Penmanship: School Exercise Samples, 1869 and 1883

Johann Cornies recommended “penmanship as the pedagogical means for [developing] a sense of beauty” (note 1). Schönschreiben--calligraphy or penmanship--appears in the handwritten school plans and manuals of Tobias Voth (Ohrloff, 1820), Jakob Bräul (Rudnerweide, 1830), and Heinrich Heese (Ohrloff, 1842). Heese had a list of related supplies required for each pupil, including “a Bible, slate, slate pencil, paper, straight edge, lead pencil, quill pen, quill knife, ink bottle, three candlesticks, three snuffers, and a container to keep supplies; the teacher will provide water color (Tusche) and ink” (note 2).

The standard school schedule at this time included ten subject areas: Bible; reading; writing; recitation and composition; arithmetic; geography; singing; recitation and memory work; and preparation of the scripture for the following Sunday worship—and penmanship (note 3).

Below are penmanship samples first from the Molotschna village school of Tiege, 1869. This student work was created by Peter Wiens. The folder of materials show that students were required to write not only in old-form Kurrent cursive, but also Latin cursive and in Russian (note 4).

While Russian language training had been encouraged since the days of Johann Cornies, it remained absent from the required village school curriculum. In 1866 Russian school inspectors had found that less than half of the Mennonite schoolteachers were familiar with Russian (note 5). That year state officials obliged Mennonite teachers “by their own signatures” to instruct the children in the Russian language for one hour a day, though “several progressive teachers, long before 1866, even in 1830 [Bräul and Heese], had taught in Russian” (note 6).

The second set of samples below on penmanship are by 12 and 13-year-olds in 1883 (note 7). Again, the assignments are vehicles for students not only to develop a sense of beauty, but also to learn a religious or moral truth. They give a small window on how Russian Mennonite children were shaped to rightly see and navigate their lives as a spiritual journey.

Below are translations of three of the 1883 samples:

"To love PEACE, to bring PEACE, to hold my tongue when the quarreler rants, to approach all matters full of love--may these things always be my obligation [full text repeated]. Age 12 Franz Wieb"

"To pray eagerly and watch carefully--may this duty become my joy. And to wisely flee temptation---may I strive daily towards this goal [repeat]. Jesus, allow me to succeed. Age 12 Helena Ediger."

"Christian thinking, talking, doing, is the Christian's duty. If you want to rest in peace and surety, do not neglect this rule. Act responsibly, be faithful, fear God, and shun sin. Age 12, Dietrich Peters."

The fourth is written in the older Kurrent script by Kornelius Janzen. It is a mini essay on the origins of the "rose" in western Asia, and how its fruit is used for "rose hip" tea, etc.

Next generation pedagogues judged calligraphy and the drawing “of flowers, etc.” as “if not laughable, then at least as somewhat useless” as part of the curriculum (note 8). However, in the pre-industrial, first half of the eighteenth century, Schönschreiben also some economic value, as P. M. Friesen’s description of master teacher Jacob Bräul of Rudnerweide suggests:

“‘Block-lettering’ [Fraktur] drawing, and painting were practiced especially in the making of small pictures and greeting cards (for Christmas, New Year, etc.), which also were presented to students as rewards for industry and good behaviour. Bräul really had artistic talent, but he also had ability in technical drawing (drafting) and produced designs for clock faces, for the huge Dutch wall clocks which even now are manufactured among the Mennonites of Russia as household furniture. He also drew plans for chests (large trunks), the major piece of furniture of the “big room” (living-room) of those days, and drew blueprints for clothes closets, corner cabinets, brick cabinets, four-poster beds and stately desks for the living room. Thus he supplemented his income during the long summer vacation [four months]. In the same way he was engaged in bookbinding.” (Note 9)

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: In D. H. Epp, Johann Cornies: Züge aus seinem Leben und Wirken [1909] (Rosthern, SK: Echo, 1946), 62, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/?file=1dok15.pdf.

Note 2: Ethel Ewert Abraham, “Fraktur by Germans from Russia,” American Historical Society of Germans from Russia. Working paper no. 21 (Fall 1976), 12–16; 16. Decades later P. M. Friesen reported on Bräul’s ability to teach Russia as well as the fact that he was “famous for his teaching of arithmetic, singing, and penmanship” (The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia 1789–1910 [Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978], 781, https://archive.org/details/TheMennoniteBrotherhoodInRussia17891910/).

Note 3: Peter J. Braun, “The Educational System of the Mennonite Colonies in South Russia,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 3, no. 3 (July 1929), 174; see Braun’s larger 1920 study: Der Molotschnaer Mennoniten-Schulrat, 1869–1919. Zum Gedenktag seines 50jährigen Bestehens, edited by Wladimir Süss (Göttingen: Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001).

Note 4: Peter J. Braun Russian Mennonite Archive, Robarts Library, University of Toronto, file no. 2000, “School Exercise Samples, Tiege Village Schools, 1869,” 16 pages. See finding guide, http://www.mennonitechurch.ca/programs/archives/holdings/papers/pdfs/PJBRussMennArchiveFA2.pdf.

Note 5: Friesen, Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia, 711.

Note 6: Braun, “The Educational System of the Mennonite Colonies,” 174; see J. Dyck, Braeul Genealogy: 1670–1983 (Sprinstein, MB: Self-published), 21.

Note 7: File no. 2466, Peter J. Braun Russian Mennonite Archive.

Note 8: Franz Isaac, Die Molotschnaer Mennoniten. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte derselben (Halbstadt, Taurien: H. J. Braun, 1908), 275, https://archive.org/details/die-molotschnaer-mennoniten-editablea; ET: https://www.mharchives.ca/download/3573/.

Note 9: Friesen, Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia, 780f. Tobias Voth too was an excellent artist and drew the only existing picture of Johann Cornies.

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