How should Mennonites organize politically? There’s a pamphlet for that!

When revolutionary riots broke out in Moscow in February 1917, large numbers of young Mennonite medics (alternative service units) were stationed in Moscow. The government was overthrown, and a new a democratically elected Russian Constituent Assembly was promised with elections in the Fall. The level of political awareness and debate was high.

Back home, the Halbstadt Commerce School teacher Benjamin H. Unruh and Johann A. Willms penned a longer brochure entitled “How do we Mennonites Organize for a National Assembly?” (March 3, 1917) (note 1; pics).

Unruh and Willms were concerned about Mennonite self-preservation, self-protection and the advancement of group-interests in a competitive environment if Mennonites were not to be crushed, swept away or simply self-destruct.

During the war, the state had moved to expropriate all farmlands owned by ethnic Germans; use of German in public places was restricted and even after the February Revolution they lacked freedom of the press.

Unruh was an advocate for a constitutional monarchy as in Great Britain, in contrast to Willms and his younger colleagues at the Halbstadt Commerce School—which included some socialists—who “awaited everything from the liberal bourgeoisie,” according to Unruh.

There was definitely a generational divide. When Unruh travelled to speak to those stationed in Moscow early in 1917, there was “…a feeling by the majority of the listeners that the speaker [Unruh] had been too voluble, pompous, assertive, too impressed with his own brilliance of mind, too defensive of the status quo at home, and too transparently obvious in his ambition to hold the position of starshii (elder or leader) in Mennonite organizations,” according to historian David G. Rempel—whose brother Johann was in the group (note 2).

On March 29, 1917, representatives of the various Russian Mennonite settlements met in Halbstadt and agreed on the need for Mennonites to organize and participate fully in the political life of the country. The goal was not to form a new party, but to create an All-Russian Union of Mennonites that was focused on electing representatives who could protect the spiritual and cultural identity of Mennonites. The goal required maximum unity and cooperation in an increasingly diversified but fragile Mennonite commonwealth that stretched from the Crimean Peninsula to the Amur River on the Chinese border.

Representatives met with other Russian Germans in St. Petersburg and agreed that an All-Russian Central Committee of Russian Germans was necessary moving forward, with the guarantee that Mennonite confessional distinctives and special interests including the right of property ownership and ethnic, confessional schools would be recognized.

The strategy required grass-roots political work in every village, verbal and print “propaganda,” created especially by teachers who were free in the summers.

The urgency of the moment brought modern rights for women to forefront for the first time: “Even our women must cast a vote if we do not wish to fall behind” (pic).

In mid-August, the first “All-Mennonite Congress” met in Ohrloff, Molotschna to organize and strategize Mennonite civil affairs (as separate from the church) with 198 representatives from various regions and interest groups. Significant debate around Mennonite non-resistance ensued, as well as around land distribution, the compatibility of Christianity and socialism, education, and justice.

The minutes capture what some have called the pinnacle of Mennonite intellectual and cultural life in Russia —though notably still without women (note 3).

An assembly of delegates representing “Russian citizens of German nationality and Mennonites” met later in the month in Neu-Halbstadt, Molotschna to develop their platform.

Ninety-eight percent of Mennonites participated in the long-delayed November elections—a sign of their willingness to cooperate with the new government, according to Unruh, who himself was a candidate for the “German Farmers of Tavrida.”

The Bolsheviks under Lenin (Unruh had met and debated Lenin a decade earlier in Switzerland, he claimed!) however seized power only three weeks prior to the elections, and then moved to dissolve the new constituent assembly after its first brief meeting in January 1918.

--Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Benjamin H. Unruh and Johann Willms, “Wie organisieren wir Mennoniten uns für die Nationalversammlung?” 1917. In Peter J. Braun Russian Mennonite Archive, file 3603, 58-68, reel 77. From Robarts Library, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON.

Note 2: David G. Rempel, “Recollections from trip to Canada, Summer 1939.” David G. Rempel Papers. Box 36, File 29. From Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. Toronto, ON.

Note 3: “Protokoll des Allgemeinen Mennonitischen Kongresses, August 14–18, 1917,” reprinted in Mennonitische Warte over four issues: 4 , no. 38 (February 1938) 34- 40; https://chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk362.pdf; 4, no. 39 (March 1938) 68–73, https://chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk363.pdf; 4, no. 40 (April 1938) 112–116, https://chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk364.pdf; 4, no. 41 (May 1938) 162–166, https://chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk365.pdf.

Comments

Swiss and Palatinate Connections

Sometime after 1850 Andreas Plennert and his family immigrated to South Russia from the Culm Region of West Prussia. Though there was at least one Mennonite “Plehnert” who had already immigrated to Russia in 1793, it is not a very common Prussian-Russian Mennonite name. As such, however, it is easier to trace than many and offers a minority narrative and identity within the longer and broader Russian Mennonite story. The account below is adapted largely from information in Horst Penner, Die ost- und westpreußischen Mennoniten , vol. 1, though I have expanded upon his work to offer a slightly different narrative. In 1724 there was a group of Mennonites forced out of the Memel region in East Prussia for political and religious reasons and were given assistance to resettle back to West Prussia in areas populated by Mennonites. Among the 23 households that went to the Stuhm region there is one Plenert listed, namely Christian Plenert. We know that Mennonites entered the Memel region ...

The Shift from Dutch to German, 1700s

Already in 1671, Mennonite Flemish Elder Georg Hansen in Danzig published his German-language catechism ( Glaubens-Bericht für die Jugend ) as preparation for youth seeking baptism. Though educational competencies varied, Hansen’s Glaubens-Bericht assumed that youth preparing for baptism had a stronger ability to read complex German than Dutch ( note 1 ). Popular Mennonite preacher Jacob Denner (1659–1746), originally from the Hamburg-Altona Mennonite Church, lived in Danzig for four years in the early 1700s. A first volume of his Dutch sermons was published in 1706 in Danzig and Amsterdam, and then in 1730 and 1751 he published two German collections. Untrained preachers would often read Denner’s sermons: “Those who preached German—which all Prussian preachers around 1750 did, with the exception of the Danzig preachers—had no sermons books from their co-religionists other than this one by Jacob Denner” ( note 2 ). In Danzig and the Vistula Delta region there were some differences...

Catherine the Great’s 1763 Manifesto

“We must swarm our vast wastelands with people. I do not think that in order to achieve this it would be useful to compel our non-Christians to accept our faith--polygamy for example, is even more useful for the multiplication of the population. … "Russia does not have enough inhabitants, …but still possesses a large expanse of land, which is neither inhabited nor cultivated. … The fields that could nourish the whole nation, barely feeds one family..." – Catherine II (Note 1 ) “We perceive, among other things, that a considerable number of regions are still uncultivated which could easily and advantageously be made available for productive use of population and settlement. Most of the lands hold hidden in their depth an inexhaustible wealth of all kinds of precious ores and metals, and because they are well provided with forests, rivers and lakes, and located close to the sea for purpose of trade, they are also most convenient for the development and growth of many kinds ...

Russia: A Refuge for all True Christians Living in the Last Days

If only it were so. It was not only a fringe group of Russian Mennonites who believed that they were living the Last Days. This view was widely shared--though rejected by the minority conservative Kleine Gemeinde. In 1820 upon the recommendation of Rudnerweide (Frisian) Elder Franz Görz, the progressive and influential Mennonite leader Johann Cornies asked the Mennonite Tobias Voth (b. 1791) of Graudenz, Prussia to come and lead his Agricultural Association’s private high school in Ohrloff, in the Russian Mennonite colony of Molotschna. Voth understood this as nothing less than a divine call upon his life ( note 1; pic 3 ). In Ohrloff Voth grew not only a secondary school, but also a community lending library, book clubs, as well as mission prayer meetings, and Bible study evenings. Voth was the son of a Mennonite minister and his wife was raised Lutheran ( note 2 ). For some years, Voth had been strongly influenced by the warm, Pietist devotional fiction writings of Johann Heinrich Ju...

Last Days of Mennonite Life on the Molotschna, September 1943

The Molotschna Mennonite Colony was established in 1803; 140 years later its villages were evacuated by retreating German armies. A map of the larger German operation of 1943 and the various "Trecks" is attached. The tens of thousands of evacuees included some 35,000 Mennonites. Nazi Germany had utterly failed Ukrainians, but continued to have plans for their "ethnic Germans" in the east. On Sept. 8, 1943 , the Red Army successfully took Donetsk (Stalino), 230 km east of Molotschna. The next day, S.S. administrators gave orders that every Molotschna family should load one wagon with their possessions and prepare for an orderly evacuation. Hitler was intent on holding Crimea, and sought to set up a defensive line from Zaporizhzhia to Melitopol and south to the Sea of Azov. Evacuation plans east of this line were in place since late June—initially to be resettled “somewhere” west of the Dnieper; on Aug. 17 first steps were taken to move 8,000 hospital beds west o...

Mennonite Literacy in Polish-Prussia

At a Mennonite wedding in Deutsch Kazun in 1833 (pic), neither groom nor bride nor the witnesses could sign the wedding register. A Görtz, a Janzen, a Schröder—born a Görtzen – illiterate. “This act was read to the married couple and witnesses, but not signed because they were unable to write.” Similarly, with the certification of a Mennonite death in Culm (Chelmo), West Prussia, 1813-14: “This document was read and it was signed by us because the witnesses were illiterate.” Spouse and children were unable to read or write. Names like Gerz, Plenert, Kliewer, Kasper, Buller and others. 14 families of the 25 Mennonite deaths registered --or 56%--could not sign the paperwork ( note 1 ; pic ). This appears to be an anomaly. We know some pioneers to Russia were well educated. The letters of the land-scout to Russia, Johann Bartsch to his wife back home (1786-87) are eloquent, beautifully written and indicate a high level of literacy ( note 2 ). Even Klaas Reimer (b. 1770), the founder t...

On Becoming the Quiet in the Land

They are fair questions: “What happened to the firebrands of the Reformation? How did the movement become so withdrawn--even "dour and unexciting,” according to one historian? Mennonites originally referred to themselves as the “quiet in the land” in contrast to the militant--definitely more exciting--militant revolutionaries of Münster ( note 1 ), and identification with Psalm 35:19f.: “Let not my enemies gloat over me … For they do not speak peace, but they devise deceitful schemes against those who live quietly in the land.” How did Mennonites become the “quiet in the land” in Royal Prussia? Minority non-citizen groups in Poland like Jews, Scots, Huguenots or the much smaller body of Mennonites did not enjoy full political or economic rights as citizens. Ecclesial and civil laws left linguistic or religious minorities vulnerable to extortion. Such groups sought to negotiate a Privilegium or charter with the king, which set out a legal basis for some protections of life an...

Fraktur (or Gothic) font and Kurrent- (or Sütterlin) handwriting: Nazi ban, 1941

In the middle of the war on January 1, 1942, the Winnipeg-based Mennonitische Rundschau published a new issue without the familiar Fraktur script masthead ( note 1 ). One might speculate on the reasons, but a year earlier Hitler banned the use of the font in the Reich . The Rundschau did not exactly follow all orders from Berlin—the rest of the paper was in Fraktur (sometimes referred to as "Gothic"); when the war ended in 1945, the Rundschau reintroduced the Fraktur font for its masthead. It wasn’t until the 1960s that an issue might have a page or title here or there with the “normal” or Latin font, even though post-war Germany was no longer using Fraktur . By 1973 only the Rundschau masthead is left in Fraktur , and that is only removed in December 1992. Attached is a copy of Nazi Party Secretary Martin Bormann's official letter dated January 3, 1941, which prohibited the use of Fraktur fonts "by order of the Führer. " Why? It was a Jewish invention, apparent...

Why Danzig and Poland?

In the late 16th century, Poland became a haven for a variety of non-conformists which included Jews, Anti-Trinitarians from Italy and Bohemia, Quakers and Calvinists from Great Britain, south German Schwenkfelders, Eastern Orthodox, Armenian, and Greek Catholic Christians, some Muslim Tatars, as well as other peaceful sectarians like the Dutch and Flemish Anabaptists. Unlike the Low Countries and most of western Europe, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a “state without stakes,” and as such fittingly described as “God’s playground” ( note 1 ). In the view of 17th-century Dutch dramatist Joost van den Vondel, it was “the ‘Promised Land,’ where the refugee could forget all his sorrow and enjoy the richness of the land” ( note 2 ). Over the next two centuries an important strand of Mennonite life and spirituality evolved into a mature tradition in this relatively hospitable context ( note 3 ). Anabaptists from the Low Countries began to arrive in Danzig and region as early as 15...

Congregational Discipline: Trouble with "the Saints”

Gerhard Wiebe was elder of the Elbing-Ellerwalde (Polish-Prussia) Mennonite Church from 1778-1796, which includes the years of early immigration to Russia. His ministerial diary lists many names, and each comes with a story ( note 1 ). Wiebe’s accounts of church discipline are particularly revealing for helping us understand the first immigrant generation to New Russia. After preaching the gospel, the elder's most important duty was discipline, and this elder kept note of everything. Wiebe’s cases included: • regular incidences of drunkenness; • bar-tending at “The Kruge” [pitcher / name of inn], with music and all manner of “wicked things”; • leading an “immoral” lifestyle; • dancing in “The Lame Hand” pub [?], • stealing pigs; • licentiousness and leading a worldly life; • jeering and fist-fighting on the street; • excessive agitation and anger (mixed with alcohol); • forgery of payment records, non-payment of debts; • engagement/ marriage to a Lutheran, o...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog