Great, at an early point in his reign (1682-1725), began to visit the German suburb of Moscow and eventually recruited large numbers of Western Europeans, particularly Germans, to staff his civil service and military. The private sector was also permitted to recruit artisans, and German firms were established in Moscow and St. Petersburg (wPauli, 1985:37-38). This was a practice which was to continue until Alexander's Russification campaigns in 1871 (Bardett, 1979:5-15, 158-163; Hilger and Meyer, 1953:1-26). However, by the time the Russification programs which were to bring so much

grief to the Volga Germans began, German-surnamed Russians, descended from both the civil servants of Peter and German Baits, dominated many branches of the Russian civil service. Significandy, such positions were based on individual favor within the Czar's court rather than group position guar? anteed by land tenure policies (as in the Volga and Baltic), guarantees extended to guilds (as in the Baltic) or, perhaps more relevant, a hypothetical German

regiment. Ethnic group membership was also generally irrelevant to promotion (or demotion) within the Czar's civil service, with the result that the basis for

establishing a collective identity extended across the entire class of civil servants rather than within a group defined by ethnicity or language.




This trend persisted until the outbreak of war between Germany and Russia in 1914. Even during the Russification campaigns of the 1880s, Russian "German" influence was still high - German surnames accounted for some 40

percent of the Russian High Command, 62 percent of the Ministry of Ports and Commerce, 57 percent of the Foreign Ministry, and 46 percent of the War Ministry (Fleischhauer and Pinkus 1986:18). Even after a nationalistic backlash of World War 1,15 percent of the high-ranking officers of the Russian General Staff had German names or language skills (Fleischhauer and Pinkus, 1986:27). Of course figures of this sort, as Koch (1977:196) points out, need to be treated cautiously. Typically such tabulations were made by counting German-sounding names, whether or not the individuals concerned or the broader society defined them as German. This, though, is in contrast to the

policies adopted for the elimination of German minorities in the Volga and Baltic during the Russification campaigns of Alexander and the backlash caused by the World Wars.

What does the existence (or absence) of the urban German population indicate about assimilation processes? Unfortunately, there has never been a

comprehensive review of what the Russian-German civil service involvement meant to either Russians or Germans in the German, Russian, or English languages (Fleischhauer and Pinkus, 1986:16). This is ironic since these groups were by far the most influential "Germans" in Russia; indeed, they were much more politically significant than the Baltic Germans about whom a volumi? nous literature exists or the peasant Volga Germans about which there is an established literature (see Table 2). Indeed, when Stumpp (1971) prepared his

bibliography of the "German nationality" in Russia, the urban Germans of St.

Petersburg and Moscow did not even merit a section; however, the well-de? fined Volga Germans and Black Sea Germans had major sections. A content

analysis of Stumpp's bibliography reveals that in the 270 years covered, the St.

Petersburg Germans are mentioned in only eleven articles, the bulk of which were published in nineteenth century St. Petersburg or during World War I in Germany, and the Moscow Germans are mentioned in just three articles

(Table 2). This is consistent with Fleischhauer's (Fleischhauer and Pinkus, 1986:16) observation that no entire books have been written about either

group. However, from what information is available, and also by the lack of information from normally ethnic-conscious German academicians, it can be inferred that German ethnicity played little part in the lives of the 35,000 Germans (and their families) who were in the Russian military and the 68,497 who lived in Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1892.

Admittedly, the example provided by the assimilated Moscow Germans is an incomplete one. After all, it is difficult to base an argument on a lack of information. However, this argument will become more complete when it is

put in the context of other assimilated Germans, such as those found in

Pennsylvania and the U.S. Midwest. In such a context the very lack of




biographical information (wGoffiman, 1987:62-66) becomes an important indicator that group identity changed. This is an admittedly roundabout

argument but one that is shown to be relevant again when the cases from

Pennsylvania and the U.S. Midwest are considered.

