Shyrokolanivka (Landau)

Landau (now Shyrokolanivka) was a German colony founded in 1809 on the banks of the Berezan River, 50 km northwest of Mykolaiv, by Catholic settlers from Württemberg, the Palatinate, and Alsace. From 1809 to 1871, it served as the administrative center of the Berezan German Colonists’ District of Odesa Uyezd in the Kherson Governorate. Today, the territory lies within Mykolaiv District.

The economic foundation of the colony consisted of crop farming, animal husbandry, sheep breeding, horticulture, and sericulture. The colonists introduced and spread potato cultivation in southern Ukraine. By the early 20th century, Landau had become an economically developed and well-organized village. Income was generated through trade and craft enterprises, as well as steam mills, shops, a wine cellar, and fairs.

With the outbreak of the First World War, the male population of Landau was mobilized into the army. The colony was renamed Sviato-Pokrovske.

The inhabitants experienced the fall of the autocracy, the collapse of the Russian Empire, and the bloody events of the Civil War. In 1919, they took part in the anti-Bolshevik Grossliebental Uprising.

The Soviet transformations were received negatively by the residents of Landau. The first attempts at collectivization proved unsuccessful. In March 1925, the Landau German National District was established (in May 1926, it was renamed Karl-Liebknecht) on the basis of Varvarivka District of Mykolaiv Region and Berezivka District of Odesa Okrug, with its administrative center in Landau.

During the 1920s, it proved impossible to restore pre-war levels of agricultural production. In February 1930, dekulakization began in Landau, and three collective farms were organized. Collectivization and the forced requisitioning of food led to famine, as a result of which 130 colonists died in 1933. During the Great Terror, 120 residents of Landau were subjected to repression; in 1937, 35 people were executed.

During the war against Germany, the colony was located within the Romanian administrative zone of Transnistria, though it remained under Nazi jurisdiction.

As the front approached in 1944, the German population of Mykolaiv and Odesa Regions was resettled to the Reich province of Warthegau (Poland). The evacuation of Landau’s residents took place at the end of March. After the war, many were repatriated and sent to special settlements in the eastern regions of the USSR.

At the end of 1944, Ukrainians deported from eastern Poland arrived in Landau and were settled in the houses of the former colonists. Landau ceased to exist as a German settlement.