Kratzke

Kratzke (Кратцке), Gratska (Грацка), Pochinnaya (Починная), Pochinnyy (Починный), Pochinnoe (Починное).

50º52' N 45º13' E.

Founded: 7 August 1766 by Baron de Boffe.

Denomination: Lutheran.

Kratzke Church in 1998. Built in 1899, the steeple was removed and the building was used for machinery and grain storage under the communist regime. As of 1998, it was in poor repair and being used as a barn for the storage of hay. When it was functioning as a church, sources claim it could seat 600 people. Photo courtesy of Palmer Mai.

History

According to Gottlieb Beratz, a Volga German historian, the first group of German colonists arrived in Kratzke on 7 August 1767. This colony was founded by Baron de Boffe.

The first statistical report on Kratzke was made by Count Orlov to Empress Catherine II on 14 February 1769. It outlines that there were a total of 127 inhabitants (67 men and boys and 60 women and girls) in Kratzke comprising 34 families. These families had a total of 47 hourses, 13 work oxen, 69 cows & calves, and 6 pigs among them. There were a total of 48 houses in the colony at the time. Other population statistics can be found under the population statistics link.

There was a school in Kratzke from the earliest days. The 1798 Census indicates that the schoolmaster was Nikolaus Rupp (age 41) who was originally from Huck, but who had been living in Balzer before moving to Kratzke. By 1904 there were 200 students. The school fee was 5 kopek per student. The teacher in Kratzke received 450 rubles for his efforts in Kratzke during that same year.

In August 1774, colony of Kratzke was raded by the notorious rebel leader Pugachev and his followers. Gottlieb Berats reports the following:

Soon after his arrival in the colony, Pugachev erected gallows and strung up four strangers thereon. “Thereupon these monsters,” reported the witness Dewald, “ransacked the few houses of our then still very small village, took what pleased them, struck old men and women, as well as children, with their whips and rods, but without killing anyone, and then camped near the village. Before dawn was visible on the horizon, a few houses in the village here and there began to burn. At the same time the whole pack of brigands with their leaders got up and left our village. As there was no wind that morning, the fire did not spread and even in the farmyards where it had broken out, much could still be saved. All the grain, hay,and straw on the threshing floors, however, fell prey to the flames. Also, everything that the robbers came across in the fields was completely destroyed. The livestock that they could catch also was partly butchered on the spot, partly driven away with them.”

On 11 October 1798, a Mr. Sixtel completed a report on the condition of the Kratzke colony and its inhabitants. This report was made to the Office of Immigrant Oversight which at the time was responsible for monitoring the progress of the German colonies. This report indicates that there were a total of 210 people in the colony making up 39 households. There were 112 men & boys and 98 women & girls. All the families were Lutheran with the exception of two which were of the Reformed faith. There was a school teacher and a separate building which functioned as a school house. The congregation was currently without a pastor as he had moved to the parish of Katharinenstadt.

All of the families were engaged in farming. There was one who had skills as a dyer and two who were also shoemakers in the colonies. The colonists are noted as being diligent workers. The houses in the colony were ramshackle in condition with wattle and daub fences surrounding their yards. There was a mill located along the Karamysh Brook which ran along the northern edge of the colony. The report further indicates that there had been trouble with gophers distroying the crops during the summer of 1798, and that the colonists did not have an effective means with which to combat them. Many of the colonies had public granaries, but the report indicates that Kratzke did not have such a facility because it lacked the forested land from which lumber could be cut to build a granary.

In 1855, families from Kratzke, along with several from the neighboring colonies of Dietel, Kautz, and Merkel founded the daughter colony of Ährenfeld.

Population Statistics Summary

* Not including 84 families (345 men and 326 women) who are absent – having immigrated to the United States.

 

Kratzke's Name

It was often the custom of the German colonists who settled along the Volga River to name their villages after the leader of their group. This appears to be the case with Kratzke.

