Von Graubünden an die Wolga

Since some of my ancestors came from the Volga German village of Norka, I was pleased when the Reverend Doctor Holger Finze-Michaelson agreed to send me a copy of his book about one of Norka's first pastors. I was hoping Dr. Finze-Michaelson's biography of Johannes Baptista Cattaneo, Von Graubünden an die Wolga, would help answer some questions I had about this unique clergyman and his time.

What would motivate a man with a growing family and a devoted parish to leave his beloved Swiss highlands for a bleak outpost on the doorstep of Asia? How would this village of stolid German protestants receive a preacher who had embraced Herrnhuter pietism? What was life like on the Volga for my ancestors?

Dr. Finze-Michaelson has given years to researching Cattaneo and his fellow clergyman. Filled with details from their lives, this book shows us what it meant to be a man of the cloth during the Age of Enlightenment. Climbing unclimbed peaks, exploring unplumbed caverns, following the trail of the alpine hare, inoculating villagers against smallpox, confronting bandits with a brace of pistols--like many of his colleagues of the reformed faith, Cattaneo was not only spiritual but intellectually curious.

By the end of the book it is abundantly clear that Cattaneo was a unique personality. That he survived not only his wife but virtually all of his children, living to the age of 86, only served to further enhance the legendary status of 'der alte Katane' in the memories of successive generations of Volga Germans.

So did Dr. Finze-Michaelson's book answer my questions?

It still seems hard to imagine Cattaneo leaving the beauty and settled life of a Swiss parish for the uncertain fortunes of the Volga. His motivations were clearly much different from those of the colonists who went out of economic necessity. Yet he did not hesitate to heed the call. Perhaps only he knew whether it was the opportunity to serve where he was really needed or the opportunity to explore new landscapes that tugged the strongest.

As to how Cattaneo's pietistic persuasion was received by the Norka villagers, this book does give a clear-cut answer: not well. When Cattaneo first arrived on the Volga he tried to grow the small flock of pietists he found in the villages. He was very nearly run out on a rail for his efforts. Fortunately for himself and the villagers, he showed himself to be a good exponent of 18th century reason, and compromised. His desire to serve the village on its own terms was clearly stronger than his desire to serve the ideals espoused by Zinzendorff. But in his private life, he did not compromise. That he sent as many of his children as he could to live in Herrnhut communities in Serapta and elsewhere shows he continued to value this devotional, introspective Christian movement.

This book also offers some colorful insights into life on the Volga. The colonists endured hardship, living in one- and two-room hovels with the new-born livestock that could not be left to the mercy of a Russian winter. Some were not above peppering a cantankerous neighbor with bird shot. Most probably had little time or energy for much reflection. They appreciated a good sermon, but being simple farming folk, they equally appreciated the man who came from Switzerland to set a leg when someone fell off a horse, or show them how to grow better apples.

The Reverend Dr. Holder Finze-Michaelson is a former pastor of Cattaneo's old Swiss parish of St. Antönien. He currently is pastor in Zweisimmen, Canton Bern, and ably carries on the traditions of the scholar-pastors who preceded him in the Reformed Church in Switzerland. His book is Von Graubünden an die Wolga. Pfarrer Johannes Baptista Cattaneo (1745-1831) und seine Zeit. Chur, 1992.