Colonial Pennsylvania

The simplest way to describe the populating of colonial Pennsylvania is to picture a stake driven into the ground at the waterfront of Philadelphia. A 25-mile radius from this peg would encompass the area of Pennsylvania settled mainly by English immigrants between 1680 and 1710. Extend the radius to the length of 75 miles, and the outer 50 miles of the circle would correspond roughly to the "Dutch" country_ Here from 1710 to 1750, the German-speaking immigrants to colonial Pennsylvania made their homes. Again extend the radius to 150 miles, and in the outermost circumference, corresponding roughly to the arc of the Allegheny Mountains and valleys, the Scotch Irish settled from 1717 to the Revolutionary War. . . . (Klein and Hoogenboom, 1980:39)

Schwartz (1987:292) calls the nature of ethnic, linguistic, and religious diver?

sity in seventeenth to eighteenth century Pennsylvania a "transitional one," or in other words, different from older English and European patterns. She also claims that ultimately this is a source of the new patterns of high immigration and quick assimilation that were to become the pattern in nineteenth and twentieth century North America. As such, this "transitional" state is of interest in attempting to answer the question posed, by this study, about assimilation since at several points during the transition, Pennsylvania society could - and did - take steps toward establishing a pluralistic society of English, Germans, and Scots. The institutions established were not unlike those found in the

Volga Region and Latvia until 1914. Indeed, it did not become obvious until about 1770, over 100 years after the first European emigration to Pennsylvania, that what was to become the North American pattern of relatively unrestricted

immigration followed by quick assimilation emerged. Until that time, political and social rights were asserted as being issues of group rights which, though typically asserted only in extreme situations (Schwartz, 1987:292-293), were nevertheless the basis for a group identity and setdement patterns. This, then, is a situation in common with that of the German settlement of Volga Russia.

What caused the situation in Colonial Pennsylvania to turn out so differ-

endy? Why did the ethnic enclaves, well-established in 1750, disintegrate by 1775? Or, put in a comparative perspective, what caused German ethnicity to be expressed so persistendy in the Volga Region but pushed aside in Pennsyl? vania? The answer lies in how the inheritable subsistence base developed in

Pennsylvania. Because the argument is dependent on following parallel devel?

opments in land tenure, the development of citizenship laws, Pennsylvania social history, and the activities of the Penn family, a timeline is provided in Table 4.




Background: Land Rights and Citizenship. A reason that assimilation might have occurred in Pennsylvania and not in the Volga is rooted in Quaker theology and the social background of Pennsylvania's founder, William Penn (Schwartz, 1987:1-35; Becker, 1982; Dunn, 1986). Penn believed that each individual must establish a relationship with God, independent of group loyalties to a feudal lord or a particular church. Such tolerance of individualism was an innovation of sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe and, indeed, threat? ened the feudal structures of England during the English Civil War (Schwartz, 1987:13-14).

Pennsylvania began as a land grant to William Penn in exchange for the services his father, commander of the British Navy, provided the Crown during the English Civil War. The younger Penn was a member of the radically pacifistic Quaker sect and desired to use his inheritance to establish a Pietist haven for victims of religious intolerance. In 1682, the first of Penn's Quaker colonists arrived and established what is today Philadelphia. The first migrants were English, and it is around them that the structures of provincial govern? ment and commerce were formed.

While as a Quaker modern ideas about individual religious preference were

important to Penn, he was also a man of his time. In other social matters this meant that the society he designed reflected his aristocratic English origins (Dunn, 1986). Most importandy this meant that land sales and land rights were initially developed in the semifeudalistic manner of the day, even as individual choice in religion was respected in a more modern fashion

(Schwartz, 1987:25-26). This happened because, as the sovereign proprietor of an enormous tract of real estate, Penn's rights were more akin to those of a feudal baron responsible to his king, rather than a governor responsible to the

people or a parliament. Initial groups of setders, to some of whom he sold blocks of 60,000 acres, often had the responsibility of'lords' on 'manors,' each

responsible for justice in his territory and the collection of a perpetual annual

'quitrent' payment from the tenants. This pattern reflected the nature of the manorial estate then found in Europe, and it was around such principles in 1683 that a tract of land north of Philadelphia was sold to companies from Frankfort and Crefeld in Germany (Schwartz, 1987:25-26). As in Volga Russia, the explicit understanding was that this would permit the perpetuation of German social institutions.

The initial policy of group landholdings in Pennsylvania disintegrated by about 1700, but by then it had initiated the ethnic setdement pattern in colonial Pennsylvania (Schwartz, 1987; Adas of Pennsylvania, 1989). For

example, Wolf (1976:13) writes that in 1691 Penn granted German town a closed corporation status, with, among other feudalistic rights, the power to admit citizens. This agreement lasted until only 1707, but nevertheless it initiated the emergence of ethnically homogeneous enclaves. Thus, by 1715, the German-speaking enclave was centered in Germantown north of Philadel-




TABLE 4 Timeline Showing How Land Tenure Practices Shifted in Colonial Pennsylvania

1638 1655 1664 1664-82

1680

1681

1683 1700

1700 1701 1709

1709-27

1717 1718 1718 1718-32

1720 1727-28

1725-26 1738 1740 1740

1741-45 1750 1755 1769 1775

1776

Establishment of Swedish Colonies in Delaware and Pennsylvania New Sweden captured by the Dutch New Netherlands captured by the Duke of York (British) Lord Baltimore asserts claim to area of Pennsylvania just north of Philadelphia; Maryland conducts raids William Penn granted Pennsylvania by Charles II and settles boundary with Duke of York Establishment of Pennsylvania by William Penn, including sale of about 750,000 acres of land Establishment of Germantown by company from Crefeld Naturalization Act granting citizenship to all who were in Pennsylvania prior to Penn's grant {i.e., primarily Swedes) Population of Pennsylvania approximately 20,000 Pennsylvania government reorganized, and fourth Constitution adopted Several long-time Swedish and German residents naturalized by Provincial Assembly Swedes petition Provincial Assembly about problems with "fraudulently" acquired land patents and increases in quitrents Population of Pennsylvania about 30,000 Mass migration of Germans and Scotch-Irish begins William Penn dies Disputes by William Penn's heirs over his will; maintenance and issuance of land tides problematic Population of Pennsylvania about 50,000 Assembly appoints committee to study German immigration and their disorderly settlement practices Bill naturalizing seven Germans Temporary boundary with Maryland established (made permanent in 1769) General Naturalization Act Population about 100,000 divided equally between English, Germans, and Scotch-Irish Gradual limitation of quitrents as source of revenue for proprietor Moravian Bishop estimates 100,000 German-speaking people live in Pennsylvania Recruitment of German-speaking regiments for French and Indian War Mason-Dixon line established - establishes permanent boundary with Maryland Revolutionary War and the formation of "American" regiments with explicit rules against establishing national distinctions Population about 300,000_

phia and the English in Philadelphia. In this respect, the situation was not different from other places like Volga Russia, where there were also cheek-by- jowl situations of discrete ethnic communities.

Dating the Shift from a Pluralist to a Assimilationist Society: Schools, Language and the Military. When, how, and why did this cheek-by-jowl situation of discrete ethnic communities break down? There is no direct answer in the literature. However, it can be roughly dated by examining descriptions of three colonial institutions: schools, language, and military units. The changing roles




of these institutions in the Pennsylvania community then can be correlated with changes in land tenure practices which, in the context of what is known about the other cases of German migration described here, nail down my case that the inheritable subsistence base is critical to determining whether a German immigrant group will assimilate or form an enclave.

