Molotschna's 50th Anniversary Celebration Plans, 1854

There is no mention of this celebrative event in Hildebrand’s Chronologischer Zeittafel, no report in the newly launched Prussian church paper Mennonitische Blätter, or in the Unterhaltungsblatt for German colonists in South Russia.

But plans to celebrate five decades of Mennonite settlement on the Molotschna River were well underway in 1853; detailed draft notes for the event are found in the Peter J. Braun Russian Mennonite Archive (note 1). Perhaps most importantly the file includes the list of names of the first settlers in each of the first nine Molotschna villages (est. 1804). While each village had been mandated a few years earlier to write its own village history (note 2; pics), eight of these nine did not list their first settler families by name. The lists with the male family heads are attached below.

By 1854 Molotoschna’s population had increased to about 17,000; more than half of those living in the original nine villages were landless Anwohner (note 3). Celebration plans were sketched out in detail for May 1, 1854. The event was to take place outdoors on the Johann Cornies (Jr.) family-owned Juschanlee Estate on the southern edge of the Molotschna Colony on the Juschanlee tributary.

The file includes a sketch of the seating arrangement (see pic). The district (political) elders and church elders were to sit on the podium which would include a speaker’s chair. In front of the podium in semi-circles were, first, the “veterans” (presumably the still-living pioneers) as most honoured guests; then behind them the village mayors and church ministers; behind them the school teachers, and then the other festival guests.

Schedule

1 pm Gathering
2 pm Begin of Celebration

Introduction
Song
Keynote Speech
Song
Reports and Memories

4:30 pm: Banquet

Conversations (freie Unterhaltung).

Conclusion

Short closing speeches
Closing songs

However when looking for a report on this milestone event, the record appears to be silent. What happened? The Crimean War had started December 1853--and there was an historic flood of the Jushanlee just weeks before the scheduled celebration.

The Unterhaltungsblatt offers an interesting report on the immediate impact of wartime activity and the flooding on the Molotschna Mennonites in those months.

"The Colonists and Mennonites of the Melitopol- and Berdjansk-districts willingly agreed to provide the troops of the 17th Infantry Division with the necessary horse-drawn wagons during their passage through the colonies, and actually provided 630 three- and four-horse carts at each station.

The landowner, Mennonite Johann Cornies (Jr.) built a temporary bridge across the Tashchenak valley on German wagons, the material of which cost him 1000 silver rubles.

Without this bridge the crossing of two brigades of the 17th Infantry Division, as well as artillery, would have encountered an unforeseen obstacle due to the unprecedented flooding of this valley at that time. Mr. Cornies personally supervised the successful crossing of troops over this bridge.

During the unusual flooding of the Juschanlee River, which on the morning of March 27 [1854] had swelled to 150 Faden (933 feet), and in some places it was even 5.5 versts (5.9 km) wide. Over the course of 70 versts (75 km) all bridges and dams flooded so that there seemed to be no possibility of crossing, and the second detachment of the Tarutinski Regiment was restrained by the water in the colonies of Altonau and Lindenau. With the choice of either waiting some 10 days until the water receded, or to return (north) to Halbstadt where all bridges and dams were inaccessible, Mennonites and colonists spared no sacrifice to erect floating bridges in those places that offered the detachment the possibility to cross safely to Melitopol …" (Note 4)

By spring 1854 not only were troops moving through these established, original nine Molotschna villages, but Mennonites had joined the war effort with large donations of food, wagons and horses. Mennonites also invested their time and equipment to transport food to the Crimean war zone; and Mennonites brought back wounded Russian soldiers into their once secluded colony, villages and homes for care (note 5). This, plus historic flooding that likely covered the venue grounds—the show piece for the prosperity Molotschna had achieved—meant that the planned 50th anniversary celebrations were probably cancelled.

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: File 1762, microfilm reel 51, Peter J. Braun Russian Mennonite Archive, 1803-1920. Robarts Library, University of Toronto. See research guide translated and edited by Ingrid I. Epp and Harvey L. Dyck, https://www.mharchives.ca/holdings/papers/pdfs/PJBRussMennArchiveFA2.pdf.

Note 2: Margareta Woltner, ed., Die Gemeindeberichte von 1848 der deutschen Siedlungen am Schwarzen Meer (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1941), https://opacplus.bsb-muenchen.de/title/BV014463862.

Note 3: Delbert Plett, The Golden Years: The Mennonite Kleine Gemeinde in Russia, 1812–1849 (Steinbach, MB: Self-published, 1985), 89, https://www.mharchives.ca/download/1216/. On January 1, 1856, the Molotschna population was 18,148; 59% of families in the nine original villages were now Anwohner (renters). Source: J. Martens, “Statistische Mittheilungen über die Mennoniten-Gemeinden im südlichen Rußland (1. Januar 1856),” Mennonitische Blätter 4, no. 3 (1857), 30, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Mennonitische%20Blaetter/1854-1900/1857/DSCF0082.JPG.

Note 4: Unterhaltungsblatt für deutsche Ansiedler in südlichem Rußland 9, no. 8 (August 1854), 58, https://www.hfdr.de/sub/pdf/unterhaltungsblatt/1854_1-12.pdf. See previous post (forthcoming).

Note 5: See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/mennonites-and-crimean-war-1853-56.html. See also James Urry and Lawrence Klippenstein, “Mennonites and the Crimean War, 1854–1856,” Journal of Mennonite Studies 7 (1989), 12, https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/748/747.

--Appendix (see attached lists)--

See attached lists of original settlers in Molotschna's first nine villages. As background, see 1848 village histories in Woltner, Gemeindeberichte von 1848. Much of the content is copied in Helmut Huebert, Molotschna Historical Atlas (Winnipeg, MB: Springfield, 2003), https://archive.org/details/MolotschnaHistoricalAtlasOCRopt.

Note a:

Altona: See Huebert, 109 (Woltner, 113-116): “13 Flemish families [only 7 named above] from the Marienburg area of Prussia settled to form Altona. … Only six families were able to build houses in the first summer because of the distance lumber had to be hauled, the rest over-wintered in earth huts.”
Münsterberg: Huebert, 161 (Woltner, 116f.) notes that 9 of these 21 families came from the Elbing area, 7 from the Tiegenhof jurisdiction, and 5 from the Marienburg region. “Besides the necessary team and wagon for transportation, most of the settlers had very little else …”
Fischau: See Woltner, 101.

Note b:

Halbstadt: See Woltner, 88-93.
Muntau: See Woltner, 94-96.
Blumstein: See Huebert, 113 (Woltner, 101f.): “Eight of the original families came from the Marienburg area, seven from the Elbing region and six from the Tiegenhof jurisdiction in Prussia. They came to Russia under the leadership of Gerhard Hildebrand, who, however, settled in Schoenau.”

Note c:

Schoenau: “21 settlers of Flemish background” (Huebert, 181; Woltner, 109f); the above list only has 18.
Lindenau: Woltner, 99, has the above plus: Martin Born, Isaak Löwen, Isaak Wiens, Franz Enns, Klaas Friesen, Peter Remfenning, David Hiebert, Jakob Klaassen, Klaas Fröse, Paul Klaassen. Huebert, 155: “The initial population of the village was 90, with 47 males and 43 females.”
Lichtenau: Initially “21 Flemish farmers” (Huebert, 149; Woltner, 98).

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