Colonists recruited by LeRoi & Pictet founded the Volga German colony of Warenburg on 12 May 1767. The 149 colonist families came from Darmstadt, Brandenburg, Prussia, Württemberg, and Holstein. An edict dated 26 February 1768 gave the colony its official Russian name of Privolnoye. Christian August Tornow records that the colony was called Gauter during the first couple of years after it was founded.
Warenburg was one of the Volga German colonies looted by the followers of Pugachev during his raids in 1774, but Pugachev himself was not with them.
The descendants of Heinrich Müller who had settled in Warenburg came from near Darmstadt in Hesse. They became prominent merchants among the Volga German colonies. Over time, some branches of this family set up businesses in other parts of Russia as well. The community was in need of a school building, and in 1909 one of the Müller family homes was requisitioned for this purpose. It had been built in 1875-1876 by the four adult sons of Conrad Müller for their widowed mother Dorothea Müller née Meinhardt. To this day, this building still functions as a school and is known as the Miller School.
A Congress of Wiesenseite representatives was held in Warenburg 24-27 February 1918. From 4-8 January 1919, Warenburg was also the site of an anti-Bolshevik uprising against the government's requisitioning of food.
During the 1921 Famine, 801 people in Warenburg died.
Today, what remains of the former Volga German colony of Warenburg is known by its old Russian name of Privolnoye.
The Lutheran parish in Warenburg was founded in 1770. The construction of a church building was begun in 1768 and completed in 1771.
To accommodate the increasing number of worshipers in the parish, a new wooden church was constructed in 1809. Its cost was borne by the colonists.
In 1843, a new more spacious building was constructed of brick in the Kontor Style. The interior was painted white and blue. Above the altar in gilded letters was written "Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe" ("Glory to God in the Highest"). It is said to have been able to seat 1,200 worshipers.
Several accounts record that in 1889, a 15-register organ by the German company Walcker was installed in the balcony, but these accounts are incorrect - the Walcker organ was installed in 1898 in the church in nearby Dinkel. This is the same company that installed organs in the churches of Katharinenstadt and Norka.
Richard Kisling obtained a copies of the chronicles of three successive pastors of the Warenburg Parish that cover from 1834 to 1916 from the Archives in Engels (Fond 244). The Chronicle covers the Warenburg parish from 1871 to 1916. During these years, they also installed new chandeliers, new altar paintings, and new pieces of altarware. Pastor Seib notes that the congregation decided in November 1913 to make the steeple taller and to remove the dome over the sacristy. A niche was also created for the placement of an altar. To celebrate these improvements to the church and its interior, a public event was held on 10 August 1914. During this celebration, a new cross was installed on top of the new steeple.
The church was heated by three cast-iron furnaces. Around the church was a park.
After the closure of the church in 1932, the building was used as a community entertainment center. The gilded praise to God was replaced by a red-lettered "Die Buhne ist der Spiegel des Lebens" ("The Stage Mirrors Life"). The furnaces broke and were removed. In 1939, the building was abandoned. The Volga Germans were deported from Warenburg in 1941 and others resettled there. In 1943, during the war, the building was used as a prison workshop and the prisoners worked on tractors beneath the dome.
Today, only the ruins of the church structure remain. [Some historians have recorded that the ruins visible today were from a building constructed after 1900, but based upon the Chronicle of Pastor Seib, this building is the one constructed in 1843 and renovated in about 1913-1914.]
The congregation in Warenburg was served by the following pastors:
- 1785-1788 Friedrich Konrad Strengel
- 1797-1825 Bernhard Wilhelm Litfass
- 1826-1833 Friedrich August Wilhelm Schrötter
- 1834-1883 Franz Karl Hölz
- 1891-1891 Karl Julius Hölz
- 1883-1909 Karl Leopold Hölz
- 1909-1918 Eduard Seib
- 1909-1912 Andreas Gorne
- 1929-1931 Herbert Julius Günther
|
Year
|
Households
|
Population
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Total
|
Male
|
Female
|
||
| 1767 |
179+
|
543
|
|
|
| 1769 |
149
|
524
|
290
|
234
|
| 1773 |
145
|
579
|
327
|
252
|
| 1788 |
101
|
521
|
261
|
260
|
| 1798 |
122
|
672
|
344
|
328
|
| 1811 |
128
|
|
428
|
|
| 1816 |
143
|
956
|
492
|
464
|
| 1834 |
220
|
1,766
|
867
|
899
|
| 1850 |
269
|
2,836
|
1,411
|
1,425
|
| 1857 |
303
|
2,377
|
1,685
|
1,692
|
| 1859 |
320
|
3,491
|
1,752
|
1,739
|
| 1883 |
|
5,146
|
|
|
| 1889 |
|
5,608
|
|
|
| 1897 |
|
5,279*
|
2,611
|
2,668
|
| 1904 |
|
8,074
|
|
|
| 1908 |
715
|
8,155
|
4,083
|
4,072
|
| 1910 |
784
|
8,340
|
4,167
|
4,173
|
| 1912 |
|
8,312
|
|
|
| 1920 |
1,017**
|
6,697
|
|
|
| 1922 |
|
4,848
|
|
|
| 1923 |
|
4,638
|
|
|
| 1926*** |
860
|
4,898
|
2,322
|
2,576
|
| 1931 |
|
5,217****
|
|
|
+There are 179 households enumerated, but the number 104 was skipped.
*Of whom 5,216 were German.
**Of which 1,005 households were German.
***Of whom 4,795 (2,269 male & 2,526 female) were German living in 841 households.
****Of whom 5,170 were German.
- Alt-Warenburg (wolgadeutsche.net) in Russian
- Amburger, Erik. Die Pastoren der evangelischen Kirchen Rußlands (Lüneburg, Germany: Institut Nordostdeutsches Kulturwerk, 1998): 141.
- Beratz, Gottieb. The German colonies on the Lower Volga, their origin and early development: a memorial for the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first German settlers on the Volga, 29 June 1764. Translated by Adam Giesinger (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1991): 353.
- Diesendorf, V.F. Die Deutschen Russlands : Siedlungen und Siedlungsgebiete : Lexicon. Moscow, 2006.
- Dietz, Jacob E. History of the Volga German Colonists. Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2005.
- Erbes, Johannes. Deutsche Volkszeitung (23 August 1906).
- Klaus, A.A. Our Colonies. Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1869.
- List of the Populated Places of the Samara Province. Samara, Russia, 1910.
- Orlov, Gregorii. Report of Conditions of Settlements on the Volga to Catherine II, 14 February 1769.
- Pallas, P.S. Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des Russischen Reichs. Theil 3,2, Reise aus Sibirien zurueck an die Wolga im 1773sten Jahr (St. Petersburg: Kaiserl. Academie der Wissenschaften, 1776): 609.
- Pleve, Igor R. The German Colonies on the Volga: The Second Half of the Eighteenth Century, translated by Richard Rye (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2001): 319.
- Preliminary Results of the Soviet Census of 1926 on the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Pokrovsk, 1927): 28-83.
- Schnurr, Joseph. Die Kirchen und das religiöse Leben der Russlanddeutschen – Evangelischer Teil (Stuttgart: AER Verlag Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Rußland, 1978): 196.
- Seib, Eduard. Warenburg Church Chronicle: 1871-1916 [Engels Archive, Fond 244].
- "Settlements in the 1897 Census." Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (Winter, 1990): 17.
1767 Warenburg Census
1798 Warenburg Census
1811 Warenburg Census
1834 Warenburg Census
1850 Warenburg Census
1857 Warenburg Census
50.926667, 46.076
Migrated From
Immigration Locations
Map showing Warenburg (1935).
Warenburg Lutheran Church
Source: Heimatbuch der Deutschen aus Rußland, 1972.
Interior of Warenburg Lutheran Church
Source: Steve Schreiber.
Warenburg Lutheran Church (1957).
Source: Heimatbuch der Deutschen aus Rußland, 1996.
Warenburg street scene showing Lutheran Church at the end.
[This photo is often mis-identified as showing Orlovskaya.]
Source: Heimatbuch der Deutschen aus Rußland, 1972.
Soviet Era photo of the church in Warenburg.
Source: http://ok.ru/
Warenburg Lutheran Church (2005).
Photo courtesy of David Karber.
Warenburg Lutheran Church (2006).
Source: Alexander Bashkatov.
Warenburg Lutheran Church interior (2006).
Source: Alexander Bashkatov.
Warenburg Church Steeple (2005).
Photo courtesy of David Karber.
Aerial photo of the ruins of the church in Warenburg.
Source: Anton Koshkin.
Photo of the Upper Village School in Warenburg (1865). It was built on Church Street.
Source: Richard Kissling.
Photo often attributed as the Warenburg School and Bell Tower, but per research by Richard Kissling, this photo is from another unidentified colony, not Warenburg.
Source: Karl Stumpp
Miller School in Warenburg (1930s).
Source: Alexandra Schmall.
Miller School in Warenburg (2006).
Source: Steve Schreiber.
Miller School in Warenburg (2006).
Source: Steve Schreiber.
House in Warenburg.