Schools. How and why bilingual 'charity' schools developed in the 1750s is an important indicator of how fixed German social identity had become by that time. The English hoped to erode the German social position by attracting the German poor to these charity schools, thereby socializing them into an

English social identity. However, these charity schools were developed only over the loud protests of the German elite (Knauss, 1922:73-78; Weber, 1969). In contrast, post-Revolution attempts at German education tended to focus on bilingualism and were initiated by Germans intent on preserving the

declining German identity (Knauss, 1922).

Language. On the other hand, deterioration of German language skills in the 1780s and 1790s, i.e., the Anglicization of German, was a frequent subject for the nativistic German newspapers, intent on preserving a German-speaking readership (Knauss 1922:112-114). Knauss (109-110) dated this shift to the 1755-1781 period when he notes the German newspapers were silent on the

subject of language change, presumably because it was a discreditable subject more tactfully dealt with through silence. Knauss (109-111) speculated why this was so:

From 1755 to 1781 the German papers are, with one exception, silent on the subject of language. We can, however, easily guess what was happening during this period -

undoubtedly the spirit of suspicion was gradually being replaced by one of mutual respect and goodwill. In the first place, the younger generation of both nationalities, growing up side by side, appreciated one another better than their ancestors had done. This caused many prejudices to vanish. In the second place, this intimacy between the people presumably led to intermarriages, and such marriages were bound to be of great assistance in breaking down the barriers between the two nationalities. . . .

Military Units. This shift from a pluralist to an assimilationist society in

Pennsylvania is perhaps best illustrated by Bittinger's (1968) nostalgic accounts of how military units were raised during Pennsylvania's ethnically plural stage, and then after assimilation had begun to occur. Thus, as Bittinger (135-136)

proudly notes, Swiss and German officers were brought to Pennsylvania to command German-speaking regiments in 1755 at the outbreak of the French and Indian War (see also Graeff, 1942a:l4-15; 1942b:228-233; Schwartz, 1987:279). On the other hand, in a later chapter, Bittinger (1968:206-214)

brags that German soldiers stood side by side with English-speaking regiments during the Revolutionary War with explicit regulations specifying that "all national distinctions in dress or name ... be avoided, it being proper that we should now be united in this general association for defending our liberties and properties under the sole denominations of Americans." In such a context,




what Schwartz (1987:292) calls the transition to an assimilative society with an American identity rather than a pluralistic society dependent on old social forms must have occurred during this period. And it occurred only after secure forms of individual landholdings had emerged.

Migration, Land, and Identity in Pennsylvania. Pluralism in Pennsylvania was further accentuated by the mass migration of Germans from the German Rhineland and Scottish Ireland to Pennsylvania. Beginning in 1718, refugees from wars fought in the Rhineland began to arrive in Philadelphia. Unlike earlier migrants, they were welcomed by the preexisting German-speaking social enclaves in Pennsylvania.

Separate cultural institutions, e.g., schools, newspapers, courts, churches and

language, developed as a consequence despite factors that might have been

presumed to assimilate these groups. For example, there was a common

religious identity between early-arriving German and English Pietists and also a certain commonality among later-arriving German Lutherans and English Anglicans who shared similar Protestant traditions (Schwartz, 1987:73). How? ever, neither source of social identifications overrode ethnic identification in the early 1700s. There were also aristocratic and plebian populations and urban and rural divisions along which a sense of class solidarity might have been established. There were no laws banning interethnic marriage. None of these facts, though, were sufficient to damage the group solidarities that were based on language and national origin until at least the 1750s. Given, then, that these more obvious changes did not occur, what did? What changes caused shifts in how group solidarity patterns formed?

