Journal, Vol. 39, No. 3 – Fall 2016

On the cover: Longtime Volga German activist, educator and writer Adolf Bersch (1915-2010), circa 1965. Bersch is perhaps best remembered as one of the leading members of three Soviet German delegations sent to the Kremlin between 1965 and 1967 to make the case for the legal restoration of the Volga German Republic. He continued to advocate ethnic German cultural and political rights in the Soviet Union until the early 1990s. The photo accompanies the article, “Carrots and Sticks… and Demonstrations: Yuri Andropov’s Failed Autonomy Plan for Soviet Kazakhstan’s Germans, 1976-1980,” by Dr. Eric J. Schmaltz (page 1). Other articles: “The Schmidt Family Letters, Part II: The Everyday Life of a German Family in Russia, 1909-1914,” by Jody Burke.