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 anti-Soviet religious periodical” and “widely popular” Mennonite church or faith-oriented paper Unser Blatt (“Our Paper”) had been approved in Russia for publication in October 1925 and was made available in Ukraine. It was shut down in 1928 (note 2).

In 1925 Das Neue Dorf--or "new village" --was created out of two smaller Bolshevik /Communist Party papers in Ukraine/Crimea and published twice-weekly. It was the “organ for the Bolshevik Party” designed for German villages of southern Ukraine. The Central Bureau of the German Section of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Ukraine used the paper to address their on-going “Mennonite problem” and directed it on occasion to create pointed articles, such as: “What the Soviet power accomplished for Mennonites following the Civil War,” etc. Rural correspondents were explicitly directed to strengthen “supervision of abuses,” typically by publicly embarrassing former leaders with wealth or a connection to the church in almost every issue. Cartoons helped to get the message across, as did unsigned letters to the editors (see related post, note 3). But it also supported the official ethnic German cultural developments in officially German districts, advocated for sufficient land for the districts, and offered suggestions for a smoother transition and development to the new political environment.

One of the more measured articles is a type of travelogue through the Molotschna in 1927 (note 4); while it is only signed with the initials of the author (“H.R.”), he appears to be a fellow Low German Mennonite and Communist Party activist.

It is a longer article; here are some excerpts:

“About ten kilometers from [Rudnerweide] lies the village of Gnadenfeld. Here land division is now being carried out. It turned out that some land was being “hidden” [from the surveyor by those wanting to farm more land]. "Didn't you know?" asked the surveyor reproachfully. Everyone was silent at this question. The land share for each farmstead is 16 to 32 desiatina [17 to 34 hectare], yet some are without any land at all. For example, citizen H.D., who is a very hard-working farmer, has nothing except a pair of horses and wagons; he is a native of Gnadenfeld yet nevertheless has to lease some land from year to year.

Wernersdorf is just a small village. It is said that the people here are also poor, although today some farmsteads already look quite prosperous. Everything goes its daily course. Over the last year there have been only two incidents about which the good people of Wernersdorf became a bit disturbed. That was when the land surveyor was to come—this led to some "inconveniences" similar to those in Gnadenfeld, and then also when a new chairman of the village council was finally elected.

The former, they say, was an otherwise good man, but very forgetful in matters concerning the community or individual citizens. On every trip to Halbstadt he especially loved to stop in Tokmak on the way to look deeply into the schnapps glass. This did not suit the citizens of Wernersdorf in the long run, and it is firmly hoped that his successor, a former Red Army soldier, will do things better.

Wernersdorf is situated on the river. On the other side of the bank there is a Russian village. The relationship between the Germans and Russians is not very good. The Russian side often threatens with Makhno [anarchist leader], once they even said: "Makhno will be there in three days and then we will make an end with you Germans." Often there is stealing from the Germans, and the trail almost always leads to the Russian side. A direct hostility is palpable. The Germans do not look at the Russians like they do at their own kind, but from above down: "That's just a Russian."

Of course, a lot of ideological education (Aufklärungsarbeit) is needed here. The Halbstadt District should also contact the surrounding Russian districts and lead this work from both sides. National [ethnic] discord must not be tolerated under any circumstances. Festivals in honour of the Revolution could be celebrated together, meetings and gatherings could be held where German and Russian speakers would appear. Schools could also make joint excursions. The German farmers must show more good will towards Russian farmers, and help them with good advice, because the German understands farming here better. Many more suggestions could be made. It is not an easy task that stands before the district, but it must be solved and a rapprochement--more harmony between the German and Russian population--must be the goal.

The ethnic German schools in the district still leave a lot to be desired. There is still a great lack of German books and guides for the teachers. The material situation of the teachers is still weak. Particularly difficult and time-consuming for teachers is the filling out of the most diverse forms, lists and papers, which are sometimes sent by the rayon in heaps in the Ukrainian language (in German rayon) which are sent by the rayon sometimes in heaps.

The cooperative functions better now than it did when the [Mennonite led] "Union of Citizens of Dutch Origin" was in charge [notice the spin-ANF]. The latter, through its mismanagement, caused tangible damage to many a German farmer. It is only in the present situation that the individual German cooperatives have the opportunity to develop. The demand for goods is great. Comrade “A.,” who heads the cooperative in Pordenau, said that the necessary goods are not always available in Melitopol. People are forced to travel further to buy goods, which, of course, unnecessarily increases the cooperative's expenses. More attention should be paid to the German cooperatives, which are still weak thanks to the previous mismanagement, and they should be better served in Raysojus in Melitopol.

Ideological education is weak. One cannot find a proper reading hall in any village, i.e., where one can get hold of a German book or newspaper. Young people spend most of their free time in the streets. The district party committee should pay more attention to this matter and find ways and means to get closer to the German population. The Party Committee is hardly known in German villages; many do not even know that it exists. If you ask a German farmer about it, he will say: Well, is there something like that in Halbstadt, too?"

Moreover, in many villages there is not a single Komsomol- or party member. This, of course, makes the work exceptionally difficult, but nevertheless, there could be a somewhat closer connection between the German farmers and the party organization.

The church still plays an important role in these villages today. Like everyone else, the Mennonite enjoys complete freedom of faith. But even the sturdy walls of the Mennonite church (Bethaus) sometimes sway quite noticeably. You can see it in the apparently small things. "Did you go to Sunday school today?" a strict father asks his son. "No, I was playing," comes the reply. "There were only girls and two of the very youngest boys." The church in G. [Gnadenfeld] is to be renovated, but the money does not come in; the farmer knows better and invests in his farm instead. The question of conscientious objection is discussed and already there are young people who do not want to renounce the honour of carrying a weapon on behalf of the state of the working class.

The harvest has turned out quite well this year. Winter cereals were mostly good, while the summer cereals in places was very weak. The present winter sowing gives hope for the coming year.

One does not like to leave such a beautiful region. We hope that the German village, the German district, will continue to take an active part in the Soviet construction and serve as a model. H.R.”

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: John B. Toews, trans. and ed., Letters from Susan: A Woman’s View of the Russian Mennonite Experience, 1928–1941 (North Newton, KS: Bethel College, 1988), 22f. https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/wedel_series/letters_from_susan.pdf.

Note 2: See GAMEO: https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Unser_Blatt_(1925-1928)(Periodical); AND https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Allrussischer_Mennonitischer_Landwirtschaftlicher_Verein. Most issues available at: https://chortitza.org/DPL.htm, AND https://chortitza.org/ZUB.htm.

Note 3: Related posts: https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/02/agitation-propaganda-and-strategies-of.html, AND (forthcoming).

Note 4: "Reiseeindrücke (Halbstädter Rayon, Kreis Melitopol)," Das Neue Dorf no. 19, 165 (1927), 3. https://martin-opitz-bibliothDek.de/de/elektronischer-lesesaal?action=book&bookId=via000095#lg=1&slide=0. My translation.

Comments

Mennonites in Danzig's Suburbs: Maps and Illustrations

Mennonites first settled in the Danzig suburb of Schottland (lit: "Scotland"; “Stare-Szkoty”; also “Alt-Schottland”) in the mid-1500s. “Danzig” is the oldest and most important Mennonite congregation in Prussia. Menno Simons visited Schottland and Dirk Phillips was its first elder and lived here for a time. Two centuries later the number of families from the suburbs of Danzig that immigrated to Russia was not large: Stolzenberg 5, Schidlitz 3, Alt-Schottland 2, Ohra 1, Langfuhr 1, Emaus 1, Nobel 1, and Krampetz 2 ( map 1 ). However most Russian Mennonites had at least some connection to the Danzig church—whether Frisian or Flemish—if not in the 1700s, then in 1600s. Map 2 is from 1615; a larger number of Mennonites had been in Schottland at this point for more than four decades. Its buildings are not rural but look very Dutch urban/suburban in style. These were weavers, merchants and craftsmen, and since the 17th century they lived side-by-side with a larger number of Jews a...

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...

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 f...

Fraktur (or Gothic) font and Kurrent- (or Sütterlin) handwriting: Nazi ban, 1941

In the middle of the war on January 1, 1942, the Winnipeg-based Mennonitische Rundschau published a new issue without the familiar Fraktur script masthead ( note 1 ). One might speculate on the reasons, but a year earlier Hitler banned the use of the font in the Reich . The Rundschau did not exactly follow all orders from Berlin—the rest of the paper was in Fraktur (sometimes referred to as "Gothic"); when the war ended in 1945, the Rundschau reintroduced the Fraktur font for its masthead. It wasn’t until the 1960s that an issue might have a page or title here or there with the “normal” or Latin font, even though post-war Germany was no longer using Fraktur . By 1973 only the Rundschau masthead is left in Fraktur , and that is only removed in December 1992. Attached is a copy of Nazi Party Secretary Martin Bormann's official letter dated January 3, 1941, which prohibited the use of Fraktur fonts "by order of the Führer. " Why? It was a Jewish invention, apparent...

Life in Exin, 1944: German-Occupied Poland

After the 1943-44 portion of the Great Trek ended with settlement of some 35,000 Mennonites in German-annexed Poland, the Gnadenfeld area trek members were scattered in resettler camps ( Umsiedler-Lager ) around Exin ( Kcynia ) and the Altburgund District administrative centre of Dietfurt ( Żnin ), including the hamlets of Kiefernrode ( Słupowiec ), Schwarzerde ( Malice ), Schmiedebach, etc. ( note 1) . Until World War I, the area was part of the German-Prussian Province of Posen, about 170 kilometres south-west of Danzig ( Gdańsk ) and about 400 kilometres east of Berlin. Almost all ethnic German resettlers from Ukraine arrived through Litzmannstadt (Łódź), one of two entrance points from the east into new German province of “Warthegau” ( note 2) . Here thousands were cleansed, deloused and processed daily. Some Gnadenfeld group members were brought to Janowitz (Janowiec) , near Hermannsbad in the District of Hohensalza for quarantine. Here fresh straw was laid out on the floor for ...

Canadian Mennonites and Paraguay: 1922

The first attached photo vividly depicts a meeting of conservative Mennonite elders in Saskatchewan and Manitoba in 1922 who intended to lead their communities to Paraguay. This was happening as hundreds of “Old Colony” Mennonites were leaving for Mexico. The “Old Colonists” from Manitoba’s West Reserve were in fact the first conservative Canadian Mennonites to scout out Paraguay for settlement land. In 1920 they were assisted in their search by New York financier and lawyer, General Samuel McRoberts, who had extensive holdings as well as political and business connections in Paraguay. The delegation travelled 90 km into the Chaco interior, west of the Paraguay River. They were however unimpressed with the land and ultimately recommended Mexico to their community ( note 1 ). Other conservative groups in Manitoba and Saskatchewan were however interested in sending their own scouts to assess the Chaco and the political climate in Paraguay vis-à-vis the list of privileges they were seek...

Non-Resistant Service: Forestry Camps

The 1902 photos are of the Mennonite Crimean Forestry ( Forstei ) “Commando” in the vineyards and orchards of southern Crimea on route to Yalta (" Gut [estate] Forroß"; note 1). The tasks for the units or commandos were to plant forests, lay out nurseries, and raise model orchards—work not directly or meaningfully connected to non-resistance, but deemed by the state as an acceptable alternative to state or military service. This non-combatant, alternative service program was the largest, most expensive and most formative, faith-based undertaking by Mennonites during the Mennonite "golden era" in Russia ( note 2 ). The first cohort of young men were chosen and sent for their term of alternative service in 1880: “On November 15 [1880] in Tokmak the first German youth were chosen [by lot] in the presence of the [Mennonite] district mayor and also of Elder A. Goerz. There, with singing and prayer, they beseeched the Lord for His mercy, which interested the Russian ...

Russo-Japanese War and the Mennonite Response, 1904-05

In February 1904, Russia declared war on Japan and Mennonite congregations sent the Tsar messages of loyalty, love and prayers. The large Lichtenau-Petershagen-Schönsee congregation in the Mennonite Molotschna Colony in today’s Ukraine led by 80-year-old Elder (Bishop) Jakob Töws expressed its “deep loyalty and love for the throne and the Fatherland” ( note 1 ). Similarly, the Mennonite Chortitza congregation declared that Mennonites bow “humbly before the Imperial Majesty with most faithful love and devotion,” and “together with all faithful subjects send their most passionate prayers and supplications to the Most High, that He may extend his mighty hand over the beloved Tsar and the Russian people, and that peace may soon be returned” ( note 2 ). The Einlage Mennonite Brethren congregation offered a similar statement, “inspired by feelings of boundless dedication to the Sovereign Fatherland,” with “passionate prayers” for the Tsar and Fatherland, based on 1 Timothy 2:1–4 ( note 3 ...

1843: London Bible Society, revival and School reform

In 1843 the Russian Mennonite colonies received a visitation from the London Bible Society. It was the same year that Charles Dickens published "A Christmas Carol" about the miser Ebenezer Scrooge and his conversion after the visitation of three Christmas ghosts! Dickens was not happy that the Church’s overseas mission budget was so large, while in his view they neglected the poor on their own doorsteps in London. Ebenezer was in fact a common British name of the era. A few years earlier the Molotschna was visited by a delegation from the British and Foreign Bible Society. The British agent, Reverend Ebeneezer Henderson, convinced Molotschna elders and Johann Cornies to establish their own Bible Society. "As they live on habits of friendship and intimacy with their Tatar neighbours, and one of their principal men [Cornies] speaks the Tatar with fluency, we furnished him with a good supply of New Testaments, and other portions of Scripture, in that language, that they m...

“German Days” on the Prairie, 1930s

Recently an acquaintance shared a photo from a Saskatchewan picnic, likely from the late 1930s. Twenty-seven individuals, children, parents and grandparents, are dressed in festive but comfortable clothing. The group includes her grandparents—both children of Mennonites who came to the US from Russia in the 1870s—and other relatives and friends. In the middle of the photograph, spread out like a picnic blanket, is a large swastika flag with the iron cross—the symbol of the German veterans’ association ( Deutscher Reichskriegerbund ; note 1 ); a young boy holds one corner of the flag. There are good reasons to think that this photo was taken at “German Day” ( Deutscher Tag ) celebrations, which were held annually in the 1930s in each prairie province. Saskatchewan German Day rallies rotated annually between Regina and Saskatoon, between seeding and harvest time. Its first gathering was in 1930 which drew some 4,000 attendees ( note 2 ). In 1932, six months before Hitler’s seizure of pow...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog