Remembering the German settlements in Ukraine. Between 1766 and 1944, Germans lived in over 3,000 places within the borders of Ukraine today, in both urban and rural settlements, in the former imperial empires of Austria, Hungary and Russia. These places—whether they still exist or not, whether their names are the same or not—remain in the hearts of the descendants as one our ancestral homelands.
Slava Ukraini!
🇺🇦🌻
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| 1902 map of the Kuban Region with Markosowka marked and circled. |
I finally found a map that has the colony name “Markosowka” on it.
It is not exactly where Russian-German sources describe it to be, either. Those sources, which probably all stem from the work of Karl Stumpp, state there were two colonies, Gross-Markosowka and Klein-Markosowka. However, contemporary sources from 1906, 1909 and 1910 with lists of German colonies, and now a period map published in 1902 indicate there was only one colony called Markosowka. Even most family trees do not use Gross- or Klein- for their Markosowka ancestors’ entries. Stumpp and those who echoed him appear to be incorrect on this.
Given this new evidence, I have removed the estimated locations for Gross-Markosowka and Klein-Markosowka and added Markosowka to the map with cross referenced the names and a link to this post.
While this post may only interest a few researchers with Bessarabian roots, the sources might be of interest to a wider audience. Feel free to skip the analysis below and go to the sources at the end.
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Every time someone asks me about Gross-Markosowka or Klein-Markosowka (est. 1870/71) in the North Caucasus region, I go off to look for any new maps that might have these two daughter colonies on them by name. You see, up to this point, the only map that had the names is Karl Stumpp’s “Karte der deutschen Siedlungen im Nord u. Südkaukasus” [Map of the German Settlements in the North and South Caucasus]. And it is not one of his better maps.
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| Section of the Karl Stumpp “Karte der deutschen Siedlungen im Nord u. Südkaukasus” [Map of the German Settlements in the North and South Caucasus] |
The two lines you can barely make out on the top to the left (west) of the railway line (the heavy black and white line going from Kropotkin to Armavir) is Gross-Markosowka. The two lines to the left (east) of the railway line below were Klein-Markosowka. The crosses in parenthesis (+) at the end means that they were no longer there by the time the map was published in 1960.
And below is what was written about these places from two published sources. There are some contradictions between them and the map above, but for the most part they are in sync.
From Немцы России Населенные Пункты И Места Поселения Энциклопедический Словарь [Germans of Russia Populations and Locations Encyclopedic Dictionary] (2006):
GROSS-MARKOZOVKA [ГРОСС-МАРКОЗОВКА] (Markozovka), until 1917 – Kuban region, Labinsk (Zakubansky) department; in the soviet period – Krasnodar region, Gulkevichsky/Kropotkinsky district. Lutheran village on leased land, founded in 1871. Situated 40 km northwest of Armavir. Founders from the Eigenfeld [Bessarabia —SSP] village. Lutheran parish Pyatigorsk. Land 1,551 dessiatines. The heirs of the owner Markozov did not wish to sell the leased land, and in 1910 many residents left the village, buying land near the Kuma River. Residents: 536/529 German (1897), 150 (1925).
KLEIN-MARKOZOVKA [КЛЕЙН-МАРКОЗОВКА] (Markozovo), until 1917 – Kuban region, Labinsk (Zakubansky) department; in the Soviet period – Krasnodar region, Kropotkinsky/Armavir (Novo-Kubansky) district. Lutheran village on leased land, founded in 1871. Situated 25 km northwest of Armavir. Named after the landowner Markozov. Founders from the Eigenfeld [Bessarabia —SSP] community. Lutheran parish Pyatigorsk. Land 500 dessiatines. Pop.: 507/455 German (1897), 200 (1925).
Groß-Markosovka, Caucasus, Armavir, Krapotkin. #E 2. Founded by Bessarabian families on leased land in 1870. Evangelical; parish: Pyatigorsk. As Markosovs’ heirs did not want to sell the land, residents left in 1910 and bought land on the Kuma River. Acreage: 35 farms. Population: 150 in 1926. Ceased to exist after 1918. Also see Groß-Markosowka; Gross-Markosovka; Gross-Markosowka; Markosovka, Groß-; Markosowka, Groß-; Markosovka, Gross-; Markosowka, Gross-.
