Ober-Monjou was founded as a Roman Catholic colony on 5 March 1767 by colonists who had been recruited by Baron Caneau de Beauregard. The original 83 colonists families came from the German regions of Mecklenburg and Würzburg as well as from France.
The colony was named after Otto Friedrich von Monjou, the second director of the Kontora (Office of Immigrant Oversight). On 26 February 1768, a federal decree recognized Ober-Monjou as the official name of the colony. In 1915, the colony was renamed Krivoka.
In 1859, a daughter colony was established by colonists from Ober-Monjou seeking additional farm land. The daughter colony was called Neu-Ober-Monjou.
Today, what remains of the former colony of Ober-Monjou is known as Krivovskoye.
The Roman Catholic congregation in Ober-Monjou was part of parish headquartered in Katharinenstadt. In 1874, the parish of Ober-Monjou became independent with a resident priest.
The first building to serve as a church was built during the early years of the colony. A new church building was constructed on a stone foundation in 1824 and dedicated to "The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin." The cornerstone for the third church building was laid on 15 August 1895 with consecration of the new building taking place on 28 September 1897, and it was dedicated to "The Immaculate Conception of St. Anne." The church in Ober-Monjou was almost an exact replica of the one that had been built in the colony of Louis. The church was officially closed in February 1935, and the structure was dismantled.
The parish in Ober-Monjou was served by the following priests:
- Alexander Tortschinski (1887)
- Valentin Greiner (1889-1898)
- Peter Bach (1889-1901)
- Johannes Beilmann, III (1901-1909)
- Nikolaus Maier (1903-1905)
- Michael Hatzenböller (1905-1907)
- Johannes Bach
|
Year
|
Households
|
Population
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Total
|
Male
|
Female
|
||
| 1767 |
82
|
299
|
160
|
139
|
| 1769 |
91
|
324
|
176
|
148
|
| 1773 |
88
|
325
|
156
|
169
|
| 1788 |
72
|
370
|
177
|
193
|
| 1798 |
76
|
429
|
211
|
218
|
| 1816 |
91
|
620
|
308
|
312
|
| 1834 |
138
|
1,068
|
546
|
522
|
| 1850 |
174
|
1,608
|
808
|
800
|
| 1857 |
197
|
1,897
|
921
|
976
|
| 1859 |
165
|
1,513
|
744
|
769
|
| 1886 |
|
|
|
|
| 1891 |
|
|
|
|
| 1894 |
|
|
|
|
| 1897 |
|
2,251*
|
1,129
|
1,122
|
| 1904 |
|
|
|
|
| 1910 |
392
|
2,752
|
1,365
|
1,387
|
| 1912 |
|
2,882
|
|
|
| 1920 |
451**
|
2,978
|
|
|
| 1926*** |
433
|
2,443
|
1,190
|
1,253
|
*Of whom 2,235 were German.
**Of which 444 families were German.
***Of those, 431 households accounting for 2,432 colonists (1,184 males, 1,248 females) were German.
Obermunjou, Russia (Kevin Rupp)
Ober-Monjou (Wolgadeutsche.net) in Russian
- 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): 351.
- Diesendorf, V.F. Die Deutschen Russlands : Siedlungen und Siedlungsgebiete : Lexicon. Moscow, 2006.
- List of the Populated Places of the Samara Province (Samara, Russia, 1910): 261.
- List of Populated Places of the Russian Empire, vol. 36 - Samara Province (St. Petersburg, 1864): 82.
- Klaus, A.A. Our Colonies (Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1869): 2:13; 4:54-55.
- 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): 613.
- Pleve, Igor R. The German Colonies on the Volga: The Second Half of the Eighteenth Century (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2001): 314.
- 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 - Katholischer Teil (Stuttgart: Selbstverlag Joseph Schnurr, 1972): 122.
- "Settlements in the 1897 Census." Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (Winter, 1990): 17.
- Stumpp, Karl. Die Auswanderung aus Deutschland nach Rußland in den Jahren 1763 bis 1862 (Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Rußland, 2004): 70.
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Migrated From
Immigration Locations
Map showing Ober-Monjou (1935).
Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Ober-Monjou, Russia.
Photo courtesy of August & Elizabeth (Leiker) Exsner.
Architectural rendering of the church in Ober-Monjou.
Source: wolgadeutsche.net
Blueprints for the church in Ober-Monjou.
Source: wolgadeutsche.net