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During the last decade of the 18th century, many Alsatians were in opposition to the Jacobins and sympathetic to the invading forces of Austria and Prussia who sought to crush the nascent revolutionary republic. When the French Revolutionary Army of the Rhine was victorious, tens of thousands fled east before it. When they were later permitted to return (in some cases not until 1799), it was often to find that their lands and homes had been confiscated. These straitened conditions led to emigration by hundreds of families to newly-vacant lands in the Russian Empire in 1803/4 and again in 1808. A poignant retelling of this tale based on what he had himself witnessed can be found in Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea.Here is some information on a Baumann family in the Kleinliebenthal colony of the Ukraine. Joseph Baumann was one of the first settlers of Kleinliebenthal and lived in house number 7. The following is quoted from The German Colonies in South Russia 1804 to 1904 (volume I) by Rev. Conrad Keller:
Kleinliebenthal was settled in 1804 by immigrants from various regions of Germany. When the settlers first arrived at the site where the colony now is, there were five houses and four clay huts, owned by a Russian nobleman. Sixteen families destined for this colony had arrived in Russia in 1803, but because the land had not yet been purchased for them, they had to be quartered in Odessa. Two families, Johann Senger and Adam Schleich, came to this site in 1803 and can therefore be called the founders of Kleinliebenthal.[There is no further description of the incident.]In March 1804, 48 families arrived and settlement was begun. There were 50 lots measured out, 25 on the east side and 25 on the west side of the river. The lots were all in a row from the site where the hydrotherapy institute is now located northwards to the Kunanz lot. On every lot a reed hut was built as a shelter for the people and the meager belongings that they had brought with them. So Kleinliebenthal came into existence. In 1805, 20 more families arrived: in 1807, one; in 1808, four; and in 1809, seven, making a total of 82 households. The plan for the colony of Kleinliebenthal was made by Duke Richelieu, who also gave it its name.
The community owned 4,073.75 dessatine of land.
June 9, 1814: Mayor Anton Wolf died.
June 16, 1814: Joseph Baumann was chosen in his place.
July 28, 1814: Mayor J. Baumann resigned because M. Wolf and J. Sahly accused him of drinking up the money of the community treasury. He (Baumann) demanded satisfaction.
Cecilie Hoegele remembers some members of this family from Elsass, Ukraine:
Some even I remember. There was that colorful uncle Benno Arnold (married to Magdalena Baumann), who let the small farm be tended by his wife and daughters, and traveled on "business" around the country. We loved him for his adventurous stories in which he always was the hero -- like Münchhausen. His only son Alexander was his pride and joy. He called him "Schura" -- Russian nickname for Alexander.
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| Sebastian Baumann | + | Maria Eva ? |
| b: UNKNOWN in Kleinliebenthal, Ukraine | b: UNKNOWN in Kleinliebenthal, Ukraine | |
| d: UNKNOWN in ? | d: UNKNOWN in ? | |
| Emigrated: in ? to Jeremejewka (Bischofsfeld), Ukraine | Emigrated: in ? to Jeromejewka, Ukraine | |
| Children: | ||
| Katharina Baumann | b: | ABT 1869 in ? |
| d: | UNKNOWN in ? | |
| Emigrated to Samara, Volga | ||
| Elias Baumann | b: | ABT 1871 in ? |
| d: | ABT 1893 in ? | |
| Drowned at age 12. | ||
| Philomena Baumann | b: | ABT 1873 in ? |
| d: | UNKNOWN in ? | |
| Franz Baumann | b: | ABT 1875 in ? |
| d: | ABT 1893 in ? | |
| Died at age 18. | ||
| Anna Maria Baumann | b: | 1877 in Jeremejewka (Bischofsfeld), Ukraine |
| d: | August 29, 1922 in Nowo Nikolaewka, Beresan, Odessa, Ukraine | |
| Elias Baumann | b: | ABT 1879 in ? |
| d: | UNKNOWN in World War I | |
| Magdalena Baumann | b: | ABT 1881 in ? |
| d: | UNKNOWN in ? | |