Russian Germans in Russian Historiography from the Last Third of the 18th to the First Half of the 19th Century

Russia and Germany have centuries-old cultural, economic, and dynastic ties. Until the end of the 17th century, the German diaspora in Muscovy was small and concentrated in the German Quarter in Moscow. The reign of Catherine the Great (1762 – 1796) featured an active campaign carried out in Russia to engage foreign colonists in the economic development of vacant lands on the outskirts of the state. In Russia, the colonist districts emerged in the Volga region and New Russia, which were home to dozens of thousands of Germans in the early 19th century. The Russian and German historical science still shows a strong interest in the history of Russian Germans. Many papers have been focused on the key events in the 20th century. At the same time, modern historiography studying German colonies in Russia in the first half of the 19th century is very scanty. Most German and Russian historians do not even mention publications completed in the pre-reform period (until the 1860s) in their works. This article is intended to review the publications about the German colonies in the Russian Empire, which were produced in Russia in the late 18th and early 19th century. We have employed a variety of historical research methods, such as retrospective, genetic, comparative, descriptive approaches, etc. This article is based on the material published in the Russian language in Russia in the late 18th and early 19th century. By their nature, these are travel essays, monographs, and journal articles. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s4p14