Klein-Markozovka, Caucasus, Armavir, Krapotkin. #E 2. Founded in 1870 on leased land by families from the Volga. Evangelical. Approximately 40 farms. Population: 200 in 1926. Ceased to exist after 1918. Also see Klein-Markosowka; Markosowka, Klein-; Markozovka, Klein-.
A little side history and a connection to German-Russian Mennonites: Vasily Ivanovich Markozov (1838-1908) was a Russian infantry general in the Caucasian War (1817-64 and the Khiva campaign of 1873. The result of the former was the annexation of the North Caucasus into the Russian Empire, opening more migration land for the Germans in Russia. Makes sense that he would have estate lands in the North Caucasus. The latter was a military expedition of Russian troops with the goal of conquering the Khiva Khanate. The outcome was that Khiva became a protectorate of the Russian empire between 1873 and 1917, and it was during this time that two Mennonite colonies were established in Khiva in 1884 as a part of the Great Mennonite Trek to Central Asia. You can find the colonies on the Russian Turkestan map and read more about the area in a previous post.
Although they are listed as two colonies, family trees rarely distinguish between the two. Gross is used more than Klein when recording the place name, but most often there is no prefix at all, with just plain Markosowka used, like on this newly found map. Where the place names originated as they were added to the trees (family lore? parish records? someone else’s tree?) is undetermined in most cases with no sources listed to verify an origin. The few EWZ files for people from this colony also note just Markosowka, and those have birth dates back into the late 1800s, so not soviet era.
At this point, I wondered just how many Markosowkas were there? Three: Markosowka, Gross-Markosowka, and Klein-Markosowka? Two: Gross-Markosowka (aka Markosowka) and Klein-Markosowka? Or was there one Markosowka, the one that appears on the map from 1902?
Searching my ever-growing digital collection of “stuff” on my laptop for every-which way to spell the name of the colony, I came up back with three important files: digital copies of the Neuer Haus- und Landwirtschaftskalender für deutsche Ansiedler im südlichen Russland, or the New Domestic and Agricultural Calendar for German Settlers in Southern Russia for the years 1906, 1909, and 1910. I think of these as the farmer’s almanac of South Russia. Markosowka showed up in these as a German colony in the Kuban region. Markosowka. Not Gross-Markosowka. Not Klein-Markosowka. Just Markosowka. These coupled with the map from 1902 confirmed that there was indeed just one.
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| Page 55, image 64 from Neuer Haus- und Landwirtschaftskalender für deutsche Ansiedler im südlichen Russland. 1906 |
The image above shows the name Markosowka in the Kuban-Gebiet. The names listed to the right of the colony name are a. the community elder (Phillipp Göhring), b. his assistant (David Flegel), and c. the municipal clerk (Johannes Bender). Population 600. Founded 1874. 1600 desyatina of land.
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| Page 72, image 81 from Neuer Haus- und Landwirtschaftskalender für deutsche Ansiedler im südlichen Russland. 1906 |
The image here shows the Evangelical Lutheran congregations in the Caucasus. Markosowka was a part of a branch of the Ekaterinodar-Novorossiysk parish. Johannes Bender was the German school teacher. It was a requirement to have a Russian school teacher at this time, but there wasn’t one assigned, nor were there any helpers. There were 132 students.
Markosowka was listed as a part of the Pyatigorsk parish in the German-Russian Handbook and other sources. FamilySearch has no records for Pyatigorsk and only Armenian Catholic records for Ekaterinodar (Krasnodar today).
The Black Sea German Research (BSGR) database contains names with birth places that contain the word Markosowka, Markosovka or Markozov and death places that contain the word Markosowka or Markosovka (none for Markozov). These fit the years of known habitation, roughly 1868-1910.
The text extracts of GEDCOMs that used to be on the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia’s (AHSGR) website several years ago have references to Markosowka/Markosovka. Some may be duplicates of the BSGR data.
Searching Ancestry.com for just the place name Markosowka or Markosovka came back with ship manifests, social security applications, obituaries from ASHGR and newspaper clippings from Newspapers.com. Most of them noted the place of birth or last residence as Markosowka. The surnames were all the same as those in the BSGR database.
Below is a summary of the data that is/was publically available. It is far from a full analysis of Markosowaka, but it gives a general idea of the diaspora of this one daughter colony.
Known Surnames — Babitzke, Beierle, Bender, Borth, Bossert, Diede, Fischer, Flagel, Flato [Flatho], Flegel, Gebhardt, Gehring, Göhring, Guenther, Haecker, Hartfelder, Hasert, Hein, Hirschkorn, Isaak, Janke, Klauss, Kleim, Knodel, Kroll, Kruse, Kurtz, Lang, Littau, Mann, Manske, Mittelstaedt, Mueller, Pahl, Patzer, Plischke, Pries, Rauser, Ruff, Scheffelmeier, Schelske, Schmidt, Schulz, Sommerfeld, Stern, Trautwein, Wagner, Werner, Widmer, Wittchen, and Wonnenberg.
Known Places of Origin — Markosowka was a daughter colonies, so it was a place of migration from other colonies. Places of origin here include birthplaces for those who died in Markosowka.
Bessarabia: Borodino, Brienne, Eigenfeld, Gnadental, Josefsdorf, Katzbach, Klöstitz, Kulm, Leipzig, Lichtental, Tarutino, and Wittenberg.
Saratov: Huck
Luisental was also listed in a database entry as “Luisental, Bessarabia,” but I do not know this place in Bessarabia. The only Luisental I am aware of is part of the Bergtal settlement near Mariupol.
Known Places of Immigration/Migration/Repatriation/Deportation — These are final destinations from ship manifests, places lived and died from published obituaries, and death places (modern countries) for those who were born in Markosowka as they are noted in family trees from BSGR and AHSGR.
Argentina - no specific place noted
Canada
Alberta: Medicine Hat
Caspian Sea - According to the notes in the tree, this person was accused of being a kulak in 1933 and sentence to 6 years in Pyatigorsk, where he was malnourished and released in 1937. He was then taken again, and with others “forced to walk plank into the Caspian Sea.”
Germany
Neuss
Neustadt (Bavaria)
Palatinate (Pfalz) region
Schossin
Schleswig
Wittenburg
Iran
Duruk
Kazakhstan
Batpak Collective (?)
Collective Farm (no specific place given)
Frunze (not sure which one)
Karaganda
Pavlodar area
Pokrovka
Semipalatinsk
Uljanovka (not sure which)
Russia
Chelyabinsk (labor camp)
Dagestan - Chasavjurt, Machatschkala
Krasnodar Krai - Gulkevichi
Omsk - Luzino (shot in the labor army)
Stavropol - Marienbrunn, Mineralne Wodje
Siberia - no specific place given
Sverdlovsk Oblast
USSR labor camp - no specific place given
United States
California - East Palo Alto, Jackson, Lodi, Sacramento
Idaho - Aberdeen, American Falls, Pocatello, Rupert
Kansas - Galva, Hutchinson, Kingman, Moundridge, Pretty Prairie
Missouri - Columbia, Knob Noster
Nebraska - Naper, Plainview
Oklahoma - Shattuck
Oregon - Cottage Grove, Hillsboro
Montana - Watkins
North Dakota - Bismarck, Ellendale, Kulm, Jamestown, Monango, Mott, Wishek
South Dakota - Dallas, Rapid City, Tripp, Winner
Washington - Cashmere, Chelan, Spokane
Uzbekistan
Tashkent
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Sources:
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Last updated 20 February 2025 |
| Today Google changed the name on Google Maps, but they made the change across the board to comply with a U.S. presidential executive order, not just for those viewing it from the U.S. as they indicated they would. Way to obey in advance, Google. *sigh* |
You know...in the before fore time...when maps were on paper and sometimes there were responsible, clear-minded if not still power-hungry adults in charge of countries...at this mythical time, there was no instant gratification/pacification when it came to changing place names to make one’s empire look bigger. It took a time to survey the land, to record the data, to update it, to draw it, to get it published, and to get it out to whomever needed it, be it to get in good with royalty, or to navigate to the neighbor country and invade it.
The fact is, no one really even noticed in the latter part of the before fore time, like 30+ years ago, not that long ago. If you were old enough to drive then, you probably did not notice changes on paper maps because you were probably not buying a new atlas or maps that often, or even looking at maps at all. You might get atlas if you were going somewhere new, or driving across country and wanted to be prepared. With advent and maturation of online maps on the internet, particularly through the 2000s, this has all changed.
In Scientific American on January 28th, Innisfree McKinnon, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, explains how place names on maps are decided and how this is an outlier. McKinnon writes: “The gulf is not within the territorial U.S. On the coast, the first 12 miles from shore are considered part of that country, but outside of that is international waters. The Board of Geographic Names could change the name to Gulf of America on official U.S. maps, but there is no international board in charge of place names. Each country decides what to call places. And there is no official way for the U.S. to make other countries change the name” other than asking other countries to do so or possibly imposing sanctions.
Cartographers have long used maps to gain favor and strengthen relations between kingdoms and empires. I suppose this is along the same lines. but it is no less disappointing. In Imperial Russia, maps and atlases from the time of Peter the Great were issued as a form of flattery to the emperor and empresses reigning at the time. Maybe maps were kind of an Hallmark greeting card. AI generated image below by Gemini. The map image is pretty bad, but you get the sentiment.
Dear Russia,
Another part of the Ottoman Empire! How many is it now? Before long you’ll have a whole baseball team! Here is a map of your new empire. Look how big it is! We hope you’ll be very happy.
Love, France
Even Gemini could not generate an image for what happened today, so let’s just imagine the note inside the greeting card:
Dear President of the USA,
Congratulations on your conquest in name only of a body of water that you still do not own. We took our last bit liberty and changed the name for everyone who uses our maps and will claim we cannot change it just for your subjects. Hence, everyone is now your subject! Here is a map of your new empire. Look how big it is! We hope you’ll be very happy.
Love, Google
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With all the chaos going on in the world, my own country now included, genealogy has simply felt unimportant in the past few months.
I document the past in the present, the places where our German ancestors lived in the Russian Empire, where they both struggled and flourished, where they left on their own when they could, if they could.
This is my thing. This is what I do. I admit it may be the smallest and least noticeable part of genealogy, but I still do it.
In part, this project is to keep the ancestral names of our villages alive and attached to current place names and GPS coordinates, even if nothing remains. To give ground to the stories we tell about our ancestors and to be able to say “This is where my ancestor’s house was,” even if it no longer stands. “These are the fields that they farmed,” even if the fields have long been left fallow or are destroyed by recent war. “This is where their church was, where they were baptized, confirmed and married,” even if all that is left are desecrated ruins. “This is where the cemetery was and where they are buried,” even if all that remains are the lilacs planted long ago, which still bloom every spring.
I will continue to do what I do even though I cannot help but hear the echoes of the past, history not repeating exactly but rhyming, and certainly giving me pause.
This poem arrived in my email this morning, and it was just what I needed. It is by Alberto Ríos, the first Poet Laureate for the state of Arizona, where I live now. For those who read this in languages other than English, I hope it translates well.
You are not fifteen, or twelve, or seventeen—
You are a hundred wild centuries
And fifteen, bringing with you
In every breath and in every step
Everyone who has come before you,
All the yous that you have been,
The mothers of your mother,
The fathers of your father.
If someone in your family tree was trouble,
A hundred were not:
The bad do not win—not finally,
No matter how loud they are.
We simply would not be here
If that were so.
You are made, fundamentally, from the good.
With this knowledge, you never march alone.
You are the breaking news of the century.
You are the good who has come forward
Through it all, even if so many days
Feel otherwise. But think:
When you as a child learned to speak,
It’s not that you didn’t know words—
It’s that, from the centuries, you knew so many,
And it’s hard to choose the words that will be your own.
From those centuries we human beings bring with us
The simple solutions and songs,
The river bridges and star charts and song harmonies
All in service to a simple idea:
That we can make a house called tomorrow.
What we bring, finally, into the new day, every day,
Is ourselves. And that’s all we need
To start. That’s everything we require to keep going.
Look back only for as long as you must,
Then go forward into the history you will make.
Be good, then better. Write books. Cure disease.
Make us proud. Make yourself proud.
And those who came before you? When you hear thunder,
Hear it as their applause.
Copyright © 2018 by Alberto Ríos.
Source: Poets.org
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