Ideas for Educational Reform, 1832

After four decades in Russia, the president of the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Colonists, Andrei Fadeev, considered only eight of 116 Mennonite teachers in the two larger regions of Katerynoslav and Tauria—which included the Molotschna—fit to teach (note 1). Jakob Bräul’s Rudnerweide schoolhouse was given the same status as Heinrich Heese’s Ohrloff Agricultural Society School with regard to policies and “especially for the teaching of Russian” (note 2).

Fadeev triggered great angst when by “imperial decree” he distributed a book to church elders written by German Mennonite Abraham Hunzinger on the modernization of Mennonite schools and church. It was a friendly gesture and poke. The Molotschna was already a tinderbox, and this spark introduced by a state official to strengthen the community ignited a fire in the colony. Fadeev wrote to Johann Cornies on January 12, 1832:

“Most valued Cornies ... I advise you to acquire and read a booklet sent to your church leaders from St. Petersburg by imperial decree. … [About the Religious, Church and School Systems of the Mennonites, with Suggestions for Improvements] by Abraham Hunzinger. It is the intention of the government that our Mennonites should accept some of its suggestions, especially with respect to schools. … Your esteemed religious leaders must not miss the opportunity to make improvements in this regard without delay. For example, a secondary school might be founded … to properly educate village schoolmasters. It could be directed by Heese, assisted by Hausknecht [Einlage].” (Note 3)

Cornies--who would soon drive educational reform in Molotschna--wrote his friend Jacob van der Smissen (the first theologically trained and salaried Flemish Mennonite minister in Danzig) for his assessment of the volume.

“Treasured friend …On orders from the Tsar, the Minister of the Interior [Fadeev] sent a book by Abraham Hunzinger, a Mennonite archivist in Hesse, to our elders and to Khortitsa that includes suggestions for the reform of Mennonite life that might bring them closer to the state and integrate them with it. Would our local Mennonites be prepared to accept some of the suggestions, especially those relating to schools? I have not yet read the book.” (Note 4)

Many of Hunzinger’s church reforms assumed the contexts of Germany or Holland, e.g., that all pastors be educated, salaried and, when preaching, in robes as in Amsterdam, with equality in privileges with other denominations.

But it was Hunzinger’s educational recommendations that were of greater interest to Fadeev, namely that Mennonite school teachers too be properly paid, specially trained, and able to employ instructional materials and methods for the training of “good people and virtuous citizens”—for sake of the “character of the nation.”

For this goal, and for the training of “true Christians,” Hunzinger argued that the credentialed pastor and credentialed teacher can complement each other, ensuring that young people are introduced neither to errors nor superstitions—for example, the existence of “ghosts”—which could negatively prejudice a child for life (note 5).

Hunzinger’s pedagogical recommendations emphasized real, experiential understanding with the head and heart. His book refers to the Enlightenment educational philosophy and Volksgeist nationalism of Johann G. Herder, that is, that in every people lies a distinctive spirit; it mentions the romanticism of the young poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the warm Pietism of Goethe’s university friend and author, Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling (note 6).

The Pietist emphasis on personal feelings—which was the overwhelming tone and style of Heese’s successor Tobias Voth (a more recent immigrant from Prussia), for example—was largely foreign to the “Flemish” Mennonites of Chortitza, and a matter of curiosity to the Flemish Mennonite ministerial in the Molotschna at best (Rudnerweide was Frisian).

Mennonite farmer-ministers had claimed sole oversight and supervision of the schools in Russia. But they could not even “find time for study or memorization for they, like the lay-person, must work their field and run their farm. These preachers are all untrained, unpaid and eat their own bread,” according to a Swiss observer (note 7). And in hindsight, a later historian of education in the Molotschna wrote “nothing from that source [elders] was ever done for the schools” (note 8), justifying the regime’s intervention

Hunzinger’s booklet also had a more obviously polemical edge. He took special aim at those conservative Mennonites in his own German states who continued to reject the value of education, and who argued that “to love Christ is better than all knowledge,” or that the “Father of light” and the Holy Spirit will give the unprepared preacher “all that is necessary to know.” Hunzinger countered that it is a “false opinion” for Christians to “despise all worldly wisdom” and “all the sciences.” These and other particular opinions, according to Hunzinger, “are based upon error and hinder training of the spirit, progress in knowledge and in truth, improvement of religion and reasonable teaching and training of children” (note 9).

Not surprisingly, a significant portion of the Russian Mennonite ministerial rejected Hunzinger’s book and its recommendations that repudiated their own church-centric, essentially pre-modern educational tradition. The book had little immediate impact on Molotschna schools, but indirectly it brought already simmering differences to a boiling point—especially in the person of Heinrich Balzer, a minister in the Rudnerweide Frisian church, and later in Ohrloff (see next post on Balzer).

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Detlef Brandes, “German Colonists in Southern Ukraine up to the Repeal of the Colonial Statute,” in German-Ukrainian Relations in Historical Perspective, edited by H.-J. Torke and J.-P. Himka, 10–28 (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1994), 20.

Note 2: Peter M. Friesen, Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia, 1789–1910 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), 780f., https://archive.org/details/TheMennoniteBrotherhoodInRussia17891910/.

Note 3: “No. 254, Andrei M. Fadeev to Johann Cornies, 12 January 1832,” in 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; 2020), 258f.

Note 4: Cornies, “No. 260, To Jacob van der Smissen, 5 February 1832,” Transformation I, 263.

Note 5: Abraham Hunzinger, Das Religions-, Kirchen- und Schulwesen der Mennoniten oder Taufgesinnten (Speyer: Kob’schen, 1830), 100, 180, 87,

Note 6: Hunzinger, Das Religions-, Kirchen- und Schulwesen, 151, 180; also 128, 153, 180.

Note 7: Daniel Schlatter, Bruchstücke aus einigen Reisen nach dem südlichen Rußland in den Jahren 1822 bis 1828 (St. Gallen: Huber, 1830), 363f., https://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb11008440_00005.html.

Note 8: Peter J. Braun, “The Educational System of the Mennonite Colonies in South Russia.” Mennonite Quarterly Review 3, no. 3 (July 1929), 171. Irina Cherkazianova’s claim that “almost all teachers were preachers in this earliest phase” is difficult to substantiate; “Mennonite Schools and the Russian Empire: The Transformation of Church-State Relations in Education, 1789–1917,” in Minority Report: Mennonite Identities in Imperial Russia and Soviet Ukraine Reconsidered, 1789–1945, edited by Leonard G. Friesen, 85–109 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018), 88.

Note 9: Hunzinger, Das Religions-, Kirchen- und Schulwesen, 105, 106.

Comments

Warthegau, Nazism and two 15-year-old Mennonites, 1944

Katharina Esau offered me a home away from home when I was a student in Germany in the 1980s. The Soviet Union released her and her family in 1972. Käthe Heinrichs—her maiden name (b. Aug. 18, 1928)—and my Uncle Walter Bräul were classmates in Gnadenfeld during Nazi occupation of Ukraine, and experienced the Gnadenfeld group “trek” as 15-year-olds together. Before she passed, she wrote her story ( note 1 )—and I had opportunity to interview my uncle. Käthe and Walter both arrived in Warthegau—German annexed Poland—in March 1944 ( note 2 ), and the Reich had a plan for their lives. In February 1944, the Governor of Warthegau ordered the Hitler Youth (HJ) organization to “care for Black Sea German youth” ( note 3 ). Youth were examined for the Hitler Youth, but also for suitability for elite tracks like the one-year Landjahr (farm year and service) program. The highly politicized training of the Landjahr was available for young people in Hitler Youth and its counterpart the League of G...

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...

What is the Church to Say? Letter 4 (of 4) to American Mennonite Friends

Irony is used in this post to provoke and invite critical thought; the historical research on the Mennonite experience is accurate and carefully considered. ~ANF Preparing for your next AGM: Mennonite Congregations and Deportations Many U.S. Mennonite pastors voted for Donald Trump, whose signature promise was an immediate start to “the largest deportation operation in American history.” Confirmed this week, President Trump will declare a national emergency and deploy military assets to carry this out. The timing is ideal; in January many Mennonite congregations have their Annual General Meeting (AGM) with opportunity to review and update the bylaws of their constitution. Need help? We have related examples from our tradition, which I offer as a template, together with a few red flags. First, your congregational by-laws. It is unlikely you have undocumented immigrants in your congregation, but you should flag this. Model: Gustav Reimer, a deacon and notary public from the ...

1920s: Those who left and those who stayed behind

The picture below is my grandmother's family in 1928. Some could leave but most stayed behind. In 1928 a small group of some 511 Soviet Mennonites were unexpectedly approved for emigration ( note 1 ). None of the circa 21,000 Mennonites who emigrated from Russia in the 1920s “simply” left. And for everyone who left, at least three more hoped to leave but couldn’t. It is a complex story. Canada only wanted a certain type—young healthy farmers—and not all were transparent about their skills and intentions The Soviet Union wanted to rid itself of a specifically-defined “excess,” and Mennonite leadership knew how to leverage that Estate owners, and Selbstschutz /White Army militia were the first to be helped to leave, because they were deemed as most threatened community members; What role did money play? Thousands paid cash for their tickets; Who made the final decision on group lists, and for which regions? This was not transparent. Exit visa applications were also regularly reje...

