Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 July 1896 — Germans in Russia. [ARTICLE]

Germans in Russia.

There are nearly 2,000,000 of Germans residing in the Czar’s dominions. Their condition during the reign of Alexander 111. was anything but enviable. His Pan-Slavic policy purposed their complete Russification and the suppression of all German institutions, privileges and religious worship. The Teutonic element of the Baltic

provinces. which by education and wealth preponderated in commercial and political relations, with sorrow and resentment awaited its doom. Schools and academies where for centuries only German had been the language of instruction were Russified. Preaching in the tongue of the Fatherland was prohibited, or at least more or less restricted. Dorpat, the famous German university, received Russian professors who were not fit to teach in any language, and a slmular status threatened the colleges.