Land as an Alienable and Inheritable Commodity: Citizenship, Penn's Will, and the Maryland Boundary. What shifted at the same time as assimilation processes began were land tenure laws and practices, particularly on the frontiers (see Adas of Pennsylvania, 1989:82-83; Wolf, 1976). This shift occurred as three

general issues were resolved: the gradual introduction of liberal citizenship laws, the resolution of the Penn family's semifeudal claims following the 1718 death of William Penn, and a boundary dispute between Pennsylvania and

Maryland. It was only after these issues had been resolved that land could

emerge as a secure inheritable commodity for immigrant Germans. Consider the problems that Nash (1968:321) encountered when conduct?

ing his historical research about land tenure. He complained about the quality of land tenure records from 1700-1750 limiting the quality of his research. However, what was an annoyance for a historian must have been at least as troublesome for Pennsylvania farmers who had to live with the uncertainty of whether they would "own" their farms in the future or not. These conditions led to Schwartz' (1987:93-94) description of a chaotic land tenure situation in which squatting and fraud were common. Changing this system was a slow

legalistic process which lasted from the 1740s to the 1760s. Until these claims




were resolved, the German settlers continued to have only a tenuous claim on 'their' land. In this light, consider the problems generated not only in land-

holding but also individual citizenship.

Citizenship. Disputes about citizenship and the awarding of inheritable "free holder" status were early problems for the German settlers. Without freeholder status, i.e., status as a British subject, Germans could not legally pass the land

they acquired on to their heirs. This issue was reflected in early debates in the

colony about the nature of citizenship, inheritance, and naturalization, which took place between 1682 and 1728 (see Table 4 and Schwartz, 1987:160). This, though, was also a philosophical issue rooted in Penn's Quaker ideals as well as a practical legal one. Penn himself had been generous in offering freeholder status to foreigners, giving them rights to pass land to heirs rather than have possessions revert to the Proprietor upon death. However, due to resistance from the Crown in London, this generosity was extended in a

piecemeal ad hoc system until 1741 when the first general naturalization law was finally passed, providing foreigners, particularly Germans, with the same

citizenship rights as the English.

Penn s Will. A second problem for security of land holdings for German settlers was the security of the land deeds themselves. This was caused first by legal squabbles between Penn's heirs following his death in 1718 (Schwartz, 1987:88). This created confusion about how land tides were to be issued and maintained. Land tides had continued to include a requirement for quitrent even though there was no identifiable Proprietor to pay. Not surprisingly, many tideholders fell in arrears on their payments. Not until 1732 were the

quitrent rights finally apportioned among Penn's heirs. The intervening fourteen years, however, meant that the Penn family's rights had become

extremely disorganized, and a reorganization of their property rights became

necessary.

Maryland Border Dispute. Land-hungry Germans also became pawns in the sometimes violent boundary dispute between Pennsylvania and Maryland (Kessel, 1981:15-16; Dunlop, 1826). This meant that the coercive authority responsible for issuing and protecting deeds was absent. A consequence was that 'claims clubs' emerged in order to protect homesteads. In such a chaotic situation it seems logical to assume that defense of land claims and livelihood

strengthened old forms of group identity. In other words, if an individual land claim could not be guaranteed by the symbolic protection offered by the land office (e.g., deeds, benchmarks, surveys, and courts) and backed up by the coercive powers of Penn's government, protection might have been sought in the familiar (and easily rekindled) associations brought from Europe.

Issues of land tenure, including those having to do with citizenship, the

rights of Penn's heirs, and the Maryland border dispute, were slowly resolved between 1732 and the 1740s. The first step was the resolution of the legal cases




resulting from William Penn's will in 1732. A preliminary boundary agree? ment was also negotiated between Maryland and the Penn family in 1738. These two agreements, however, presented the Penn family with an incentive to reorganize their estates and rights in a manner which permitted collection of the taxes and rents needed to support their enterprises. In the context of the massive immigration that had helped triple the population between 1717 and

1740, this required formalizing the status of many unregistered farms. Often this was done through outright sales, meaning discontinuance of the perpetual levy of the feudalistic (and largely uncollectible) annual quitrents (Illick, 1976:178). Likewise, instead of doing this through intermediaries, the Penns innovated by contracting directly with the occupiers of the land and regular? izing the deeds of farmers who had failed to pay quitrents. At the same time the widespread naturalization of Germans during the 1740s and 1750s oc? curred, meaning that for the first time the Germans could pass their individual land tides to heirs without resorting to ethnically-based claims of group rights.

Volga Germans in the United States

Wherever immigrants from the Volga and other areas of Russia settled in North America they have usually become assimilated and acculturized smoothly and rapidly. The second, third, and fourth generations have dispersed themselves over most of the continent, indistinguishable from other white Americans and Canadians. They have long since ceased being a distinct minority, entirely through their own efforts. . . . They are not hyphenated Americans and don't want to be because they prefer to be Americans all the way. . . . (Koch, 1977:221)

The contrast between the Volga Germans migrating to the United States in 1870-1910 and the population they left behind in Russia is striking. At the same time that Volga Germans were being deported on the basis of ethnic

group identity in the Soviet Union, their first cousins in the United States had achieved an American identity in the Midwest and Western part of the United States. Again, the constant between this and other circumstances seems to be that in the United States, landholdings were not dependent on the mir system but had developed into one of individual holdings. The inheritable economic base can quickly demonstrate how this happened.

Patterns of individual landholdings did not emerge full-blown in Kansas at the time of migration. Lacking other social models, the role of the group in economic decisionmaking was similar to that in Volga Russia. The first Volga Germans' farms purchased in Kansas were the result of group negotiations and decisions (Koch, 1977:212-221; Scheuerman and Trafazer, 1980). However, there was a slight difference forced by the new social environment: land tides were not held by the village collective but by individual farmers. The initial failures - as there were failures in all of the migrations surveyed here - did not result in widespread starvation or redemption. Rather, individual farmers sold the failed farms, perhaps at a loss, and entered the labor market as railroad




workers or unskilled laborers, earning wages which were used to reestablish themselves on better land (Scheuerman and Trafazer, 1980:119-177). This

happened time after time until, within 40 years of the initial migrations, Volga German settlements ranged from Kansas to the Dakotas, Washington, Colo?

rado, and California (Koch, 1977:219-222). Under such conditions of mo?

bility, individual life histories must have been continually adjusted and adapted to meet rapidly changing circumstances in a way that would not have been

possible in the Volga, the Baltic, or in early Pennsylvania. In the same manner that the Moscow/St. Petersburg civil servants seem to have quickly assimilated, it was through such adjustments that the claims of ethnic solidarity shifted, and the Volga Germans came to "prefer to be Americans all the way" (Koch, 1977:20). Certainly this was an unusual phenomena for a group that for 170

years in the Volga Russia had done everything possible to protect a distinct cultural identity, often at great social cost.

Why this difference? In terms of attitudes towards ethnic identity, there is no obvious answer since presumably Alexander's coercive Russification meas? ures offered Volga Germans incentives to assimilate into a Russian identity. Perhaps these contradictions meant that despite the materialistic rationalism to which Alexander's coercive incentives appealed, the structural means to assimilate were lacking. On the other hand, the problems with assertion of ethnic identity encountered in the United States were minimal when com?

pared to Alexander's overt Russification policies. And yet it was in the United States by the Volga Germans that assimilation occurred, and not in Russia. A

plausible explanation is that this was the result of land tenure issues related to

mobility of human and financial capital.

Midwestern Hutterites

While the majority of Volga Germans in the United States provide a contrast to their cousins in the USSR, there is a modern exception (Koch, 1977:221). This exception is the Hutterite brotherhood which migrated as a communal

group through Austria, Moravia, the Balkans, Russia, and finally to the United States and Canada (Hosteder, 1974:5-133; Kloberdanz, 1988). Throughout their migrations, the Hutterites maintained collective principles of land own?

ership, whether it was enforced by the state policy (as in Russia) or by internally generated normative standards (in the United States and Canada). In North

America, such principles have often been sustained in the context of govern? mental dicouragement (Hosteder, 1974:133-136).