Hattie Plum Williams records that a beltmaker by the name of Kratzky was the Vorsteher (leader, similar to a mayor) of his colony. Lacking further documentation, it cannot be proved that this man is the same one after whom the colony of Kratzke was named, but it is probable. Dr. Williams later recounts an incident involving this same man named Kratzky. She makes note of a story told by Christian Gottlob Züge about when Tsarina Catherine II visited the colonists after they had arrived in the Russian port of Oranienbaum, not far from St. Petersburg, where they were awaiting transport to the Volga area. All of the colonists were evidently lined up and the Empress “stopped for a moment before Kratzky who stood at our head and asked about his fatherland, its business, and similar other things, but Kratzky answered only hesitatingly. When she started away, she held out her hand to him for a kiss, but Kratzky either did not understand this or he did not have courage enough to take advantage of this permission from the condescending Empress.”

Map of Dietel, Kautz, Kratzke, Rothammel and Sewald

A family named Kratzke does not appear in any of the records thus far uncovered concerning the colony of Kratzke. However, on the 1798 Census for the colony of Katharinenstadt, there is an Adam Kratzke (age 75). He is identified by this same census as having been originally from the colony of Dietel. Since Dietel is the head of the parish to which the colony of Kratzke belongs, it is possible that this Adam Kratzke, who in 1767 would have been 44 years old, could have been the leader after whom the colony was named.

Kratzke was the name by which the colonists themselves referred to their village. [When listening to a native German saying the name of the village, it sounds more like Gratzka.] As with most of the Volga German colonies, each one also had an official Russian name. Kratzke’s official Russian name transliterated into English was Pochinnaya. Transliterated into German, the name is spelled Potschinnaja. In North America, the spellings of these two names can be found in a variety of additional forms: Kratzka, Gratzka, Gratzke, Podtschinnaja, Pochinaja, etc.

Kratzke's Church

Kratzke was founded in 1767 as a Lutheran colony. It was assigned to the parish headquartered in nearby Dietel, which was also the residence of the pastor. The Dietel parish also included the colonies of Merkel, Kautz, and Bauer. Bauer, a predominently Reformed colony, split with the Dietel parish in 1804 to join with the Reformed parish whose headquarters were located in the colony of Grimm.

The fear of religious-based warfare among the colonist subsided during the nineteenth century, and in 1904 two additional colonies were added to the Dietel parish: the predominantly Lutheran colony of Neu-Dönhof and the predominantly Reformed colony of Neu-Balzer. The addition of these two colonies brought the total membership in the Dietel parish to 15,667 with 2,233 of those belonging to the Kratzke church. The 1906-1907 confirmation class numbered 128!

The first known church building to be constructed in Kratzke was dedicated in 1826. It was a wooden building with a wooden roof. A new church, also constructed of wood, was built in 1899. For this construction, the colony received a loan of 3,000 rubles. There is a church building still standing in the former colony of Kratzke, although its steeple and transcepts have been removed. This building is assumed to be the one which was built in 1899. As of 1996, it was in poor repair and being used as a barn for the storage of hay. When it was functioning as a church, sources claim it could seat 600 people. From the looks of the structure that remains today, these 600 would have been closely packed!

It is interesting to note that pastoral acts were a money-making enterprise in the German colonies along the Volga. For example, amounts assessed by the Kratzke church in 1904 were the following: 15 kopek for a baptism (paid by the sponsors), 30 kopek for a confirmation, 1 ruble for a wedding, and 15 kopek for a burial.

The Dietel parish which included the colony of Kratzke was served by the following pastors:

1768-1770 Sigismund Israel Bergen

1772-1774 Gottlieb May

1780-1782 Laurentius Ahlbaum

1793-1798 Johann Heinrich Buck

1801-1815 Karl Jakob Früauf

1819-1835 Andreas Haag

1835-1862 Gotthard Alexis Marpurg

1864-1880 Ernst Gottfried Carrolien

1887-1892 August Julius Tiedemann

1893-1927 Johann Friedrich Möllmann

 

Sources:

Beratz, Gottlieb. The German Colonies on the Lower Volga: Their Origin and Early Development. Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1991.

Giesinger, Adam. From Catherine to Khrushchev: The Story of Russia's Germans. Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1981.

Mai, Brent Alan, ed. A Description of the Saratov Colony of Pochinnaya [Kratzke] 1798. Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1995.

Rye, Richard, trans. Description of the Saratov Colony of Katharinenstadt also known as Baronsk. Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1995.

Williams, Hattie Plum. The Czar’s Germans: With Particular Reference to the Volga Germans. Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1975.