Pridnestrovie's Germans return to find their roots ...and root for independence

A Pridnestrovie-born German and his daughter stand beside one of the country's memorials to the ethnic German communities in PMR

BERGDORF (Tiraspol Times) - The village of Bergdorf, in the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, once had a thriving German population. Its old Lutheran church still stands, but today it has been turned into a community center and the remaining Germans prefer to hold their church services in the intimacy of the home of their local pastor.

" - Ach Ja! Natürlich," says one of them, explaining that there are now so few churchgoers among Bergdorf's German population that they would have trouble filling up the large Lutheran church these days.

Although the leading cultural influence in Pridnestrovie is Slavic, and primarily Russian, the country also has a long and rich German influence. Many either left during World War II or were deported afterwards by Stalin, but others managed to stay. And among those who had to leave, some returned. Now even more are coming back to find their old Pridnestrovian-German roots.

All over Pridnestrovie, numerous German sites are commonly found ... such as this church in Rybnitsa, the country's third largest city.

Pridnestrovie's German heritage

The territory which today makes up Pridnestrovie never belonged to Germany at any time in history, just as it never belonged to Moldova either. But there are both German and Moldovan minorities here; each having left their traditions and cultural marks on the multi-ethnic tapestry of this traditional border region.

Many of the region's Germans fled west in 1944 when Hitler's armies retreated before advancing Soviet troops. Forcefully repatriated to the Soviet Union after the war, thousands wound up in Siberian labor camps or closed villages in Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan.

But in the previous century, what is now Pridnestrovie saw a blooming German culture. Settlers from southwestern Germany founded the Glueckstal colonies in 1808-1809, creating four predominantly Lutheran villages in Pridnestrovie: Glueckstal, Bergdorf, Neudorf and Kassel. The hilly country became fruitful farmland.

Architecture in many parts of Pridnestrovie has a distinct German touch. Biergartens and houses designed by the country's ethnic Germans reveal the many Western European influences in the area.

In 1848, a diocese was founded in the nearby city of Tiraspol to serve the Catholics in the Black Sea region. Tiraspol is today Pridnestrovie's capital, a city of more than 100,000 that was heavily damaged in World War II.

Pridnestrovian emigration to America

Like other ethnic German areas, the Glueckstal colonies in Pridnestrovie produced many settlers who eventually migrated to the American plains, especially McIntosh County in North Dakota and McPherson County in South Dakota.

Their journeys started in the 1870s, as Russia's Czarist government ended the privileges the Germans had enjoyed: Freedom from the military draft, schooling in their own language and a great deal of political autonomy.

Today, remnants of that culture can still be found in Pridnestrovie. Bergdorf’s former Luther church keeps the Leipzig-made organ that once accompanied the singing of German hymns, and there are strong signs of German styles in the local architecture.

Many houses display distinct German style architecture, but few Germans returned to the Glueckstal villages after their many years in exile. One who did is 75-year-old Elizabeta Eckman Minderlin, who now lives in Pridnestrovie again, and who tells her story in the same Swabian dialect still spoken in places such as Strasburg, North Dakotya, or Eureka, South Dakota (USA).

She blames Germany for her sufferings, in particular the hungry years of compulsory work during World War II, when the native-born Germans called them "Russian pigs" because they were born on land that has long been traditionally Russian. During World War II, Nazi Germany was allied with Romania, and Romanian troops occupied Pridnestrovie (which they called Transnistria). The Romanian invaders brought German Nazis with them. Upon arriving in the village of Elizabeta Eckman Minderlin, the German and Romanian troops shot the local Jewish woman, "a poor woman who never did anything to anybody," she recalled.

" - The war ruined everything," Minderlin said. "Everything was crazy, in a mess."

In Tiraspol, a small group of ethnic Germans has formed a group to study the language and culture. They have few books or other supplies, and complain that the German government gives them no support, unlike similar efforts in Ukraine or Russia. This is due to Pridnestrovie's current status as an unrecognized country: Its lack of international acceptance prevents the German government from engaging in formal aid- and information sharing programs with the government of Pridnestrovie.

"I want to stay in my own land"

Although many of Pridnestrovie's ethnic Germans have today already emigrated to Germany or other countries in the West, this prospect holds little attraction to some who want to stay in Pridnestrovie and see this "new Europe" become a real, sovereign country in its own right. To them, Pridnestrovie is their home, and they say that they just want a little help to keep their German culture and ethnicity alive.

" - I don't want to go anywhere," an elderly lady said at a recent gathering. "I want to stay in my own land."

For the ethnic Germans in Pridnestrovie, Moldova is not their land - but neither is Germany. For them, their country is Pridnestrovie.

The conflict with Moldova is territorial, but it is not based on any clear legal or historical argument, explains one of the ethnic Germans. It stems from Stalin-era geopolitics that saw nationalities become the tools of centralized power. It follows directly from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that divided up Eastern Europe.

Pridnestrovie originally belonged to the Ukraine, but Stalin attached it to Bessarabia in 1940 after the Soviet Union seized the province from Romania. The combination became the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic, now Moldova.

The rest of the world will not yet allow Pridnestrovie to exist as an independent and sovereign state. Internationally, it is considered part of Moldova in a mix-up that has locals bewildered: It was never part of any independent Moldovan state at any time in the past.

When the Moldavian SSR declared independence, it wanted to leave the Soviet Union but also wanted to take an area with it that had never been a legal or historical part of Moldova, and which did not have a Moldovan majority. This land, Pridnestrovie, answered by declaring its own independence. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, both sides have been independent but they have not been together: Each one has its own flag, national anthems, constitution, passports, central bank, postage stamps, license plates, president, parliament and all the other attributes of statehood. Only one of the two is internationally recognized, and the other is not. But for the Germans who are now returning to find their roots, Pridnestrovie is real.

It is home ... or so they say.

See also:
» Jewish communities support Pridnestrovie's independence