Admitting Problems

If the writer comes close to admitting the difficulties he and his fellow colonists faced in Arzis, it only occurs in the next paragraph. Unlike their previous forested homeland in Poland, the steppes of Bessarabia were empty of trees. He notes that the nearest stands were 6-7 miles away, perhaps in an earlier-established settlement.

While the colonists could not easily turn to the forest for wood, they found a bountiful alternative on the steppe-something the writer describes "a species of plant. . . called Burjan." According to a dictionary of 19th-Century Russian, quoted to me by someone on the Bessarabia Listserve, Burjan is "a large stemmed, grass-like weed . . . mown for fuel." (This word Burjan—which Arthur Flegel says is of Ukrainian origin and pronounced "Bury-an"—was adopted by Germans in Bessarabia and in all of South Russia to generically identify weeds, even after some immigrated to North America.) The writer indicates that the colonists were gathering Burjan, with which they could "bake the finest bread." My wife, who has some experience cooking bread in a family cabin's wood stove, says it is important to find even and slower-burning wood materials to bake bread properly.

That may have been the characteristic of Burjan.

Was dried cow manure, which would eventually become a main source of burning material for the Bessarabian Germans, still in limited supply due to small livestock herds among the colonists? Or, perhaps, the colonists had not yet learned to prepare and use the dung-based fuel.4

Making the Transition

The letter writer uses the word "quite" to indicate how well the colonists were doing; not an overwhelmingly ringing endorsement. The writer adds, ". . . now we . . . know how to adapt in all things." The transition was not easy. The Arzis 1848 chronicle lamented that the newly arrived colonists "possessed little understanding or foresight to establish a settlement for their own good or that of their descendants." Climate, geography, farming practices, and lifestyle—these and other things were a big challenge for German colonists in Bessarabia.