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).

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