The following letter is part of the article "Contributions to the History of the Emigration From Baden" which was written by Benedikt Schwarz and published in the Sunday edition of the "Karlsruher Tagblatt" no. 7, 8, 10 and 11 in 1914.
This article was found by Peter Mock in the Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, Germany in 1996. It was translated by Armand Bauer and then published in the "Heritage Review" Journal of the German from Russia Heritage Society (GRHS), Volume 28, No. 3, September 1998, pp. 7-16. The letter itself was also published in the "Heritage Review" Journal, Volume 28, No. 1, April 1998, p. 17. Many thanks to the "Heritage Review" for permission to use this translation.

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        [...] In the spring of 1808 the emigration fever again emerged in the entire mid-section of Baden; the situation was this that the times (conditions) were bad, being brought about by crop failures and war, and motivated by the contents of a letter written by a colonist in Kleinliebenthal near Odessa.
    This colonist - Mathias Tschan from Oos - had several years previously (likely 1804) immigrated to the newly founded colony of Kleinliebenthal and wrote a letter to his brother dated 25 December 1807. The letter (below) is not the original, but nevertheless a copy that retained the content in its entirety. It is presented in the modern vernacular.

Kleinliebenthal, 25 December 1807

Dear Brother!

   Herewith I am sending you a short note and with it wish that it will find you and your wife and children in good health. What is with us is that we are all fresh and healthy, so long as this is God's will. Now I want to tell you where I am at.

I am in Russia near the town of Odessa on the Black Sea, it is 600 hours distant from you. Additionally I also want to tell you what I have received from our Czar Alexander Ptolowitsch:
   First of all (I received) 833 fl., 20 kr., and a house, 4 oxen, 2 cows, 2 calves, and for 3 years a daily stipend which is 10 kr. per person, also 3 years grain for seeding for as much as I need to seed, and enough cropland, grassland, and pasture. I and my hired man cannot plow all of it. Here we plow the fields only once. We plow under the stubble and again plant winter crops and we get good crop yields just like you receive. The cropland is not treated with manure. Here one doesn't stockt (stockpile wood ?) for there are no woods for 60 hours distant and no fruit, and yet the conditions here are as good as by you.

Now I want also to write what the grain yields were this year and what I have in cattle (animals).
   First: the yield was 60 malter corn (1 malter = about 4 bushels), 24 malter barley, 15 malter oats, and 300 sester pota-toes (trans. The unit is unknown to me). In addition, other crops here are rorten (?), and coffee (!). Animals I have 6 oxen, 4 cows, 4 calves, and 2 horses.

Now my dear relatives and friends, you have read what I received and what I have. And this each one has who came here as a colonist. Anyone who has the desire to go to Russia should get themselves on the road so that they get here before St. John's day. Here we don't have to work as hard as by you, and I would no longer live there with the richest had I the choice. I am much more at peace dear brother and relatives. If this letter (the contents) are to your liking, then come here. It is much better than by you. Odessa is two hours from here, it is a seaport. There one can buy and sell everything of what people have and want. Grain is shipped by sea from this port.

At the present the price of grain is low because there is a war with Turkey and England. At the present a malter of wheat costs 3 fl. and when ships sail then wheat costs 12 fl. per malter.
However, we don't have any military personnel with us. No child of us can be a soldier. Your Emperor Napoleon and Austria and ours (country) are allied against the Turks and England.
For ten years we are exempt from taxes. My brother-in law Bernhard Schmalholz also lived here and always complained about me to the authorities. However, he has been gone for about a half year but no one knows where he went.
The predictions which I made and told people have all come true, and in these three years nothing has been deficient, and I have been a farmer here for three years.

Those who want to come (to Russia) should take this letter with them, it will serve them well. If you want to come, arrange it so you are here by St. John's day so you can still make hay. It doesn't cost anything. And at harvest the Russian cut the grain for us for the third sheaf and the costs, and for the fifth/sixth sester they thresh for us.

(If you come) you take the road to Ulm, Regensburg, there you get a pass to Vienna, and in Vienna you get a pass from the Russian agent to Russia going from Vienna to Brünn, Olmutz, Lemberg, and Brody, which is the last town in czarist Poland. Rattwill is an hour away in Russian-Poland, then Kremnitz, Lidny (?), Dollschin. Baldo, and Odessa.
Those who wish to come should bring all of their covers (blankets) and clothes along. We left from Poland. Whether you come or not send me an answer with the man from Oberlauterbach near Lauterburg as soon as possible.

I will end my writing with a thousand greetings to brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law as well as children, and as well to all blood relatives and acquaintances. A greeting to all the parish and to my father's people, also a greeting to all the parish authorities and the mayor, a greeting to Xaveri Buchtung and his family.

One bit of news I must relate and that is my daughter Magdalene has died, but her place has been taken by a son.

I remain your loyal  
        Mathias Tschan.

Michael Miller got married here, but has left and I don't know where he went.

Addenda: Also other Germans in Kleinliebenthal wrote letters to their relatives in the homeland such as to Selz and other places. Most of the letters were suppressed by the authorities as was the one above. (Trans. The authorities in Germany suppressed the letters contents).

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© 1998 Peter Mock
Version 3.0