German Russians 

Catherine the Great was lonely,
Forsaken by her deceased husband,
She searched for a way out. 

A Russian Tsar offered her,
A passage,
Unable to do anything else, she took it. 

Catherine the Great became,
Tsarina of the Russian Empire.
So far from her little home of Germany. 

A Manifesto she did write,
With letters black,
And parchment white.

Hungry, sick, and dying,
Unable to feed themselves.
The Germans needed an escape.

An escape they found,
Honeyed words and open fields
Awaited them in Mother Russia. 

In hordes, they came.
Beckoned by the sweet promise of a new life
With delightful prospect.

They were unchanged.
The rules governing them
Did not force unwelcome ways upon them as before.

Freedom to practice their religion of choice,
Catherine the Great was kind to allow such a thing.
The land was changed to better suit the agricultural ways of the Germans.

Grow, their numbers did.
Steadily and fiercely they flourished
Under the velvet hand and watchful eye of Catherine the Great. 

For years, the Germans lived in peace
Undisturbed by the Russians
And outside world. 

In 1871, Tsar Alexander II
Snatched the promise
Of a better life from the Germans. 

German was forbidden,
Russian, they now had to speak.
And seek the Russian army.

The Germans were prosecuted,
Killed, and worse.
Grudgingly, they left their home of hundreds of years.

1872, German-Russians began their trek across land and sea,
To a place that beckoned with honeyed words
And delightful prospect.

This place was called America.
In the Dakota Territories, they did settle.
To begin anew the life that was torn from them with such barbaric distaste.

 Bibliography

 www.grhs.com-- A Comparison of Anti-German Russia, and the Anti-German Environment of the U.S. during WWI, and its Relation to the German-Russians by Justin Carter