Skip to main content

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 attend classes very regularly.”

The training of teachers was now largely uniform. Almost all teachers in the reports had completed a four-year Zentralschule (high school) program in either Ohrlof, Halbstadt, or Gnadenfeld. Beyond this, most had also completed two post-secondary years of pedagogical training in Halbstadt—a program begun in 1878. A few of these teachers had done something equivalent in Chortitza, Kharkov, Berdjansk, Melitipol, Odessa, or Pavlograd. A minority of villages still appointed teachers who had not yet completed teacher training, including in Elisabethtal, Friedensruh, Großweide, Kleefeld, Klippenfeld, Landskrone, Marienthal, Nikolaidorf, Schardau and Waldheim. There may be more between the lines, because we know that one of those auxiliary teachers, the young Jacob H. Janzen, in Rudnerweide, was unusually gifted and on his way to becoming a leading educator, poet, playwright and later minister and elder.

All teachers were men, except for one Russian Orthodox auxiliary teacher in the Neu Halbstadt Girls School. The trustee of this school was the wealthy heiress Anna Schröder Franz. Not only Neu-Halbstadt, but Gnadenfeld, Sparrau, and Halbstadt also had a Russian Orthodox auxiliary teacher. Teacher David Dirks, born in Indonesia as a missionary child, had studied theology in Basel, Switzerland. Some schools had a small number of Lutheran or Catholic students.

Payment for teachers was not regulated yet—most were given a house attached to the school, plus a small salary in addition to defined contributions of farm products and the use of a small plot of land. A decade earlier an external assessment concluded that remuneration was “sufficient to support a teacher even with a larger family,” i.e., between 200 and 500 rubles per year in addition to some benefits (note 2). Not surprisingly, the specialized teachers in the school for the deaf--trained in Frankfurt, Germany—received the highest salary.

The wealthiest Mennonites often had their own small schools on their estates or estate clusters. In the 1890s Hochfeld, Neuteich, Rosenhof and Rykopol employed younger teachers with no teacher training. With very few exceptions “sports” was not taught in any villages, but it was practiced in the estate schools. In each case it was the “not fully qualified teachers” doing sports.

Notably almost all teachers were under the age of 40. A generation of older teachers with only Zentralschule training had been almost wholly retired and replaced. An outlier: lead teacher at the Neu Halbstadt Girls School was 62 years-of-age.

In 1881, all schools in the former German settlements were officially transferred to the Ministry of National Education and school boards lost the relative autonomy they had enjoyed. Teachers were now required to pass exams set by the state, and by 1891 pass state exams in Russian language. Graduates from schools with approved curricula could have their period of mandatory civil service reduced from six years to four. This could be reduced by a further year if they graduated from an approved high school—a strong incentive for Mennonite youth to study. The proviso put significant pressure on the board to redraw its curriculum and teacher qualifications to meet both the conditions of the state and the internal formational needs of the Mennonite faith and ethnic community. Though this intrusion by the state was not welcomed initially, it resulted in the formation of highly competent teachers, greater respect for teachers and their opinions, better local remuneration, and a broad awareness of the challenges of Mennonite self-preservation—including the need for better educated congregational leaders (note 3). Only after the 1905 revolution was a teachers’ union or association formed in Molotschna, which was joined by almost all area teachers (note 4).

At the Mennonite high school in Ohrloff, students under teacher J. J. Bräul used a 200-page Russian language theory text, as well as a 330-page Russian and world history text. Graduates were required to speak Russian correctly and fluently and write a large paper in Russian on an advanced topic without errors in grammar, spelling or sentence structure (note 5). An external examiner chaired the examinations, and by 1888 all 56 Molotschna village schoolteachers with only a few exceptions were graduates of this system. By order of government school inspectors, Mennonite representatives also participated in larger pedagogical conferences with academic papers, together with educators of nearby German colonies; this apparently proved satisfying for all (note 6). A visiting Prussian Mennonite colleague observed that Molotschna teacher-candidates were, in general, “comparable to the teacher-candidates from the Prussian teacher colleges (Lehrerseminaren)”: weaker in music, science and drawing, equal in geography, history, and mathematics, and superior in language and literature, mastering both the German and Russian materials (note 7). The same observer praised village school teachers for “the patience and effort required to train nine- to fourteen-year-olds in one of the most difficult European languages to the point that they can understand what they read, and freely discuss it orally as well as in writing” (note 8). 

In 1900, about three percent of Mennonites between ten and nineteen years of age were receiving secondary education—similar to Germany and higher than Great Britain. By 1914 that soared to fifteen percent—significantly higher than Germany and Britain, and similar to the United States (note 9). Literacy levels were the hallmarks of progress for Western nations, and by 1897 Mennonites had an almost hundred percent literacy rate for both males and females, whereas only about twenty-eight percent of Russians could read and write.

Excursus:

Whereas preachers had been traditionally elected from those with land and sufficient wealth to carry out their duties without remuneration, now there was a clear shift to the calling and election of teachers into those roles (note 10).

Village teachers not only completed two years of pedagogical training, but their high school examinations included detailed testing of Bible knowledge including the cultural-historical, geographical, and contextual knowledge of the Old and New Testaments; knowledge of the author, composition, goal, and contents of individual biblical books; ability to interpret five to seven Psalms, five chapters of prophetic Old Testament books, the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew and two sections of the Acts of the Apostles. Moreover, graduates had to give a chronological ordering of the life of Jesus, were tested on the basis of the standard German Protestant school church history text by Ottobald Bischoff, as well as on Mennonite church history and its theology using the catechism. Finally, teacher-candidates were tested in music and church hymnody, and were required to interpret eighteen hymns (note 11).

This laid a solid foundation not only for Mennonite teachers, but also for the election of competent lay-preachers, and the opportunity for a select few to pursue advanced studies in theology in Germany or Switzerland, or in other disciplines at Russian universities.

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Glenn Penner and Wilhelm Friesen, trans., “Reports on Molotschna Mennonite Settlement Schools: 1895/96 and 1897/98.” From Odessa State Archives, Fond 89, Opis 1, Delo 3232 3258. Peter J. Braun Russian Mennonite Archive, reel 71. Posted by Richard D. Thiessen, https://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/Molotschna_Schools_1896_and_1898.pdfCf. also Abraham Görz, Die Schulen in den Mennoniten-Kolonien an der Molotschna im südlichen Russland, edited by the Molotschner Mennoniten-Kirchenkonvent (Berdjansk, 1882), https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/?file=Pis/Goerz.pdf; Peter J. Braun, Der Molotschnaer Mennoniten-Schulrat, 1869–1919. Zum Gedenktag seines 50jährigen Bestehens, edited by Wladimir Süss (Göttingen: Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001).

Note 2: Wilhelm Neufeld, “Unterrichtswesen unter den Mennoniten in Rußland,” in Jahrbuch der Altevangelischen Taufgesinnten oder Mennoniten-Gemeinden, edited by H. G. Mannhardt, 134–143 (Danzig, 1888), 136, https://books.google.ca/books?id=ok5FAQAAMAAJ&dq.

Note 3: George K. Epp, Geschichte der Mennoniten in Rußland, vol. 3 (Lage: Logos, 2003), 137-140.

Note 4: Cf. “Gründerversammlung des Molotschnaer Lehrervereins,” reprinted in Mennonitische Volkswarte 2, no. 3 (March 1936), 88–90, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk351.pdf.

Note 5: On J. J. Bräul, cf. Epp, Geschichte der Mennoniten III, 131; P. M. Friesen, Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia 1789-1910 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), 716f., https://archive.org/details/TheMennoniteBrotherhoodInRussia17891910/; Neuer Haus- und Landwirthschafts-Kalender Rußland auf das Jahr 1906 (Odessa: Nitzsche, 1905), 82, https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:355-ubr13400-7; A. Kröker, Christlicher Familienkalender 21 (1919), 64, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/Pis/CFK19a.pdf; Heinrich F. Goerz, The Molotschna Settlement, trans. by Al Reimer and John B. Toews (Winnipeg, MB: CMBC, 1993), 195; GAMEO, https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Br%C3%A4ul,_Johann_J._(1854-1916).

Note 6: Mennonitische Rundschau 4, no. 36 (September 5, 1883), 1, https://archive.org/details/sim_die-mennonitische-rundschau_1883-09-05_4_36

Note 7: W. Neufeld, “Unterrichtswesen unter den Mennoniten,” 136.

Note 8: W. Neufeld, “Unterrichtswesen unter den Mennoniten,” 136.

Note 9: Cf. James Urry, “Prolegomena to the Study of Mennonite Society in Russia 1880–1914,” Journal of Mennonite Studies 8 (1990), 57, https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/658/658.

Note 10: See the example of Jacob H. Janzen noted above; for more: https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Janzen,_Jacob_H._(1878-1950). An earlier example of the shift can be seen in the election of the school teacher Heinrich D. Epp as minister in Chortitza in 1864. He served as chair of the Chortitza School Board for seven years, and then as Elder of the Chortitza Church for the last eleven years of his life, 1885 to 1896. Cf. Heinrich Epp, Kirchenältester der Mennonitengemeinde zu Chortitza (Südrußland) (Leipzig: Prieß, 1897), 15, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk218.pdf.

Note 11: W. Neufeld, “Unterrichtswesen unter den Mennoniten,” 138f.

---

To cite this post: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, "School Reports, 1890s," History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), June 10, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/06/school-reports-1890s.html.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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...

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 ...

1929 Flight of Mennonites to Moscow and Reception in Germany

At the core of the attached video are some thirty photos of Mennonite refugees arriving from Moscow in 1929 which are new archival finds. While some 13,000 had gathered in outskirts of Moscow, with many more attempting the same journey, the Soviet Union only released 3,885 Mennonite "German farmers," together with 1,260 Lutherans, 468 Catholics, 51 Baptists, and 7 Adventists. Some of new photographs are from the first group of 323 refugees who left Moscow on October 29, arriving in Kiel on November 3, 1929. A second group of photos are from the so-called “Swinemünde group,” which left Moscow only a day later. This group however could not be accommodated in the first transport and departed from a different station on October 31. They were however held up in Leningrad for one month as intense diplomatic negotiations between the Soviet Union, Germany and also Canada took place. This second group arrived at the Prussian sea port of Swinemünde on December 2. In the next ten ...

"They are useful to the state." An almost forgotten Prussian view of Mennonites, ca. 1780s-90s

In 1787 Mennonite interest for emigration was extremely strong outside the quasi independent City of Danzig in the Prussian annexed Marienwerder and Elbing regions. Even before the land scouts Johann Bartsch and Jacob Höppner had returned from Russia later that year, so many Mennonite exit applications had flooded offices that officials wrote Berlin in August 1787 for direction ( note 1a ). Initially officials did not see a problem: because Mennonites do not provide soldiers, the cantons lose nothing by their departure, and in fact benefit from the ten-percent tax imposed on financial assets leaving the state.  Ludwig von Baczko (1756-1823), Professor of History at the Artillery Academy in Königsberg, East Prussia, was the general editor of a series that included a travelogue through Prussia written by a certain Karl Ephraim Nanke. Nanke had no special love for Mennonites, but was generally balanced in his judgements and based his now almost forgotten account of Mennonites on perso...

Sesquicentennial: Proclamation of Universal Military Service Manifesto, January 1, 1874

One-hundred-and-fifty years ago Tsar Alexander II proclaimed a new universal military service requirement into law, which—despite the promises of his predecesors—included Russia’s Mennonites. This act fundamentally changed the course of the Russian Mennonite story, and resulted in the emigration of some 17,000 Mennonites. The Russian government’s intentions in this regard were first reported in newspapers in November 1870 ( note 1 ) and later confirmed by Senator Evgenii von Hahn, former President of the Guardianship Committee ( note 2 ). Some Russian Mennonite leaders were soon corresponding with American counterparts on the possibility of mass migration ( note 3 ). Despite painful internal differences in the Mennonite community, between 1871 and Fall 1873 they put up a united front with five joint delegations to St. Petersburg and Yalta to petition for a Mennonite exemption. While the delegations were well received and some options could be discussed with ministers of the Crown, ...

German Village on the Dnieper: Occupation Propaganda Photos. Chortitza, 1943

The following propaganda photos are of the Mennonites community in Chortitz, Ukraine during German occupation in World War II. German armies reached the Mennonite villages on the west bank of the Dnieper River on August 17, 1941. The photos below were taken almost two years later. However the war was already turning, and within two months the trek out of Ukraine would begin. The photographs are accompanied by an article about the Low-German speakers of Chortitza for a readership in the Reich ( note 1 ). The author repeatedly draws on the myth of one-sided German pioneer accomplishments abroad: “The first settlers found the land desolate and empty,” the reader is told, and were “left to fend for themselves in a foreign environment” where with German diligence, order and cleanliness they thrived. The article correctly recognizes the great losses of the ethnic Germans under Bolshevism--as if to convince readers that the war is a shared burden of all Germans, and which is now payin...

Nazi German love for Mennonites in Ukraine. Why?

For Mennonites the dramatic and massive invasion of USSR by German forces in Summer/Fall 1941 meant liberation from Soviet state terror and answer to prayer. Nazi Germany spared neither money nor personnel to free, feed, cloth, protect, heal and educate the Soviet Union’s ethnic Germans—and Mennonites in particular. Mennonite memoirs, village reports and EWZ (naturalization applications) autobiographies are consistent with praise for the German Reich and its leader. From the highest levels, goodwill, care and patience towards ethnic Germans was policy. Reichsführer -SS Heinrich Himmler was also named by Hitler as Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood . This authorized Himmler and his para-military SS to oversee and coordinate the Germanization, resettlements and population transfers which came with the invasion and partial annexation of Poland (Warthegau), and later occupation plans for parts of Ukraine and Russia. The VoMi ( Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle )...

The Flight to Moscow 1929

In 1926, my grandfather’s sister Justina Fast (b. 1896) and her husband Peter Görzen moved from Krassikow, Neu Samara (Soviet Union) to village no. 5 Dejewka, Orenburg. “We thought we would live our lives here with our children secure in the hands of God. But the times were becoming turbulent,” Justina recalled. In May 1929 they travelled back to Krassikow for Pentecost to visit with her mother, brothers and their families. But when they returned to their home, she writes, “… a large quota of grain was demanded of us. But we had nothing, and the harvest was not yet in. Then we heard that many were planning to move to Canada, including my three siblings with my mother, and my husband's three sisters too. My husband decided to go to Moscow first to see if it was possible and what was required for emigration. We made the decision to leave when the harvest was complete. At that time so many people were leaving [for Moscow], and early in September we sold everything we had. Only the b...

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...