Volyn and Kyiv

The exhibition, The Germans in Northern Ukraine — Volyn and Kyiv, that opened the Friday before last in the scientific library of Zhytomyr oblast has become a political event in the cultural life of the city. Its twenty stands contain a number of pictures, detailed text notes giving an idea of the time when Kyiv and the Great Volyn lands (being now the territory of Volyn, Rivne, and Zhytomyr oblasts) were peopled with Germans, of the main historical stages of the process and the Germans’ way of life, as well as considerable contribution to the culture, economy, and other spheres of Ukrainian social life. A little-known fact is mentioned, in particular, that as early as 1007 Prince Volodymyr the Saint was visited in Kyiv by the envoy of German Emperor Otto III, his court priest Bruno. The latter also spent five months among the Pechenegs, promoting their reconciliation with Volodymyr. During the next two centuries more and more natives of German lands settled in Kyivan Rus’. The main stream of the Germans’ resettlement into the Northern Ukraine fell on the last third of the nineteenth century, predominantly colonist peasants attracted by the lure of cheap land. At the close of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, German entrepreneurs, engineers, and architects erected many industrial plants, dwellings, and other public buildings in Kyiv. Most of them still remain, their photographs being presented at the exhibition.

However, as the Second World War began, at Hitler’s will almost all Germans were resettled back to the Reich (pictures of that exodus have remained — they show German peasants wearing Ukrainian sheepskin coats). As the war was approaching its completion, the German settlers families from Eastern Volyn that had been able to survive Stalin’s deportations left for Germany too. By the estimate of Valdemar Danis, director of the Bavarian House Odesa charity fund, that he has expressed in the conversation with The Day, 80,000 to 100,000 Germans are currently living in different regions of Ukraine doing their share for the development of various social life spheres. According to Volodymyr Hrenkovsky, head of the Zhytomyr oblast Vidrodzhennia German Union, about 3000 representatives of this nation are currently living and working in Zhytomyr oblast.

It remains only to add that it is Nickolaus Arndt, former Volyn native, well known German historian, researcher, and publisher and one of the leaders of the Volyn Historical Society who has contributed greatly to the mentioned exhibition’s organization. The society functions in Germany and is primarily responsible for putting on the exposition. Apart from already mentioned social institutions, it has also been put thanks to the Tovarystvo Rozvytku Fund and the Association of the Germans in Ukraine. The Day is going to give more details about the historical fate of the Germans in Volyn, in particular, in Zhytomyr region, in the coming issues.