Collective ownership of property by the Hutterite brethren is considered to be the factor defining group membership (Bennett, 1969:246-270). Indeed, Kloberdanz (1988:162) equates Hutterite disintegration with abandonment of group identity. Kloberdanz points out that of the Hutterite migrants who took up residence in southeastern North Dakota in 1874, half abandoned the




"communal tradition" in favor of privately owned homesteads and, by impli? cation, assimilated into the larger German and American communities of nineteenth century North Dakota. Indeed, ultimately, collective ownership is the factor used by the Hutterite leaders to control group fragmentation (Hosteder, 1974:153-173).

Given the significance of communal land ownership in Hutterite commu? nities, and particularly in the context of the examples cited, it seems important to ask what role land tenure patterns play in identifying ethnic boundaries. Or, more specifically, since most modern ethnic groups are not necessarily tied to the land, what is it about the ownership of land that ties it so closely to

questions of ethnicity? The answer to this question, at least in the context of German migrant groups, is in how the subsistence source is inherited. Why this 'process' is the most plausible explanation in these German cases emerges, I think, out of the comparison made above.

CONCLUSION

What the Examples Mean in Terms of German Ethnic Identity

The six groups surveyed here have been confronted with the potential of group breakdown as a result of long-distance migration. These six groups, in the context of both external conditions and internally imposed normative stand? ards, have responded in different ways depending on social class, religious affiliation, enforced servitude, and minority status. It is the argument of this article, that none of these more obvious factors were determinative of whether assimilation processes would occur. Rather, what was critical was the relation of the group to the inheritable economic base which, in the case of the Germans

surveyed here, was usually land. This process is described in Figure I. A brief summation of the argument presented about each group shows why this is the

logical conclusion best descriptive of what happened in not just one but all

groups. Baltic Germans were the feudal upper classes in the Baltics. Throughout

their stay in Estonia and Latvia, their group position was guaranteed by feudalistic traditions of inheritance, inherited membership in trade guilds, noble positions, and ultimately by treaties negotiated with the Russians

recognizing German identity in the Baltics.

Volga Germans were also legally guaranteed group rights. Unlike the Baltic Germans, though, the Volga Germans were of lower classes and mixed religious (Protestant and Catholic) background. As with the Baltic Germans, social

position was guaranteed through group-based negotiations, particularly for land, which the mir system guaranteed. Mechanisms for transfer of land rights through heredity and marriage were similar to the mechanisms that the Baltic Germans used to transfer interests in noble tides or memberships in guilds. Nowhere in these circumstances could land or guild memberships be freely




sold on a market that included ethnic Russian outsiders. The only form of land tenure was through inheritance of position within the mir.

The examples of the Moscow/St. Petersburg Germans indicate that assimi? lative processes did occur in Russia; in other words, there is nothing inherent about Russia, feudalism, or a rigidly stratified social system that requires formation of an ethnic enclave and stops assimilation. Furthermore, the lack of emphasis on special group rights with respect to the civil service, i.e., that there were no guaranteed 'German positions' or 'Russian positions' in the civil service or military, indicates a mechanism for access to the inheritable eco? nomic base from that in the cases described above. This is because instead the 'economic base' was found in social class, not in ethnic solidarity.

The example of the Volga Germans from the U.S. Midwest points out the irrelevance of the 'common sense' measures that Alexander tried in his assimi? lative Russification campaigns. Banning German schools, newspapers, and the German language, closing churches and the office of Kontor, restriction of

group rights, and a military draft are shown to be particularly irrelevant in the context of the Volga German experience in the U.S. Midwest. The specter of the 'voluntary' abandonment of the same institutions by Midwestern Volga Germans for which their first cousins in the Volga were to die during the famines of 1905-1941 are then quite remarkable. And in such a context, the notable mobility permitted by American land tenure policies becomes even more interesting.

