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Sunday, December 5, 2010

Kazakhstan -- Russian Germans, Hymnals, and Mountains

Evangelical Lutheran Church -- Prayer House. Note LCMS Style Cross
I don't have much time to write. So far so good in Kazakhstan. What momentarily has me fascinated besides the mountains is the German-Russian congregation we visited yesterday. I would like to write about the German-Russian Agenda and hymnal... for some reason that is foremost on my mind now.

German - Russian Hymnal

Same Hymn as above but see TLH 80, "All Praise to Thee, Eternal God"
The Russian translation in some ways is closer to the German than the English. This is, of course, a Martin Luther hymn, adapted from a Latin Sequence... I should leave comments about hymn history to those who know it... Note the German says, "Gelobbet seist du, Jesus Christ..." Praise to you, Jesus Christ." The English is "All Praise to thee eternal God..." Needless to say, the Russian here is closer. We sang this hymn for Advent 2.

Frozen River

Tim Quill, Alexei Streltsov, abc3+ on Mountain
Well, we made it to the mountains... would love to write more but on a tight schedule... more later.


1 comment:

  1. Maybe you'll meet some of my husband's distant relatives. He's from a Russian German family (they moved to the Ukraine under Catherine the Great). This immediate ancesters moved to North Dakota when the czar revoked their military privleges. However, others remained and in the 1940s under Stalin they were forced to relocate to Kazakhstan. Back in America, the Russian German communities were so insular that when my mother-in-law great up in the 1950s and 1960s the language at home was still German. She didn't even learn English until she went to public school in North Dakota. Well, if you met any Wallenders there, I'll bet we're related. :)

    Bethany Kilcrease

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