Chronology
1521 - Reformation divided the German nation along religious lines resulting in the Thirty Years’ War 1618-1648
1729-1796 - Catherine the Great
Aug. 21, 1745 - Catherine marries Peter Ulrich – grandson of Peter the Great
1756-1763 - Seven Years’ War
June 28, 1762 - Overthrow of Peter – Catherine is proclaimed Empress
1762 - Tsarina Catherine’s First Decree of Invitation is issued
July 22, 1763 - Second Manifesto inviting immigrant-settlers is issued, the Tutelary-Chancellery in St. Petersburg is established
1763-1765 - Migration begins with a few individuals, soon becoming a flood
March 19, 1764 - Solidification of the Agrarian Code in the colonist’s area
June 29, 1764 - The oldest Volga German colony, Dobrinka, is founded.
1765 - Moravians establish the colony of Sarepta
June 27, 1766 - Katharinenstadt – later Marx – is founded
Aug. 15, 1767 - Founding of Norka
1767 - Kamyshin is founded
Aug. 13, 1767 - Schaffhausen is founded
Aug. 9-13, 1774 - Pugachev’s militias plunder the Lower Volga Region
1774 - Colonies of Keller and Leitsinger are destroyed by Kirghiz raiders
1812-1813 - War with Turkey; Russia gains Bessarabia; Napoleon moves into Moscow
1814-1815 - Vienna Congress. Tsar Alexander I, Catherine’s grandson, as Kaiser of Poland, is handed the area of Warsaw
Nov. 11, 1838 - Tsar Nicholas I certifies colonists’ privileges
1861 - Emancipation of Russia’s serfs
1867 - Panslavistic Congress in Moscow – Slavism under Russia’s banner
Jan. 1, 1871 - Fürst Bismarck investitures the German Reich
June 4, 1871 - Ending of the colonial status and the self-administration of the colonies
Jan. 1, 1874 - Germans are required to serve in the Russian army
1874 - Massive exodus for America, North and South
1879 - German-Austrian Alliance
Mar. 13, 1881 - Alexander III Tsar – strengthening of Panslavism
1891 - Obligatory introduction of the Russian language into German schools
1894 - Nicolay Alexandrovich Romanov – last of the Romanovs – ascends the throne as Nicholas II
1901-1911 - About 105,000 German settlers leave Russia for America
Sept. 9, 1911 - Stolypin assassinated
Aug. 1, 1914 - Beginning of World War I – Germany is declared enemy of Tsarist Russia
May 27, 1915 - Pogroms against Germans begin in Moscow
Mar. 15, 1917 - End of the Romanov rule through the February revolution
June 16, 1918 - Murder of the Romanov family in Ekaterinoslavl
Nov. 11, 1918 - Revolution in Germany – Kaiser Wilhelm dethroned – however, Trotsky’s World Revolution fails in Germany
Autumn 1919 - The Bolsheviks confiscate the entire Russian harvest