The congregation in Dietel was established in 1767 at the founding of the colony and served as the lead parish for the colonies of Kautz, Kratzke and Merkel. Dietel also served as the residence of the pastor serving these parishes. In 1904, the congregations in Neu-Dönhof and Neu-Balzer located to the north were added to the jurisdiction of the Dietel parish.
Dietel was founded on 1 July 1767 by Baron de Boffe as a Lutheran colony. The original 43 colonist families came from the Palatinate, Württemberg, Hamburg, Saxony, Mecklenburg and Alsace. The colony took its name from the first leader of the group that settled there, Christian Gottfried Dietel from Saxony.
|
Year
|
Households
|
Population
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Total
|
Male
|
Female
|
||
| 1767 |
|
|
|
|
| 1769 |
68
|
284
|
158
|
126
|
| 1773 |
72
|
351
|
202
|
149
|
| 1788 |
69
|
445
|
227
|
218
|
| 1798 |
78
|
502
|
241
|
261
|
| 1816 |
91
|
939
|
471
|
468
|
| 1834 |
191
|
1,739
|
892
|
847
|
| 1850 |
194
|
2,561
|
1,310
|
1,251
|
| 1857 |
230
|
3,167
|
1,616
|
1,551
|
| 1859 |
250
|
3,181
|
1,609
|
1,572
|
| 1886* |
388
|
3,510
|
1,805
|
1,705
|
| 1891 |
347
|
4,652
|
2,346
|
2,306
|
| 1897 |
|
3,172**
|
1,534
|
1,638
|
| 1911 |
|
3,285
|
|
|
| 1920 |
425***
|
3,371
|
|
|
| 1922 |
|
2,752
|
|
|
| 1923 |
|
2,880
|
|
|
| 1926**** |
458
|
3,128
|
1,531
|
1,597
|
| 1931 |
|
3,402*****
|
|
|
*Not counting 110 families who are permanently absent (accounting for 975 men and 962 women).
**Of whom 3,135 were German.
***Of which 414 households were German.
****Of whom 3,114 (1,531 male & 1,583 female) were German living in 449 households.
*****Of whom 3,392 were German.
Lutheran
Beratz, Gottieb. The German colonies on the Lower Volga, their origin and early development: a memorial for the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first German settlers on the Volga, 29 June 1764 . Translated by Adam Giesinger (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1991): 349.
Diesendorf, V.F. Die Deutschen Russlands : Siedlungen und Siedlungsgebiete : Lexicon. Moscow, 2006.
Minkh, A.N. Historical and Georgraphical Dictionary of the Saratov Province (Saratov, 1898): 705-709. Online .
Orlov, Gregorii. Report of Conditions of Settlements on the Volga to Catherine II , 14 February 1769.
Pallas, P.S. Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des Russischen Reichs. Theil 3,2, Reise aus Sibirien zurueck an die Wolga 1773sten Jahr (St. Petersburg: Kaiserl. Academie der Wissenschaften, 1776): 622.
Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 279-296.
Preliminary Results of the Soviet Census of 1926 on the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Pokrovsk, 1927): 28-83.
Schnurr, Joseph, Die Kirchen und das Religiöse Leben der Russlanddeutschen - Evangelischer Teil (Stuttgart: Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland, 1972): 192.
"Settlements in the 1897 Census." Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (Winter, 1990): 18.
Dietel (wolgadeutsche.net) - in Russian
Reichel/Reigel Family History (Annette Parish)