On February 4, 1873, ministers and elders held a special meeting in Elder Isaak Peters’ Pordenau Molotschna church (note 1). It was a larger building with balcony, constructed in 1860 after the original 1828 stone church building had been torn down. They had put down deep roots in Russia; nonetheless Peters spoke strongly in favour of emigration and supported a decision to send land scouts to America. The team was given a mandate to negotiate for the possibility of some 50 to 60,000 Mennonite immigrants (note 2).
Eager to compete with the United States for settlers, the
Canadian government passed an Order-in-Council on March 3, 1873 to create a
Mennonite reservation of nine-and-one-third townships (note 3). The twelve-member
deputation—including two Molotschna elders—which had been sent to North America
returned in September with a favourable report (note 4).
Despite divergent opinions on the ground, the first hundred Russian Mennonite agriculturalists arrived in the United States in September 1873, and were heralded by the Boston-based Baptist press not only as “the advanced guard of 40,000 others,” but also as “the new pilgrims”: “Nothing can be more valuable to us in helping to perpetuate those principles which the Plymouth Pilgrims brought here … than a new influx of men ready to sacrifice all things for conscience and Christ” (note 5).
Heinrich J. Bräul was the teacher in the Pordenau
schoolhouse in 1873. Of the 32 families represented in his 1873–74 school
register, at least seven departed for Kansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Nebraska,
the Dakotas and Manitoba (note 6).
James Urry estimates that 784 Molotschna families
representing 4,500 people or 20 percent of the colony emigrated between 1873
and 1880 (note 7). In Pordenau, for example, the schoolhouse had thirteen fewer
students in 1875–76 than two years earlier, a drop of 21 percent despite the
arrival of new families—Koop, Nickel, and Schulz.
Most in the community did not leave until 1874 and
following. In May 1874, two Pordenau ministers delivered their farewell
sermons. Elder Isaak Peters was convinced with others that the Tsar’s offer of
alternative service was “an unevangelical association with the ‘Beast,’ the
state, hostile to God.” Because of his open advocacy
for emigration, Peters was expelled from Russia; he continued to actively recruit
immigrants from North America. “Mennonites who wish to stay true to the confession of their
forefathers cannot agree to the service expected of them. … They have no option
but to emigrate” (note 8). Three decades later he had lodged his own account
of events squarely into the longer Anabaptist martyr tradition.
Russia's modernizing vision in which all were to become
"citizens" (vs. subjects) with the same rights and same privileges,
including on issues of military service and schooling, were troublesome.
Bergthal Elder Gerhard Wiebe’s concern was to “protect and save” the children
not only from military service, but also from “religious decline.” The
accommodations under consideration were for him a sign of “nightfall upon
Christendom,” namely that Mennonites had grown “tired of listening to the Word
of God.” Wiebe’s younger ministerial colleague in Bergthal, David Stoesz,
echoed the fear that “in most places … there is now a famine and darkness among
the Christians,” just as the prophet Joel had prophesied of the time “before
the terrible day of the Lord would come” (note 9). According to Wiebe,
“[h]umility has disappeared and arrogance lets them go their own way and stand
against God.” Wiebe and Stoesz framed Russia’s modernizing policies in terms of
an end-time scenario—the dreaded downfall of the world, or less
apocalyptically, the fall of the church.
It was from Sumatra that Russian Mennonite missionary and
elder Heinrich Dirks advised his brethren against a mass migration to Canada:
he knew that Mennonites who wished to be separate from the world would discover
that even in the most distant places, the fallen world would one day find them
out (note 10). The reasons for leaving were complex, and more than theological
(note 11),
Ultimately about a third of the Mennonite community in
Russia emigrated by 1880, splitting families and church communities in changing
times. Teacher Bräul remained in Pordenau tasked in part to rebuild the fabric
of the community, while his cousin and future Bergthal elder Johann Funk left to
create a new, separated and more conservative Mennonite world on the Canadian prairie
(note 12; pic).
---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast
---Notes---
Note 1: Cf. “Peters, Isaak (1826–1911),” https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Peters,_Isaak_(1826-1911); Dennis D. Engbrecht, “The Settlement of Russian Mennonites in York and Hamilton Counties, Nebraska,” Mennonite Life 39, no. 2 (1984), 7, https://mla.bethelks.edu/mennonitelife/pre2000/1984jun.pdf (with pic); Isaac Peters, “Die Auswanderung der Mennoniten aus Südrußland,” Zur Heimath [Kansas] 1, no. 4 (1875), 1, https://bethelcollege.advantage-preservation.com/viewer/?t=29813&i=t&d=01011875-12311921&fn=zur_heimath_usa_illinois_summerfield_18750501_english_1&df=21&dt=30; also idem, “An Account of the Cause and Purpose that led to the Emigration of the Mennonites from Russia to America,” Herald of Truth 44, no. 45–47 (November 7, 14, 21, 1907), 417–418; 427; 437–438, https://archive.org/details/heraldoftruth44unse/mode/1up.
Note 2: Cf. the memoir of delegate Elder Leonhard Sudermann,
Eine Deputationsreise von Rußland nach Amerika vor vierundzwanzig Jahren
(Elkhardt, IN: Mennonitische Verlagshandlung, 1897), 7; 9f.,
https://archive.org/details/einedeputationsr00sude/.
Note 3: Arthur S. Morton, History of Prairie Settlement and
“Dominion Lands” Policy, vol. II. Toronto: Macmillan, 1936), 54,
https://archive.org/details/P006212/page/54/mode/2up?q=mennonites; cf. John
Lowe, Department of Agriculture, Ottawa, March 12th, 1873, to Wm. Hespeler,
Waterloo, Ontario, reprinted in Ernst Correll, “Mennonite Immigration into
Manitoba (II),” 280. Manitoba: Sources and Documents, 1872, 1873 (Part II),” Mennonite
Quarterly Review 11, no. 3 (July 1937), 280.
Note 4: Cf. Sudermann, Eine Deputationsreise.
Note 5: “The New Pilgrims,” Watchman and Reflector 54, no. 36 (Sept. 4, 1873), 2.
Note 6: Cf. Arnold Schroeder, trans., “Molotschna School
Registers, 1873–1874,” http://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/school73.htm,
and “Molotschna School Registers, 1875–1876,”
http://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/school75.htm, as well as the
corresponding entries in the “Genealogical Registry and Database of Mennonite
Ancestry” (GRanDMA). Bernhard Fast family to Kansas, 1874; Johann Fast family
to Minnesota, 1875; Franz Janzen family to Nebraska, 1879; Isaak Loewen family
to Manitoba, 1874; Franz Toews family to Minnesota 1857; Heinrich Unruh family
to the Dakotas in 1874; Jacob Schulz family (see 1875–76 Register) to Kansas,
1879. Five further Pordenau families are listed in April 1874 as wishing to
resettle in America; see Steve Fast, trans., “List of Molotschna Mennonites
wishing to immigrate to America, 1874,” Russian State Historical Archive, St.
Petersburg, Fond 1246, Opis, 1 Delo 8, 109–120,
http://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/Molotschna1874.html.
Note 7: James Urry, cited in Helmut Huebert, Hierschau: An
Example of Russian Mennonite Life (Winnipeg, MB: Springfield, 1986), 89,
https://archive.org/details/HierschauAnExampleOfRussianMennoniteLifeOCRopt/page/n113.
Note 8: Peters, “Die Auswanderung der Mennoniten aus
Südrußland,” 1; also idem, “An Account of the Cause and Purpose that led to the
Emigration." The reasons however were not all theological; cf. previous
posts linked in footnote 2 above.
Note 9: Lawrence Klippenstein, “Aeltester David Stoesz and the Bergthal Story: Some Diary Notes [Part I],” Mennonite Life 31, no. 1 (April 1976) 15, https://mla.bethelks.edu/mennonitelife/pre2000/1976apr.pdf. See also Gerhard Wiebe, Ursachen und Geschichte der Auswanderung der Mennoniten aus Russland nach Amerika (Winnipeg, MB, 1900), 29, https://chortitza.org/Pis/Wiebe.pdf.
Note 10: Cf. George K. Epp, Geschichte der Mennoniten in
Rußland, vol. II (Lage: Logos, 1998), 232.
Note 11:
Note 12: Lawrence Klippenstein, “Funk, Johann,” Dictionary
of Canadian Biography, vol. 14 (Toronto/ Laval: University of
Toronto/Université Laval, 2003),
http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/funk_johann_14E.html. See previous post (forthcoming).
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