Stalin’s Purge (1937-38) and Mennonite Suffering: 8 theses

1. Millions died under Stalin One of the more recent studies on the Stalin-era estimates that more than 28.7 million people suffered in the northern prisons and slave camps of the Gulag and 2.75 million people died there during Stalin’s reign ( note 1 ). To this number must be added the “close to a million political executions, the millions who died in transit to the Gulag, and some six to seven million who died of starvation during the early 1930s” ( note 2 ). The mass deportation of workers and peasants provided millions of forced labourers in the Arctic and Siberia. George K. Epp calculated that approximately one-third of Mennonites in the Soviet Union—at least 30,000—died due to exposure, beatings, overwork, disease, starvation or shootings ( note 3 ). 2. Mennonites in Ukraine suffered together with their Ukrainian neighbours Moscow was fearful of “losing Ukraine” ( note 4 ) and specifically targeted it with a “lengthy schooling” designed to ruthlessly break the threat of U...

School Reports, 1890s

Mennonite memoirs typically paint a golden picture of schools in the so-called “golden era” of Mennonite life in Russia. The official “Reports on Molotschna Schools: 1895/96 and 1897/98,” however, give us a more lackluster and realistic picture ( note 1 ). What do we learn from these reports? Many schools had minor infractions—the furniture did not correspond to requirements, there were insufficient book cabinets, or the desks and benches were too old and in need of repair. The Mennonite schoolhouses in Halbstadt and Rudnerweide—once recognized as leading and exceptional—together with schools in Friedensruh, Fürstenwerder, Franzthal, and Blumstein were deemed to be “in an unsatisfactory state.” In other cases a new roof and new steps were needed, or the rooms too were too small, too dark, too cramped, or with moist walls. More seriously in some villages—Waldheim, Schönsee, Fabrikerwiese, and even Gnadenfeld, well-known for its educational past—inspectors recorded that pupils “do not ...

Queen Elizabeth II and Aunt Adina Neufeld Bräul

This month (April 2023) we celebrated my aunt’s 97th birthday—Adina Neufeld Bräul. Queen Elizabeth II and Aunt Adina were born within hours of each other, April 20-21, 1926. She once told me—in somewhat different words—that this makes her wonder about God’s providence … In 1944 in German-annexed Poland, my 16-year-old uncle Walter Bräul was required to report for military service. His first thought: no good soldier should be without a girlfriend! Before leaving for training, he asked one of the girls from "the trek" on a date to see a movie in Exin. Seven years later they would marry in Paraguay. Adina and her mother and sister were on the same trek or group (Gnadenfeld/ Molotschna) out of Ukraine as Walter and my mother (in the 2023 photo). Adina’s most terrible memory of the trek was when their wagon almost tipped over into a deep ravine. She was 17—a year older than Walter—and it was Walter’s 17-year-old brother Peter who literally jumped from his wagon to physically stop ...

1923 Mennonite immigrants "kept behind": Lechfeld (Bavaria) transit camp

An important part of the larger 1923 immigration story includes the chapter of the hundreds who were held back at Riga and Southampton and taken to the Lechfeld (Bavaria) transit camp for medical care. “Germany generously and magnanimously helped our organizations, on my intercession, to overcome the manifold difficulties connected with such a ( Volksbewegung ) movement of people in such critical times,” Benjamin H. Unruh wrote some years later ( note 1 ). Just as the first group of Russländer Mennonites set foot in Canada 100 years ago this month, the North American relief effort in the USSR was also winding down (August 1923). The famine relief work in 1921 and 1922 had found broad support in the North American Mennonite community. However excitement about a larger immigration of Russian Mennonites to North America was muted, and a new call to action could not forge the same level of cooperation across Mennonite groups. The plan required huge money guarantees. In USSR B.B. Janz h...

A Traveler's Impressions of the Molotschna, 1927

In November 1927, Susanna Toews of Ohrloff, Molotschna wrote to her brother Gerhard in Canada, "Father is sleeping and the sisters are reading, even though they have read the stuff ten times. . .. Twice a week we get Das Neue Dorf . We read the most important material the first evening and then father reads the rest of it the next day" ( note 1 ). A youth in Friedensruh, Molotschna reported to the communist youth paper Die Saat in 1928, that their village receives 13 copies of Das Neue Dorf , 6 copies of Die Saat , one of the Moscow-based Deutsche Zentral-Zeitung , 16 copies of Die Trompete, 2 copies of Neuland , and some Russian papers as well. On average, 2 papers per household--all communist papers. A Mennonite-based monthly agricultural journal, “The Practical Agriculturalist” ( Der praktische Landwirt ) had been approved for publication in Ukraine in 1924 but was shut down in December 1926. Government authorities in Ukraine were exasperated to see a “significant a...

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...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog