Turning Weapons into Waffle Irons!

Turning Weapons into Waffle Irons: Heart-Shaped Waffles and a smooth talking General

In 1874 with Mennonite immigration to North America in full swing, the Tsar sent General Eduard von Totleben to the colonies to talk the remaining Mennonites out of leaving (note 1). He came with the now legendary offer of alternative service. Totleben made presentations in Mennonite churches and had many conversations in Mennonite homes.

Decades later the women still recalled how fond Totleben was of Mennonite heart-shaped waffles. He complemented the women saying, “How beautiful are the hearts of Mennonites!,” and he joked about how “much Mennonites love waffles (Waffeln), but not weapons (Waffen)” (note 2)!

His visit resulted in an extensive reversal of opinion and the offer was welcomed officially by the Molotschna and Chortitza Colony ministerials. And upon leaving, the general was gifted with a poem by Bernhard Harder (note 3) and a waffle iron (note 4).

Harder was an influential Neu-Halbstadt minister and itinerant evangelist, and years earlier he had composed a hymn dedicated “in deepest reverence to General Totleben," “the revered hero of and benefactor of the Mennonites”— for use in congregations for royal birthdays and anniversaries (note 5). The different kind heart-felt hymn praises Totleben for his role in the Crimean War (1853-56):

“Though confusion and fearful ferment reigned, he [Totleben] called out to us: ‘Children, stay home! The Tsar, rich in grace and wisdom, wishes that you stay put. His care is over you.’”

Totleben not only knew Mennonites from the Crimean War [trivia: his troops slaughtered 1500 British troops in one battle!] but was trusted by them too. This was both good and bad. The problem: Totleben was all-too familiar with the less than peaceful disagreements between Mennonites in dealing with the landless issue in the 1860s. After his 1874 visit he suggested cynically to the Minister of the Interior that not-merely religious reasons are at play with emigration:

“[T]here are three parties among the Mennonites: those fanatics who have already decided to move at all costs, the more enlightened who want to stay in Russia but are afraid to speak out[,] and those who intend to remain but are inciting others to leave so as to be able to buy their farms cheaply!” (Note 6).

Totleben visited many of the central villages like Rudnerweide (note 7) and was invited to “deliver actual sermons from the pulpit” to “clarify the true state of affairs,” according to his biographer. Totleben’s many explanations and demonstrations of the Tsar’s favour were repeatedly met “with quotes from the gospel and the dogmas of their confession” (note 8).

Despite his kind words about Mennonites and their heart-shaped waffles, Rudnerweide Elder Benjamin Ratzlaff (retired) found the final offer for alternative service unacceptable, and he left for America with his adult children a month later. Two weeks later he was followed by two Pordenau ministers (note 9).

Pordenau Elder Isaak Peters and others were convinced that the Tsar’s offer of alternative service was “an unevangelical association with the ‘Beast,’ the state, hostile to God”--and he was exiled from Russia and settled in Nebraska (note 10).

The Kleine Gemeinde Elder Peter Töws had been summoned three times to meet Totleben, and was finally blessed by the latter: “Go in the name of God!” (note 11).

Military exemption, the approval to establish a Mennonite-run forestry service, and the availability of exit visas to those wishing to emigrate were, according to James Urry, “remarkable acts of tolerance on the part of the Russian government” that “reflected how important the state saw the Mennonites” (note 12). The new accommodations or privileges for Mennonites “on account of their exemplary industriousness” were ratified later in the year (note 13); and for his efforts Totleben was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, First Class, with the rights of hereditary nobility, August 1874 (note 14).

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: "Totleben, Eduard Ivanovich von (1818-1884)," GAMEO, https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Totleben,_Eduard_Ivanovich_von_(1818-1884).

Note 2: Karl Lindemann, Von den deutschen Kolonisten in Rußland. Ergebnisse einer Studienreise 1919–1921 (Stuttgart: Ausland und Heimat, 1924), 33 n1, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/?file=Buch/Lind.pdf.

Note 3: See letters in Franz Isaac, Die Molotschnaer Mennoniten. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte derselben (Halbstadt, Taurien: H. J. Braun, 1908), 323-327, https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/Molotschnaer%20Mennoniten/.

Note 4: Gerhard Lohrenz, ed., Damit es nicht vergessen werde. Ein Bildband zur Geschichte der Mennoniten Preussens und Russlands (Winnipeg, MB: Canadian Mennonite Bible College Press, 1974), 59.

Note 5: Geistliche Lieder und Gelegenheitsgedichte von Bernhard Harder, edited by Heinrich Franz, vol. 1 (Hamburg: A-G, 1888), I, no. 532, 580f., https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/?file=Pis/Hard1.pdf. See General Totleben's History of the Defence of Sebastopol, 1854-55 (English), pp. 201, 203, 274. https://archive.org/details/generaltodlebens00russuoft/page/n5.

Note 6: In P. Albert Koop, “Some Economic Aspects of Mennonite Migration. With special Emphasis on the 1870s Migration from Russia to North America,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 55, no. 2 [1981], 151; cf. also James Urry, “None but Saints”: The Transformation of Mennonite Life in Russia, 1789–1889 (Winnipeg, MB: Hyperion, 1989), 215.

Note 7: John B. Toews, “A Russian Mennonite: The Diary of Diedrich Gaeddert (1860–1876),” Mennonite Life 33, no. 4 (December 1978), 13, https://mla.bethelks.edu/mennonitelife/pre2000/1978dec.pdf; cf. Dietrich Gaeddert, Diary: 1860–1871, from Mennonite Library and Archives-Bethel College, MS. 7, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_7.

Note 8: Cf. Nikolai Schilder, Ego zhizn’ i’ deyatelnost’ [Count Eduard Ivanovich Totleben: Life and Works], volume 2 (St. Petersburg: Tikhanov, 1886), 709, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/?file=Dok/Totleben.pdf; and https://books.google.ca/books?id=UkdDAAAAYAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=Shilder%2C%20Graf%20Eduard%20Ivanovich%20Totleben&pg=PA709#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Note 9: Cf. Dietrich Gaeddert, Diary: 1860–1871, from Mennonite Library and Archives-Bethel College, MS. 7, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_7; J. Toews, “A Russian Mennonite Diary, 13.

Note 10: Cf. Peter M. Friesen, The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia 1789–1910 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), https://archive.org/details/TheMennoniteBrotherhoodInRussia17891910/.

Note 11: Mennonitische Rundschau 41, no. 12 (March 20, 1918), 4, https://archive.org/details/sim_die-mennonitische-rundschau_1918-03-20_41_12/page/n3/mode/2up?q=totleben.

Note 12: James Urry, “The Russian State, the Mennonite World and the Migration from Russia to North America in the 1870s,” Mennonite Life 46, no. 1 (March 1991), 14, https://mla.bethelks.edu/mennonitelife/pre2000/1991mar.pdf.

Note 13: Hallesches Tageblatt 75, no. 281 (December 2, 1874), 1614, https://digitale.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/zd/periodical/pageview/8861006.

Note 14: Cf. Schilder, Graf Eduard Ivanovich Totleben, 710. See also the following informative online article on Totleben from the British National Army Museum: https://web.archive.org/web/20160311004111/; https://www.nam.ac.uk/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/enemy-commanders-britains-greatest-foes/eduard-totleben. I also looked at: “Memorandum of General Adjutant Todleben Concerning the Mennonites.” David G. Rempel Papers. Box 7, File 12. From Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. Toronto, ON.

Comments

Invitation to the Russian Consulate, Danzig, January 19, 1788

B elow is one of the most important original Mennonite artifacts I have seen. It concerns January 19. The two land scouts Jacob Höppner and Johann Bartsch had returned to Danzig from Russia on November 10, 1787 with the Russian Immigration Agent, Georg von Trappe. Soon thereafter, Trappe had copies of the royal decree and agreement (Gnadenbrief) printed for distribution in the Flemish and Frisian Mennonite congregations in Danzig and other locations, dated December 29, 1787 ( see pic ; note 1 ). After the flyer was handed out to congregants in Danzig after worship on January 13, 1788, city councilors made the most bitter accusations against church elders for allowing Trappe and the Russian Consulate to do this; something similar had happened before ( note 2 ). In the flyer Trappe boasted that land scouts Höppner and Bartsch met not only with Gregory Potemkin, Catherine the Great’s vice-regent and administrator of New Russia, but also with “the Most Gracious Russian Monarch” herse...

Why study and write about Russian Mennonite history?

David G. Rempel’s credentials as an historian of the Russian Mennonite story are impeccable—he was a mentor to James Urry in the 1980s, for example, which says it all. In 1974 Rempel wrote an article on Mennonite historical work for an issue of the Mennonite Quarterly Review commemorating the arrival of Russian Mennonites to North America 100 years earlier ( note 1). In one section of the essay Rempel reflected on Mennonites’ general “lack of interest in their history,” and why they were so “exceedingly slow” in reflecting on their historic development in Russia with so little scholarly rigour. Rempel noted that he was not alone in this observation; some prominent Mennonites of his generation who had noted the same pointed an “extreme spirit of individualism” among Mennonites in Russia; the absence of Mennonite “authoritative voices,” both in and outside the church; the “relative indifference” of Mennonites to the past; “intellectual laziness” among many who do not wish to be distu...

The Tinkelstein Family of Chortitza-Rosenthal (Ukraine)

Chortitza was the first Mennonite settlement in "New Russia" (later Ukraine), est. 1789. The last Mennonites left in 1943 ( note 1 ). During the Stalin years in Ukraine (after 1928), marriage with Jewish neighbours—especially among better educated Mennonites in cities—had become somewhat more common. When the Germans arrived mid-August 1941, however, it meant certain death for the Jewish partner and usually for the children of those marriages. A family friend, Peter Harder, died in 2022 at age 96. Peter was born in Osterwick to a teacher and grew up in Chortitza. As a 16-year-old in 1942, Peter was compelled by occupying German forces to participate in the war effort. Ukrainians and Russians (prisoners of war?) were used by the Germans to rebuild the massive dam at Einlage near Zaporizhzhia, and Peter was engaged as a translator. In the next year he changed focus and started teachers college, which included significant Nazi indoctrination. In 2017 I interviewed Peter Ha...

"Between Monarchs" a lot can happen (like revolt). A Mennonite "Accession" Prayer for the Monarch

It is surprising for many to learn that Russian Mennonites sang the Russian national anthem "God save the Tsar" in special worship services ... frequently! We have a "Mennonite prayer" and sermon sample for the accession of the monarch ( Thronbesteigung ) or its anniversary, with closing prayer-- and another Mennonite sampler of a coronation ( Krönung ) prayer, sermon and closing prayer ( note 1 ). After 70 years with one monarch, the manual is made for a time like this--try sharing it with your Canadian Mennonite pastor ;) Technically there is no “between” monarchs: “The Queen is Dead. Long live the King!” But there is much that happens or can happen before the coronation of the new monarch. Including revolt. Mennonites in Molotschna had hosted Tsar Alexander I shortly before his death in 1825. Upon his death in December, Alexander's brother and heir Constantine declined succession, and prior to the coronation of the next brother Nicholas, some 3,000 rebel (mos...

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...

Village Reports Commando Dr. Stumpp, 1942: List and Links

Each of the "Commando Dr. Stumpp" village reports written during German occupation of Ukraine 1942 contains a mountain of demographic data, names, dates, occupations, numbers of untimely deaths (revolution, famines, abductions), narratives of life in the 1930s, of repression and liberation, maps, and much more. The reports are critical for telling the story of Mennonites in the Soviet Union before 1942, albeit written with the dynamics of Nazi German rule at play. Reports for some 56 (predominantly) Mennonite villages from the historic Mennonite settlement areas of Chortitza, Sagradovka, Baratow, Schlachtin, Milorodovka, and Borosenko have survived. Unfortunately no village reports from the Molotschna area (known under occupation as “Halbstadt”) have been found. Dr. Karl Stumpp, a prolific chronicler of “Germans abroad,” became well-known to German Mennonites (Prof. Benjamin Unruh/ Dr. Walter Quiring) before the war as the director of the Research Center for Russian Germans...

1871: "Mennonite Tough Luck"

In 1868, a delegation of Prussian Mennonite elders met with Prussian Crown Prince Frederick in Berlin. The topic was universal conscription--now also for Mennonites. They were informed that “what has happened here is coming soon to Russia as well” ( note 1 ). In Berlin the secret was already out. Three years later this political cartoon appeared in a satirical Berlin newspaper. It captures the predicament of Russian Mennonites (some enticed in recent decades from Prussia), with the announcement of a new policy of compulsory, universal military service. “‘Out of the frying pan and into the fire—or: Mennonite tough luck.’ The Mennonites, who immigrated to Russia in order to avoid becoming soldiers in Prussia, are now subject to newly introduced compulsory military service.” ( Note 2 ) The man caught in between looks more like a Prussian than Russian Mennonite—but that’s beside the point. With the “Great Reforms” of the 1860s (including emancipation of serfs) the fundamentals were c...

Four-Part Singing in Mennonite Schools and Church in Russia

The significance of singing instruction may seem trite, but it became a key vehicle in the Mennonite school curriculum for fostering a basic appreciation of the arts and for faith formation. In Johann Cornies’ circulated guidelines for teachers, singing was recommended as a means “to stimulate and enliven pious feelings” in the children—a guideline he copied directly from a German Catholic pedagogue and circulated freely under his own name ( note 1 ). On January 26, 1846 Cornies distributed a curriculum regulation to all schools that mandated “singing by numbers ( Zahlen ) from the church hymnal” ( note 2 ). Attention to singing instruction in the schools precipitated significant and controversial changes in Mennonite liturgy. An 1854 visiting observer to the Bergthal Colony—a Chortitza daughter colony outside of Cornies’ purview—wrote: “Endlessly long hymns from the Gesangbuch (hymnal) were begun by the Vorsänger (song leader) of the congregation, and sung with so many flo...

Becoming German: Ludendorff Festivals in Molotschna, 1918

During the friendly German military occupation of Ukraine at the end of WWI, patriotic “Ludendorff Festivals” were encouraged by German forces to raise funds to support injured German soldiers. A first such festival in the Molotschna was held on June 25, 1918 in Ohrloff, and was attended by “a great many German officers, soldiers and colonists with music, [patriotic] speeches and social interaction” From the perspective of the German army press, the event was “extremely enjoyable;” it was accompanied with music by a 30-piece regiment orchestra, and beer, sausage, sandwiches, ice-cream, raspberries and cherries were sold. It closed with a “small dance,” raising 7,387 rubles or 9,850 German marks in donations ( note 1 ). Later that summer, a Ludendorff Festival in Halbstadt began with Sunday worship, followed by an early concert, games and performances by the Selbstschutz , as well as “entertainment and merriment of every kind,” with short plays and dancing into the morning ( note ...

Flight from Flanders to Friesland

In the latter half of the sixteenth century Protestantism gradually spread throughout the northern Netherlands in the form of Calvinism—which had a direct impact on Anabaptists. When the Northern Provinces of the Netherlands led by the exiled Protestant Prince William of Orange went to war against Spain in 1568, persecution of Anabaptists in Catholic Flanders increased again. Long before the Protestant Northern Provinces would declare independence in 1581, the inquisition against Anabaptists in Bruges, for example, had achieved its goal. With the last two Anabaptist executions in the city in 1573, the once large and thriving Mennonite congregation was extinguished. Subsequently Mennonites lived in Bruges only on rare occasions, and when present, for only a short time, as for example the well-known art historian Karel van Mander in 1582 ( note 1 ). In the Northern Provinces Calvinism had become attractive theologically and politically. Not only was Christian resistance to tyrannical gov...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog