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

Below 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” herself together with several foreign envoys while touring her acquired territories earlier in 1786. Catharine personally offered the Mennonite delegates extensive protection and privileges--“the likes of which have never been bestowed upon any foreigner during the 25 years of the Most High's glorious and eternally memorable reign.”

Trappe extended an invitation to all Mennonites—whether they had participated in the sending of the deputies or not—to a gathering at the Russian Consulate in the Lang-Garten Street in Danzig at 9am on Saturday, January 19, 1788. The “Russian Palace” served as the residence of the Russia’s General-Consul, and was on one of Danzig’s foremost addresses near the Government House, with multiple hotels as well as the British and Dutch consulates (note 3).

However with the Prussian economic blockade of not-yet-annexed Danzig, by 1786 the Government House was “quite run down” (note 4). The embargo had had its desired economic and demoralizing impact. Prussian custom houses in the harbour imposed “arbitrary and insupportable duties” on goods for export and import, and those erected outside the city gates subjected each person to the “strictest search” (note 5).

Accordingly Danzig’s population had dropped from a recent high of 60,000 inhabitants to 40,000 in 1787. In the same year, the city had 1,900 deaths compared to little more than 1,000 births, and the City of Elbing—now under Prussian rule—had surpassed Danzig in shipping trade (note 5b).

Not surprisingly Danzig officials were very apprehensive when they heard Trappe was returning from Russia with “significant” financial offers and the two land scouts (note 6). The city stood to lose cheap labour, and if the wealthy should also emigrate, they could also lose considerable tax revenue (note 7).

In Austria, France, Sweden and Prussia, Russian immigration agents found it extremely difficult—often illegal—to publish and distribute an appeal for colonists; in Danzig however city officials tolerated the recruiting agents—assuming that good terms with Russia might check Prussian repression (note 8).

Like an evangelist, in Summer 1786 Trappe had spoken "indiscriminately to all people he met on the streets, dispatched his staff everywhere, and drove into the villages surrounding Danzig to persuade farmers to move to Russia” (note 9). In August Trappe met with Danzig Flemish Elder Peter Epp, who warmly and quickly promoted the proposal (note 10) which was read in both Flemish and Frisian congregations on August 7, 1786.

City officials however were furious that the Russian offer was promoted by the clergy, and the Mennonite ministers were then prohibited from endorsing the offer or the land scouts.

To work around this, sixty Mennonite family heads signed a power-of-attorney document (Vollmacht) to send a scouting delegation—which claimed to represent 270 to 300 families—to find an appropriate location for colonization and negotiate the final conditions for immigration. Höppner and Bartsch departed for Russia on September 22, 1786.

The scouts returned November 1787, and the first gathering of interested families with the Russian General-Counsel on January 19, 1788 found a very receptive audience. From Danzig alone an astonishing 1,011 Mennonites registered for emigration; logistical details for travel were discussed, and a building committee of six was created (note 11).

Ultimately however, Danzig Council approved only 138 of the 1,011 Mennonite exit applications—mostly persons with few financial resources (note 12)—and that after significant political pressure from Russia. During this period the Danzig Flemish Mennonite church was caring for about 100 “poor” individuals (note 13).

That “even the industrious Mennonites” of Danzig and surrounding region planned to accept the “very advantageous offers from St. Petersburg … if they choose to concentrate on agriculture” was confirmation of Danzig’s rapid economic and political decline, according to one international press report, and was a “great embarrassment” for city magistrate (note 14).

This one artifact—a flyer calling Mennonites to gather at the Russian Consulate on January 19, 1788--helps us unfold that entire drama. Höppner would leave with his first group of emigrants on Easter Sunday. 120 years later, there would be more than 100,000 Mennonites in Russia.

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Pics: Map and Consulate pic -- thanks to Brent Wiebe for locating these items.

Pic 1- Note 1: The scan of the original flyer is from Mennonite Library and Archives, Bethel College, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/sa_2_55/, with full English translation. See also Horst Quiring, “Die Auswanderung der Mennoniten aus Preussen 1788–1870,” Mennonite Life 6, no. 2 (April 1951) 37–40; 37, https://mla.bethelks.edu/mennonitelife/pre2000/1951apr.pdf.

Note 2: Grigorii G. Pisarevskii, Izbrannye proizvedenija po istorii inostrannoj kolonizacii v Rossii [Selected works on the history of foreign colonists in Russia], edited by I.V. Cherkazyanova (Moscow: ICSU, 2011), 175, http://www.rusdeutsch.ru/biblio/files/417_biblio.pdf.

Note 3: Cf. W. F. Zernecke, Neuester Wegweiser durch Danzig und dessen Umgegend (Danzig: Gerhard, 1843), 231; 68, https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Neuester_Wegweiser_durch_Danzig_und_dess/mpJaAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1.

Note 4: Zernecke, Neuester Wegweiser durch Danzig, 117.

Note 5: See William Guthrie, A New System of Modern Geography, vol. 2 (Philadelphia, 1795), 8, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/012314850.

Note 5b: Augspurgische Ordinari Postzeitung, no. 47 (February 23, 1788): 2, https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:384-susba000018-8#0190.

Note 6: Paul Karge, “Die Auswanderung ost- und westpreussischen Mennoniten nach Südrussland (nach Chortiza und der Molotschna), 1787–1820,” Elbinger Jahrbuch 3 (1923) 65–98; 82, http://dlibra.bibliotekaelblaska.pl/dlibra/doccontent?id=13874.

Note 7: Pisarevskii, Izbrannye proizvedenija [Selected Works], 174,

Note 8: Cf. David G. Rempel, “The Mennonite Migration to New Russia (1787–1870): I. The Colonization Policy of Catherine II and Alexander I,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 9, no. 2 (April 1935): 71–91; 76f.

Note 9: S. D. Bondar, Sekta mennonitov Rossi, v sviazi s istoriei nemetskoi kolonizatsii na iuge Rossii [The Mennonite sect in Russia: In the context of the history of German colonization in South Russia] (Petrograd, 1916), 13, https://chortitza.org/Buch/Bondar.pdf; English: https://www.mharchives.ca/download/3344/. See also Roger Bartlett, Human Capital: The Settlement of Foreigners in Russia 1762–1804 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 127f.; 129; Pisarevskii, Izbrannye proizvedenija, 160.

Note 10: Heinrich Heese, “Das Chortitzer Mennonitengebiet 1848. Kurzgefasste geschichtliche Übersicht der Gründung und des Bestehens der Kolonien des Chortitzer Mennonitenbezirkes,” https://chortitza.org/Ber1848.html#Eg.

Note 11: Franz Harder, “Die Auswanderung aus der Danziger Mennoniten-Gemeinde nach Rußland,” Mitteilungen des Sippenverbandes der Danziger Mennoniten Familien Epp-Kauenhowen-Zimmermann, no. 4 (1937), 98–106; no. 6 (1937) 184–197, https://chort.square7.ch/Pis/K01.pdf; Karge, “Auswanderung ost- und westpreussischen Mennoniten,” 83; George K. Epp, Geschichte der Mennoniten in Rußland, vol. 1 (Lage: Logos, 1997), 78.

Note 12: Pisarevskii, Izbrannye proizvedenija [Selected Works], 175.

Note 13: Cf. Hermann G. Mannhardt, Die Danziger Mennonitengemeinde. Ihre Entstehung und ihre Geschichte von 1569–1919 (Danzig, 1919), 102, 119, https://archive.org/details/diedanzigermenno00mannuoft.

Note 14: Augspurgische Ordinari Postzeitung, no. 47 (February 23, 1788): 2.

Copies of this leaflet were distributed to the Flemish and Frisian Mennonite congregations in Danzig by Georg von Trappe, the representative of Catherine the Great, inviting the Mennonites to settle in Russia. December 29, 1787.

Carlsruher Zeitung, no. 23 (Feb. 22, 1788): 107, https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/newspaper/item/BZCD2RKBI4JBWDZ4MW3WYY35V2XSLMUJ?issuepage=3.

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History of the Russian Mennonites

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