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

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 ...

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...

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...

Vaccinations in Chortitza and Molotschna, beginning in 1804

Vaccination lists for Chortitza Mennonite children in 1809 and 1814 were published prior to the COVID-19 pandemic with little curiosity ( note 1 ). However during the 2020-22 pandemic and in a context in which some refused to vaccinate for religious belief, the historic data took on new significance. Ancestors of some of the more conservative Russian Mennonite groups—like the Reinländer or the Bergthalers or the adult children of land delegate Jacob Höppner—were in fact vaccinating their infants and toddlers against small pox over two hundred years ago ( note 2 ). Also before the current pandemic Ukrainian historian Dmytro Myeshkov brought to light other archival materials on Mennonites and vaccination. The material below is my summary and translation of the relevant pages of Myeshkov’s massive 2008 volume on Black Sea German and their Worlds, 1781 to 1871 (German only; note 3 ). Myeshkov confirms that Chortitza was already immunizing its children in 1804 when their District Offic...

Flemish Anabaptists and Witch Hunts

Political leaders have long used the term "witch hunt"--and there is an historical connection to Mennonites. Anabaptists and so-called “witches” were arrested and tried for related reasons in the Low Countries in the 1500s: namely, as a means to divert God’s wrath. The late-Medievals feared that heresy—in this case ana-baptism and the challenge to other sacraments—invited the wrath of God, and was an instrument for the devil’s own hellish apocalyptic assault. The assumption: the devil's tactics to destroy Christendom included the use of both heretics and sorcerers. Gary Waite writes convincingly that both were seen as “polluting” the community and thus both had to be "excised." "This fear of pollution, or scandalizing God or the saints, also explains why small numbers of peaceable Mennonites were so harshly treated during the second half of the sixteenth century. Plagues, fires, and economic and social crises were often blamed on the presence of even a smal...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

More Royal News! Mennonites give gifts of “Oxen, Butter, Ducks, Hens & Cheese” to new King (1772)

What do Mennonites offer a new king? The ritual ceremonies of homage to a new European king—as we see on TV these days--are ancient. Exactly 250 years yesterday, Frederick the Great became king over Mennonites in the Vistula River Delta where most of our ancestors lived. Here is how that played out. On May 31, 1772, Heinrich Donner was elected elder of the Orlofferfelde Mennonite Church, 25 km north of Marienburg Castle in Polish-Prussia; thankfully he kept a diary ( note 1 ). Only a few months later the weak Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth collapsed and was partitioned by powerful, land-hungry neighbours: Austria, Prussia and Catherine the Great’s empire. In the preceding decades Mennonites had lived with significant autonomy, felt secure under the Polish crown and could appeal to the king for protection . Now some 2,638 Mennonite families were under Prussian rule. Frederick II took possession of his new lands on September 13, and then invited four persons of nobility plus clergy from ...

Molotschna: The final months, Summer 1943

These photos are from German propaganda material filmed in Molotschna (called "Halbstadt") in 1943—just a few months before the evacuation from Ukraine and trek to German-annexed Poland (Warthegau). Not all of the film is of the Mennonite settlement, however, but much of it is. Below are some frames from the film. The edited shorter version is of higher quality and designed as propaganda to be consumed by Germans in the Reich and to secure their approval . The scenes are marked by cleanliness, orderliness and discipline. There is economic activity, a model Kindergarten, and always happy ethnic German people in the newly occupied territories. A predominantly Mennonite Cavalry Regiment (Waffen-SS) guarding Ukrainian and Russian workers is also highlighted. This hard to see and disturbing. Anything that may have been good here for Mennonites meant enslavement, hunger and death for untold numbers of others. Two versions of the film are available: Shorter (edited for l...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog