Russian Mennonites: A People of Peace and a People of Witness

One way of explaining well who a certain group of people is, is by looking at the unique set of questions they kept on asking, generation after generation. What peculiar issues did Russian Mennonites (or earlier in Prussia) keep struggling with in each new context? What were their experiments as community?

Of course the answers differed in each place and time, and the arguments were divisive. Some experiments failed. Utterly.

Below are two basic sets of questions that Mennonites asked over and again in each generation in Russia/Ukraine. The questions, I would suggest, were unique to their experience; that is, the other Christian communities in their context--Lutheran, Pietist, Catholic and Orthodox--were asking different sets questions

First, and perhaps least surprising, Mennonites in Russia/Ukraine kept asking / being concerned about non-resistance, about being a people who took those New Testament admonitions of peace seriously, and did not return evil for evil, seek revenge or kill.

Mennonites only chose to come to Russia after they were assured that their sons would not be conscripted. In the 1870s, one-third of all Russian Mennonites left for North America when this was threatened. Those who stayed, only stayed because the option of alternative service was offered to the entire community.

And when war, revolution or anarchy was closer, it is easy to document the following questions they struggled with:

What are possible strategies of response when our country is at war? Eg., Russia's war with Japan 1904-5; Is our Alternative Service/ forestry work enough? Should we be sending medics and doctors? Should we collect money for a widows fund? What kind messages of support do we send to the Tsar, etc.
How do we organize and present ourselves politically with a changed government, and seek conscientious objector options? E.g., after 1905 revolution and after the 1918 February Revolution;
What do we owe our government and neighbours in times of war? E.g., the Crimean war, 1853-6; Mennonites tended the wounded (quota for each village), sent wagon loads of feed and food to the front (quota for each village), etc. Mennonites honoured the Tsar and his soldiers and prayed for their victory.
What privileges for conscientious objection are legitimate in a democracy where all citizens share the same rights and responsibilities? E.g., after 1918 February Revolution/.
Can a people committed to non-resistance take up arms in self-defense, or when there is no legitimate government? E.g., after 1918.
Is there a moral difference between self-defense and military engagement (e.g., Selbstschutz and White Army), between self-defense and wars of religion or wars of revenge?
(After recognzed failure, 1920) How does a Christian community confess the sin of its people, repent of grievous wrongdoing, and rediscover its peace bearings again?

These are only a few of the "peace" or "non-resistance" questions Mennonites in Russia struggled with. Whether a next generations like their answers or not and, e.g., are angry about the Selbstschutz or not, it is always an argument that Russian Mennonites found important to have, even as they disagreed.

Second, Mennonites in Russia struggled with a sense of call to be a people of Christian "witness". This set of questions is connected to the first.

At risk of sounding too pious, it must be noted that the concern and determination to be "salt and light" a "model" and "city of the hill" is mentioned time and again in materials from Prussia and Russia.

If they were the "quiet in the land" in Polish-Prussia, it was both a strategy for survival but also stance for witness in more or less toxic or potentially toxic environments: be quiet, be subject, return good for evil, work hard, do not offend, and be patient or long-suffering. (E.g., summary advice from Prussian Elder Gerhard Wiebe to those leaving for New Russia).

While words were important, early preachers from Jacob Denner in Danzig to business people like Johann Cornies in South Russia always mentioned deeds as powerful forms of Christian witness that should at least awaken curiosity in the "Turk, the Jew, and the Gentile" (Denner)--or for Cornies--the Nogai and Jew for example, and be model to others Christian groups.

Curiously while the individual is always being "admonished" in the Mennonite sermon, it is not so individualistic. (This changes toward the 1860s and with the MB movement). Rather, it always seems to be more about forming a people who as a whole are a model and witness to the kingdom of God.

At the most basic level, this usually meant communities marked by orderliness, no one goes hungry, hard work, people of upright behaviour and character etc.

But at another level they are were always also struggling with how to identify and navigate the pressures/options of patriotism, nationalism, and assimilation. In Russia there are very heated debates and fears (or hopes) about education, for example, which are all really rooted in these deeper values. There were different types of "conservatives"--Chortitza elders, Molotschna Old Flemish, Kleine Gemeinde, the whole Bergthal colony, who raised flags about the pace of change, by and large for the sake of unchanging identity.

The questions continued: What are the costs and benefits of adaptation, acts of non-violent protest like mass emigration, or even rebellion for the sake of Christian witness?

Toward the late 1800s early 1900s other forms of these two related concerns arose:

Is it even possible to be apolitical? How might the church identify and negotiate tolerable compromises in inhospitable environments, or when the church is under surveillance? How does a community stay alert to seductive or toxic forces of nationalism in competition to its own confession? What role can a church-based press play, especially in the chaos? How should a faith community respond to “fake news” and propaganda? Do Mennonites have a sufficient theology of the state?

These were all hard questions, and they were all asked and debated by Mennonites in Russia, usually in relation to a real sense of calling to give witness as a Christian community.

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

Comments

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...

Swiss and Palatinate Connections

Sometime after 1850 Andreas Plennert and his family immigrated to South Russia from the Culm Region of West Prussia. Though there was at least one Mennonite “Plehnert” who had already immigrated to Russia in 1793, it is not a very common Prussian-Russian Mennonite name. As such, however, it is easier to trace than many and offers a minority narrative and identity within the longer and broader Russian Mennonite story. The account below is adapted largely from information in Horst Penner, Die ost- und westpreußischen Mennoniten , vol. 1, though I have expanded upon his work to offer a slightly different narrative. In 1724 there was a group of Mennonites forced out of the Memel region in East Prussia for political and religious reasons and were given assistance to resettle back to West Prussia in areas populated by Mennonites. Among the 23 households that went to the Stuhm region there is one Plenert listed, namely Christian Plenert. We know that Mennonites entered the Memel region ...

Last Days of Mennonite Life on the Molotschna, September 1943

The Molotschna Mennonite Colony was established in 1803; 140 years later its villages were evacuated by retreating German armies. A map of the larger German operation of 1943 and the various "Trecks" is attached. The tens of thousands of evacuees included some 35,000 Mennonites. Nazi Germany had utterly failed Ukrainians, but continued to have plans for their "ethnic Germans" in the east. On Sept. 8, 1943 , the Red Army successfully took Donetsk (Stalino), 230 km east of Molotschna. The next day, S.S. administrators gave orders that every Molotschna family should load one wagon with their possessions and prepare for an orderly evacuation. Hitler was intent on holding Crimea, and sought to set up a defensive line from Zaporizhzhia to Melitopol and south to the Sea of Azov. Evacuation plans east of this line were in place since late June—initially to be resettled “somewhere” west of the Dnieper; on Aug. 17 first steps were taken to move 8,000 hospital beds west o...

Catherine the Great’s 1763 Manifesto

“We must swarm our vast wastelands with people. I do not think that in order to achieve this it would be useful to compel our non-Christians to accept our faith--polygamy for example, is even more useful for the multiplication of the population. … "Russia does not have enough inhabitants, …but still possesses a large expanse of land, which is neither inhabited nor cultivated. … The fields that could nourish the whole nation, barely feeds one family..." – Catherine II (Note 1 ) “We perceive, among other things, that a considerable number of regions are still uncultivated which could easily and advantageously be made available for productive use of population and settlement. Most of the lands hold hidden in their depth an inexhaustible wealth of all kinds of precious ores and metals, and because they are well provided with forests, rivers and lakes, and located close to the sea for purpose of trade, they are also most convenient for the development and growth of many kinds ...

On Becoming the Quiet in the Land

They are fair questions: “What happened to the firebrands of the Reformation? How did the movement become so withdrawn--even "dour and unexciting,” according to one historian? Mennonites originally referred to themselves as the “quiet in the land” in contrast to the militant--definitely more exciting--militant revolutionaries of Münster ( note 1 ), and identification with Psalm 35:19f.: “Let not my enemies gloat over me … For they do not speak peace, but they devise deceitful schemes against those who live quietly in the land.” How did Mennonites become the “quiet in the land” in Royal Prussia? Minority non-citizen groups in Poland like Jews, Scots, Huguenots or the much smaller body of Mennonites did not enjoy full political or economic rights as citizens. Ecclesial and civil laws left linguistic or religious minorities vulnerable to extortion. Such groups sought to negotiate a Privilegium or charter with the king, which set out a legal basis for some protections of life an...

Snapshots of Danzig Mennonites, late 1600s & early 1700s

A picture can be worth a thousand words. We do not have photographs, but we have a few colour paintings of life in and around Danzig in the late 1600s and early 1700s, as well as maps. We also have a limited number of "textual snapshots" of Mennonites at this time and place, which offer an instructive window into that foreign world. These snapshots of work, worship, health, education, community relationships, smaller repressions, and security can contribute to the creation of a larger collage of Mennonite life in Danzig and Polish Prussia. Snapshot 1 : In 1681 there were approximately 180 Mennonite families who lived in the “gardens” or villages outside Danzig, with 113 of those families within the jurisdiction of the city. At this time Mennonites were barred from owning houses within the walls of the city. Of these 113 family heads, we know: 43 were retailers of spirits, 24 merchants, 9 lacemakers, 7 dyers, 3 silk dyers, 3 pressers, 2 brokers, 2 treasurers, 2 waitresses, et...

Russia: A Refuge for all True Christians Living in the Last Days

If only it were so. It was not only a fringe group of Russian Mennonites who believed that they were living the Last Days. This view was widely shared--though rejected by the minority conservative Kleine Gemeinde. In 1820 upon the recommendation of Rudnerweide (Frisian) Elder Franz Görz, the progressive and influential Mennonite leader Johann Cornies asked the Mennonite Tobias Voth (b. 1791) of Graudenz, Prussia to come and lead his Agricultural Association’s private high school in Ohrloff, in the Russian Mennonite colony of Molotschna. Voth understood this as nothing less than a divine call upon his life ( note 1; pic 3 ). In Ohrloff Voth grew not only a secondary school, but also a community lending library, book clubs, as well as mission prayer meetings, and Bible study evenings. Voth was the son of a Mennonite minister and his wife was raised Lutheran ( note 2 ). For some years, Voth had been strongly influenced by the warm, Pietist devotional fiction writings of Johann Heinrich Ju...

Why Danzig and Poland?

In the late 16th century, Poland became a haven for a variety of non-conformists which included Jews, Anti-Trinitarians from Italy and Bohemia, Quakers and Calvinists from Great Britain, south German Schwenkfelders, Eastern Orthodox, Armenian, and Greek Catholic Christians, some Muslim Tatars, as well as other peaceful sectarians like the Dutch and Flemish Anabaptists. Unlike the Low Countries and most of western Europe, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a “state without stakes,” and as such fittingly described as “God’s playground” ( note 1 ). In the view of 17th-century Dutch dramatist Joost van den Vondel, it was “the ‘Promised Land,’ where the refugee could forget all his sorrow and enjoy the richness of the land” ( note 2 ). Over the next two centuries an important strand of Mennonite life and spirituality evolved into a mature tradition in this relatively hospitable context ( note 3 ). Anabaptists from the Low Countries began to arrive in Danzig and region as early as 15...

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...

Eugenics and Euthanasia: Russian Mennonites and the Third Reich

Little surprises me when I write about Russian Mennonites caught “between the devil and the deep blue sea.” A 1944 letter I found recently from Mennonite Prof. Benjamin H. Unruh however offers a new and disturbing snapshot of this leader and the Russian Mennonite community under the umbrella of the Third Reich ( note 1 ). It is not too much to say that this larger-than-life leader stands at the centre of almost every significant Russian Mennonite story between 1915 and 1945, including community decisions during the revolution, the formation of MCC, the emigration of 20,000 Russländer, the miracle release of thousands gathered at the gates of Moscow, 1929-30, the creation of the Paraguayan Fernheim Colony, famine relief in the 1930s, the Canadian debates about identity and worldview in Der Bote and the Rundschau papers, and almost everything that happened with Mennonites in Ukraine from 1941 to 1945. His importance for the Mennonite story cannot be understated. Even for many conte...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog