Die deutsche Auswanderung 1816/1817 in den Kaukasus und ihre millenaristischen Hintergründe

by Kamran Ekbal

About: This article is in regard to a wave of millennialist expectations among the Pietist peasants of southern Germany of the return of Christ somewhere in or to the South of Caucasus around the year of Bahá'u'lláh's birth. This ecstatic and apocalyptic situation was motivated mainly by the talks and sermons given by Baroness Juliane von Krüdener and resulted in a wave of thousands of peasant migrants from the Kingdom of Würtemnberg and Switzerland round about the Bodensee in the year 1816/17 to the Caucasus. Many hundreds died on their long way from hunger and fatigue. The migrants then established a number of German colonies in the Caucasus; others tried to reach the southern shores of the Caspian (Mazindarán) expecting the return of Christ there. [-K.E., 2014]