The example of William Penn's Pennsylvania brings the entire process into

sharp focus since the shift from a plural to an assimilative society occurred in the context of emerging guarantees for a secure inheritable economic base.

Again, when the traditional determinants of assimilation are examined in the context of the Pennsylvania case, they slowly unravel as causal explanations. Religious affiliation was not important enough. Enforced servitude with resultant bilingualism did not cause assimilation to occur. Nor did Penn's

policies requiring dispersed (i.e., nonvillage) settlement, nor his emphasis on

religious tolerance. External threat, i.e., the French and Indian War in 1755 and the American Revolution in 1775, seems to have had opposite effects with

regard to ethnic solidarity, at least with respect to the raising of military units.

Only when the mechanisms for ensuring tide to land are examined - and the manner in which they changed in about 1740 - does the process of assimilation in colonial Pennsylvania come into focus.

Finally, the example of the Hutterites in North America demonstrates that communal ethnic solidarity can and does persist in North America if adequate communal economic norms are internally generated and stricdy enforced. In other words, land tenure and inheritance norms are not inevitably adopted from the host society, despite material incentives to do so. If - and this is a big if- preestablished norms can be maintained despite the stresses of migration, a preestablished corporate identity can be perpetuated. It is also notable that




these norms include requirements for membership in a corporate identity that controls the inheritable economic base, which in the case of the Hutterites is land and equipment. Thus, it is demonstrated that even in the North American context, maintaining a communal economic base defies the forces of assimila? tion. Indeed, the nature of the Hutterite landholdings is remarkably similar to that found in the Russian mir.

Do These 'Old'Examples Mean Anything for Integration and Migration Today?

Substantial German emigration continued until the twentieth century, with substantial numbers leaving just after World War I and before and after World War II (Bade, 1987). Most left for the United States, where apparendy they and their descendants have assimilated into the host population. However, was this due to the fact that these emigrants were not farmers or was it due to the United States' liberal citizenship policies that permitted the acquisition of an education, jobs, and social status (i.e., the modern inheritable subsistence base) by the immigrants on the same basis as U.S. citizens? Specific data is not available. However, I would argue on the basis of the cases from the Mos? cow/St. Petersburg and Pennsylvania, described above, that the U.S. liberal

citizenship policies were the proximate cause and not the shift from an

agricultural to an industrial society. Stepping outside the German cases, the formation of ethnic enclaves in other

parts of the modern industrial world can also be found. Typically the formation of ethnic enclaves has occurred in countries where the acquisition of citizenship is difficult, with the consequence that property rights for immigrants are

notably different than for the host population. Examples that quickly come to mind include the Chinese emigration to Southeast Asia where ethnic enclaves have been formed in some countries (e.g., Vietnam and Cambodia), but assimilated in others (e.g., Thailand and Hong Kong). Similar arguments could

perhaps be made about Palestinian migration to countries such as the United States, Kuwait, and Morocco.

Postwar Germany, though, provides one of the better comparative exam?

ples. Extremely liberal citizenship laws benefiting immigrants of German

ancestry from Eastern Europe has typically led to the rapid assimilation of these

populations into an unhyphenated German identity. On the other hand, conservative citizenship laws relative to the Turkish 'minority' in Germany led to the formation of persistent ethnic enclaves. In a study of assimilation such as this, it would be a tautology to argue, as is often done in popular accounts, that 'culture' is the cause of assimilation by the Eastern European Germans and not by the Turks. It is more persuasive to assume that either immigrant group could have assimilated or formed an ethnic enclave. The different results, then, can be explained by the fact that citizenship laws have positioned the




groups differendy relative to the acquisition of jobs and education, i.e., the modern source of an inheritable subsistence base. Out of this positioning has come the persistent identities which we observe in Germany today.

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