Islamic Nogai Neighbours

The indigenous Nogai—immediate neighbours to the Molotschna Mennonites—were the object of enforced government “civilizing” policies, forbidden to carry their traditional weapon after 1816, and thus "encouraged" to exchange their nomadic lifestyle for farming (note 1).

Mennonite leader Johann Cornies’ (d. 1848) economic investment in and personal engagement with the Islamic Nogai people over decades was significant and unique. While the Nogai taught the early Mennonite settlers much about local plants and herbal medicines and shared their expertise in horse-breeding and knowledge about the land (note 2), their economic condition, moral life and superstitions burdened Cornies.

Consistent with long-term government goals to “civilize” and settle the Nogai, Cornies entered into mutually profitable herding partnerships with the Nogai, and worked to improve the economic value of their sheep herds. To do so Cornies used the Koran. David G. Rempel tells this story:

“[H]is first effort to improve their source of income [was] through the improvement of their breed of sheep, one of the poorest native varieties. In this attempt he was at first stoutly resisted, chiefly by the Nogai priests who maintained that the merino sheep could not be used for sacrificial purpose. Cornies was undaunted. He resorted to the Koran and in the end succeeded in persuading them that the merino sheep, which the Moors had brought to Spain, was the Mohammedan sacrificial sheep par excellence. This broke the opposition to the introduction of a fine-fleeced sheep.” (Note 3)

Rempel called this a “Cornisian” (!) contribution to the improvement of the Nogai's lot. Cornies eventually wrote an extensive and learned report for the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Colonists on the Nogai. In the report he recommended schools for the children in which a "thorough knowledge of the Koran and its interpretations" is given "special emphasis" (note 4). Cornies’ lending library included at least one relevant book, Muhamads Religion aus dem Koran (Muhammad’s Religion from the Koran; note 5; pic 2).

Building upon these experiences and relationships, in 1835 Cornies founded the Nogai agricultural colony “Akkerman” outside the southern border of the Molotschna. Akkerman was a projection of Cornies’ ideal Mennonite village outlined in exacting detail, with uniformity of design and regulations informed by his Mennonite theology of community. This community flourished economically in comparison to other Nogai villages. While only a small fraction of the Nogai were directly impacted by Cornies’s mentorship and philanthropy, economic developments led the Nogai to offer cheap, long-term leases to landless colonists just before wheat prices sky-rocketed and market prices for sheep declined steeply (note 6).

Cornies’ efforts at “improving the moral condition” of the Nogai were undertaken “perhaps as an act of proselytization” (note 7), as John Staples has suggested. To his Swiss friend Daniel Schlatter, a missionary to the Nogai, Cornies wrote (November 6, 1826): “Through the grace of Jesus, we endeavour to preach with our hands and otherwise to keep silent, which is better than the opposite” (note 8).

The German missionary Ludwig Bezner noted that Cornies—one of the few Mennonites to learn the Nogai language—spoke winningly to his chief herdsman, a Nogai, convinced that God speaks through the conscience. For example, Cornies dissuaded the herdsman from using a horsewhip to “train” his wife, and made him promise to treat his wife with patience and love (note 9).

Another key criticism of the Nogai was their “lack of attachment to the state under whose protection they enjoy so many advantages and liberties,” in Cornies’ estimation; “not to recognize the emperor is insolent, audacious and ungrateful” (note 10).

A 1838 visitor’s report surmised that there was “still more affection and love between Tartars and Germans than between these two and the Russians” (note 11).

Schlatter was not wholly impressed with the Mennonites, whom he also got to know well. They generally “lacked the gift of communication, or the sense and willingness to influence others for the good;” their “unfriendly” attitude and behaviour towards the Nogai did “not exactly evoke respect and love” (note 12).

Indeed, while the Mennonites seemed “to have reason enough to make fun of the Nogai, they never dreamt that they themselves are also uneducated, and in many respects just as far behind,” in Schlatter’s estimation (note 13).

Cornies was the exception, in Rempel's view. He “never drew any denominational or racial lines in his work. Whether it be a Mohammadan, Greek Orthodox or Sectarian, Hutterite or Pietist, Nogai, Russian or German," Rempel wrote, "Cornies always was ready to help, whatever the need might be.” Second only to the Mennonites, “none of these derived so many benefits from him as the Nogais” (note 14).

Unprepared to adapt their traditional culture to new market conditions and with very little land, virtually all 35,000 Nogai left Taurida Province for the Ottoman Empire after the Crimean War in the late 1850s, together with the Crimean Tatars.

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Pics: Nogai / Tatar neighbours to Mennonites drawn in the mid-1820s: in Daniel Schlatter, Bruchstücke aus einigen Reisen nach dem südlichen Rußland in den Jahren 1822 bis 1828 (St. Gallen: Huber, 1830), 74, 174b, 186b, 240b, 242b, 246b, 274b, 278b, https://www.e-rara.ch/zuz/content/zoom/7881850. Schlatter was a Swiss missionary to the Nogai living adjacent to the Molotschna Mennonite colony, and good friend to Johann Cornies.

Further Nogai illustrations, cf. (forthcoming)

Note 1: Cf. Dmytro Myeshkov, Die Schawarzmeerdeutschen und ihre Welten: 1781–1871 (Essen: Klartext, 2008), 347; Georg von Reiswitz and Friedrich Wadzeck, Beiträge zur Kenntniß der Mennoniten-Gemeinden in Europa und Amerika, Part I (Berlin, 1821), 371f., https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.ah6s5u&view=1up&seq=387; also Heinrich Dirks, “Aufzeichnungen eines Alten,” Mennonitisches Jahrbuch 1906/7 4 (1907), 92–97, https://chortitza.org/Buch/MJ/MJ06-4.pdf. For the Nogai's history in the context of Ukraine's history, see Paul R. Magosci, A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples, 2nd edition (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 175ff., https://archive.org/details/historyofukraine00mago/page/174/mode/2up?q=nogay.

Note 2: Cf. James Urry, “None but Saints”: The Transformation of Mennonite Life in Russia, 1789–1889 (Winnipeg, MB: Hyperion, 1989), 96.

Note 3: David G. Rempel, “The Mennonite Colonies in New Russia. A study of their settlement and economic development from 1789–1914” (PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 1933), 174f., https://archive.org/details/themennonitecoloniesinnewrussiaastudyoftheirsettlementandeconomicdevelopmentfrom1789to1914ocr/page/n193/mode/2up?q=koran. Rempel should have also added "Jews" based on Cornies role to help the nearby Jewish colony (Judenplan).

Note 4: Johann Cornies, “The Nogai Tatars, 1825,” 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), 457–493.

Note 5: “Johann Cornies—Catalogue of Books, 1841 [1845],” in Peter J. Braun Russian Mennonite Archive, file 797, reel 34. From Robarts Library, University of Toronto.

Note 6: This argument is made in detail by John R. Staples, “‘On Civilizing the Nogais’: Mennonite–Nogai Economic Relations, 1825–1860,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 74, no. 2 (April 2000), 232, https://www.goshen.edu/mqr/2000/06/april-2000-staples/.

Note 7: John R. Staples, Cross-Cultural Encounters on the Ukrainian Steppe: Settling the Molochna Basin, 1783–1861 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003), 114.

Note 8: No. 80, Johann Cornies to Daniel Schlatter, 6 November 1826,” in Transformation I, 97.

Note 9: Cf. Karl-Günther Jung and Heinold Fast, “Bericht Ludwig Bezner über seinen Besuch bei Johann Cornies, 1821,” Mennonitische Geschichtsblätter (1988), 74f.

Note 10: Cornies, “Nogai Tatars in Russia,” Transformation I, 486; 489.

Note 11: “Mennoniten an der Molotschna,” Der christliche Hausfreund, no. 25 (June 23, 1838), col. 393.

Note 12: See Reiswitz and Wadzeck, Beiträge zur Kenntniß der Mennoniten-Gemeinden I, 371f.; Dirks, “Aus den Aufzeichnungen eines Alten,” 92–97,

Note 13: Schlatter, Bruchstücke, 367.

Note 14: Rempel, “The Mennonite Colonies in New Russia,” 174.

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History of the Russian Mennonites

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