Russian Mennonites were Monarchists

In 1848, Evgenii von Hahn, President of the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Settlers in New Russia, tasked each village administration to work with the schoolteacher to produce an exact historical description of its settlement and key events in its history (note 1).

Looking back 44 years, the mayor and teacher of the Molotschna village of Altona had no difficulty identifying and describing the most glorious event in their history (note 2).

“There are moments in life that are too great for the human heart, when we are simply overwhelmed--exquisite, great, blissful moments when our voices fall silent, when we are moved so profoundly in our inward being that our hands fold of their own accord and our eyes gaze heavenward and prayer is the one thing needed by an overflowing heart. One such great, blissful moment was in the year 1818, when the most blessed Emperor Alexander I on his journey from the Crimea to St. Petersburg honoured our colony [village] with his distinguished visit and paid loving tribute to us German settlers of the Village of Altona, when he descending for a moment at the home of the honorable Elder Jakob Warkentin.

“But in 1825 it was not merely a moment, but hours which brought the inhabitants of this village great delight. For once again His Majesty honored our village on a trip from St. Petersburg to the Crimea with a visit and deigned to rest for a night in our village of Altona in the midst of its German population, in the dwelling of the honourable elder Jakob Warkentin.

“With deep reverence and pious emotion we thank God for these wonderful, unforgettable hours. There is nothing more beautiful and uplifting on earth than the joyful sight of such people to whom God entrusts power and rule, indeed the well-being of millions, and whom God's gracious hand has simultaneously bestowed the light of wisdom, the warmth of unvarnished piety and adorned and crowned with the beauty of delicate love for humankind. Those hours afforded us such an uplifting sight, and that is why we pray, united with millions, for the happiness and lasting welfare of the entire imperial family.

“[Signed] Mayor: Johann Wiens; Councilors: Jakob Esau and Jakob Klaassen; Teacher: Johann Wiebe"

This was not the repressive, modernizing King of Prussia! Johann Cornies too hosted the emperor in his home for tea during that visit in 1825. “We had the good fortune to welcome His Majesty, the Tsar, to our villages on 22 October. His Majesty deigned to enter my home as well, to speak with me, and to enjoy a cup of tea” (note 3).

Eleven years later after hosting Alexander I’s heir, Cornies summarized the Mennonite experience for the governor. Like the villagers of Altonau, Cornies’ monarchism is understood theologically:

“Since its first settlement, the entire Mennonite brotherhood … has lived in peaceful and blessed tranquility under the wise, generous and benevolent government of their Most Serene Highnesses, Emperors and rulers of the land. It cannot sufficiently honour and praise the all-bountiful God, the supreme ruler of all human fate, who has elected His anointed to rule over all of Russia’s people. With each succeeding day, the great value of this happiness renews joyful and deep feelings of faithful devotion, homage and dutiful thankfulness, in the hearts of these brethren in faith. (Note 4)

The growing emotional attachment and loyalty of Russian Mennonites to the royal house, and their own religious sense of call or mission as “model” colonists and agriculturalists, merged within the context of Greater Russia’s sense of imperial, messianic mission to serve and rule nobly over many peoples (note 5). Under God the Tsar governed as “patron and guardian of the faith” not only of his Orthodox subjects, but also of non-Orthodox subjects—including Mennonites.

Where “love and devotion for Crown and fatherland” is not recognized or encouraged, people show themselves not only to be “insolent, audacious and ungrateful” (note 6) but also ultimately irreligious  in Cornies assessment.

Much of this began to change in the 1860s with the Great Reforms marked by unifying, nationalist tendencies. The multiculturalism that Mennonites had experienced in Russia to that point was increasingly perceived by the state as a deficiency to be eliminated—as with the Mennonite charter of privileges granted by Catherine the Great and her heirs.

                                                                                                            --Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Evgenii Von Hahn, “Zirkularaufforderung 43 an sämtliche Schulzenämter und Schullehrer (January 8, 1848),” in Josef A. Malinowsky, Die Planerkolonien am Asowschen Meere, Appendix IV, 85–86 (Stuttgart: Ausland und Heimat Verlag, 1928), https://chortitza.org/kb/malinows.pdf.

Note 2: M. Woltner, ed., Die Gemeindeberichte von 1848 der deutschen Siedlungen am Schwarzen Meer (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1941) 115f., https://chortitza.org/kb/woltner.pdf.

Note 3: “No. 39, Johann Cornies to Koshani, December 20, 1825,” Transformation on the Southern Ukrainian Steppe: Letters and Papers of Johann Cornies, vol. 1: 1812–1835, translated by Ingrid I. Epp; edited by Harvey L. Dyck, Ingrid I. Epp, and John R. Staples (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015), 43.

Note 4: Cornies, “No. 88, Johann Cornies to Tavrida Civil Governor Muromtsev, September 9, 1837,” in Transformation on the southern Ukraine Steppe: Letters and Papers of Johann Cornies, vol. 2: 1836–1842, translated by Ingrid I. Epp; edited by Harvey L. Dyck, Ingrid I. Epp, and John R. Staples (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020) 140.

Note 5: Cf. David G. Rowley, “‘Redeemer Empire’: Russian Millenarianism,” American Historical Review 104, no. 5 (1999) 1582–1602.

Note 6: Cornies, “Nogai Tatars in Russia,” in Transformation on the Southern Ukrainian Steppe I, 489.

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History of the Russian Mennonites

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