What were Molotschna Mennonites reading in the early 1840s?

Johann Cornies expanded his Agricultural Society School library in Ohrloff to become a lending library “for the instruction and better enlightenment of every adult resident.” The library was overseen by the Agricultural Society; in 1845, patrons across the colony paid 1 ruble annually to access its growing collection of 355 volumes (see note 1).

The great majority of the volumes were in German, but the library included Russian and some French volumes, with a large selection of handbooks and periodicals on agronomy and agriculture—even a medical handbook (note 2).

Philosophical texts included a German translation of George Combe’s The Constitution of Man (note 3) and its controversial theory of phrenology, and the political economist Johann H. G. Justi’s Ergetzungen der vernünftigen Seele—which give example of the high level of reading and reflection amongst some colonists.

The library’s teaching and reference resources included a history of science and technology with an accompanying volume for students by Carl P. Funke; natural science text for children (note 4); an elementary school Russian reader for German pupils; Russian-German, Turkish-German (note 5), and Latin-German dictionaries; encyclopedia; many songbooks; pedagogical journals; the St. Petersburgische Zeitung (conservative Baltic-Russian German newspaper); a Prussian newspaper (Preußische Staats-Zeitung; note 6) many travelogues (an English original; note 7); a biography of Peter the Great, and a church history for use in schools.

German Pietism had a strong impact on Molotschna Mennonite spirituality in the first half of the nineteenth century; Cornies’ 1843 lending library gives ample evidence of this. The library’s many tools for preachers and religion classes included biblical commentaries, biblical word-studies, a prayer books, a selection of Protestant catechisms, as well as religious-devotional texts especially for youth. Mennonite theology and history books are fewer in number but included selections of Menno Simons’ writings curated by the Mennonite Pietist Johann Deknatel (note 8), Menno’s larger Foundation of Christian Doctrine (note 9), Confession of Faith of Mennonites in Prussia, and Reiswitz and Wadzeck’s volume on Mennonites in Europe and America (note 10).

German Pietist writings however dominate the collection’s religious materials, with song books, sermon collections, biblical studies, historical letters from the Moravian “Herrnhut” community, children’s stories (from Hernnhut; note 11), and resources for family worship by Johannes von Albertini (sermons from Herrnhut; note 12), Johann Arndt, Samuel Elsner, Christian Gottlieb Frohberger (letters from Herrnhut; note 13), August Spangenberg, Gerhard Tersteegen, and Johann G. Uhle among others. The latter materials complemented the Pietist influences incorporated into important eighteenth-century Prussian Mennonite publications, and would be the dominant theological influence—together with the later sermons of Pietist preacher Ludwig Hofacker (note 14) on the Russian Mennonite tradition as a whole, with the exception of the Kleine Gemeinde.

Other traditions were also represented in the Cornies library, including the medieval classic Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, a history of the Friends/Quakers (English; note 15), a German-language Russian Orthodox theology (note 16), and works by J. F. W. Jerusalem, whose enlightenment, non-dogmatic theological writings echo those of German Mennonite Abraham Hunzinger (note 17), plus a few philosophical-apologetic texts, as well as a work on the religion of Mohammed and the Koran (note 18).

In 1836, eighteen percent of the Agricultural Society's budget over three years was used for the acquisition of books, agricultural journals, newspapers, and to prepare topographic sketches and maps (note 19). Cornies made many of the acquisition decisions and book orders personally, in all cases with the dual purpose of improving the colony "morally and economically" with reading materials in the areas of religion, history and economic/agricultural matters--as he reported to the President of the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Settlers. With focus and commitment to broad, life-long education accessible for all in the colony, Cornies opened Mennonites to the larger world of ideas and best practices to remain a "model community," a light on a hill. This was his interpretation of the Mennonite call and purpose in Southern Russia.

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes/ Sources---

Note 1: Johann Cornies, “Catalogue of Books—1841 [actually 1845; German; handwritten] .” In Peter J. Braun Russian Mennonite Archive, file 797, reel 34. From Robarts Library, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON. Also see: Johann Cornies, “Ueber die landwirtschaftlichen Fortschritte im Molotschner Mennoniten Bezirke in dem Jahre 1845 (Fortsetzung),” Unterhaltungsblatt 1, no. 2 (May 1846) 10, https://www.hfdr.de/sub/pdf/unterhaltungsblatt/1846_Teil-1.pdf .

Note 2: https://books.google.ca/books?id=nNY_AAAAcAAJ&dq=medizinisches%20handbuch&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Note 3: https://books.google.ca/books?id=D3sMAAAAYAAJ&dq=Combe%2C%20The%20Constitution%20of%20Man&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Note 4: https://archive.org/details/naturgeschichte00raff/page/n3.

Note 5: https://books.google.ca/books?id=FAAtNtfUk7cC&dq=Theoretisch-Praktische%20T%C3%BCrkishe%20Sprachlehre%20f%C3%BCr%20deutsche&pg=PP7#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Note 6: ht,tps://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht?PPN=PPN657064149&PHYSID=PHYS_0005.

Note 7: https://books.google.ca/books?id=yhZUAAAAYAAJ&dq=michael%20symes&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Note 8: https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht?PPN=PPN657064149&PHYSID=PHYS_0005.

Note 9: In Menno Simons, The Complete Writings of Menno Simons, edited by J. C. Wenger (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1984), https://archive.org/details/completewritings0000menn_b6u1/.

Note 10: Georg von Reiswitz and Friedrich Wadzeck, Beiträge zur Kenntniß der Mennoniten-Gemeinden in Europa und Amerika, Parts I and II (Berlin, 1821/1829), https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009717700.

Note 11: https://books.google.ca/books?id=Sd4g3bnimbgC&dq=Einige%20Reden%20an%20die%20Kinder%2C%20gehalten%20in%20Herrnhut&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Note 12: https://books.google.ca/books?id=1bU_AAAAcAAJ&dq=Albertini%2C%20Dreissig%20Predigten&pg=PP5#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Note 13: http://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10449078-1.

Note 14: https://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10463596_00007.html.

Note 15: https://books.google.ca/books?id=aAxNAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP7#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Note 16: https://books.google.ca/books?id=My9fAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP5#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Note 17: See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/ideas-for-educational-reform-1832.html.

Note 18: See previous post on Cornies and Molotschna's Islamic Nogai neighbours, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/islamic-nogai-neighbours.html.

Note 19: Johann Cornies to Andrei M. Fadeev, January 28, 1837, in Transformation on the Southern Ukrainian Steppe: Letters and Papers of Johann Cornies, 1836-1842, vol. 2, translated by Ingrid I. Epp, edited by John R. Staples, Harvey L. Dyck and Ingrid I. Epp (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020), no. 40, pp, 37f. See also pp. 156, 434, 598, https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/100164/1/Southern_Ukrainian_Steppe_UTP_9781487538743.pdf.

---

To cite this post: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “What were Mennonites reading in the early 1840s?,” History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), June 15, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/06/what-were-molotschna-mennonites-reading.html.

Comments

The End of Schardau (and other Molotschna villages), 1941

My grandmother was four-years old when her parents moved from Petershagen, Molotschna to Schardau in 1908. This story is larger than that of Schardau, but tells how this village and many others in Molotschna were evacuated by Stalin days before the arrival of German troops in 1941. -ANF The bridge across the Dnieper at Chortitza was destroyed by retreating Soviet troops on August 18, 1941 and the hydroelectric dam completed near Einlage in 1932 was also dynamited by NKVD personnel—killing at least 20,000 locals downstream, and forcing the Germans to cross further south at Nikopol. For the next six-and-a-half weeks, the old Mennonite settlement area of Chortitza was continuously shelled by Soviet troops from Zaporozhje on the east side of the river ( note 1 ). The majority of Russian Germans in Crimea and Ukraine paid dearly for Germany’s Blitzkrieg and plans for racially-based population resettlements. As early as August 3, 1941, the Supreme Command of the Soviet Forces received noti...

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 ...

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...

Mennonites in Danzig's Suburbs: Maps and Illustrations

Mennonites first settled in the Danzig suburb of Schottland (lit: "Scotland"; “Stare-Szkoty”; also “Alt-Schottland”) in the mid-1500s. “Danzig” is the oldest and most important Mennonite congregation in Prussia. Menno Simons visited Schottland and Dirk Phillips was its first elder and lived here for a time. Two centuries later the number of families from the suburbs of Danzig that immigrated to Russia was not large: Stolzenberg 5, Schidlitz 3, Alt-Schottland 2, Ohra 1, Langfuhr 1, Emaus 1, Nobel 1, and Krampetz 2 ( map 1 ). However most Russian Mennonites had at least some connection to the Danzig church—whether Frisian or Flemish—if not in the 1700s, then in 1600s. Map 2 is from 1615; a larger number of Mennonites had been in Schottland at this point for more than four decades. Its buildings are not rural but look very Dutch urban/suburban in style. These were weavers, merchants and craftsmen, and since the 17th century they lived side-by-side with a larger number of Jews a...

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...

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...

A Mennonite Pandemic Spirituality, 1830-1831

Asiatic Cholera broke out across Russia in 1829 and ‘30, and further into Europe in 1831. It began with an infected battalion in Orenburg ( note 1 ), and by early Fall 1830 the disease had reached Moscow and the capital. Russia imposed drastic quarantine measures. Much like today, infected regions were cut off and domestic trade was restricted. The disease reached the Molotschna River district in Fall 1830, and by mid-December hundreds of Nogai deaths were recorded in the villages adjacent to the Mennonite colony, leading state authorities to impose a strict quarantine. When the Mennonite Johann Cornies—a state-appointed agricultural supervisor and civic leader—first became aware of the nearby cholera-related deaths, he recommended to the Mennonite District Office on December 6, 1830 to stop traffic and prevent random contacts with Nogai. For Cornies it was important that the Mennonite community do all it can keep from carrying the disease into the community, though “only God knows...

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...

Mennonite-Designed Mosque on the Molotschna

The “Peter J. Braun Archive" is a mammoth 78 reel microfilm collection of Russian Mennonite materials from 1803 to 1920 -- and largely still untapped by researchers ( note 1 ). In the files of Philipp Wiebe, son-in-law and heir to Johann Cornies, is a blueprint for a mosque ( pic ) as well as another file entitled “Akkerman Mosque Construction Accounts, 1850-1859” ( note 2 ). The Molotschna Mennonites were settlers on traditional Nogai lands; their Nogai neighbours were a nomadic, Muslim Tartar group. In 1825, Cornies wrote a significant anthropological report on the Nogai at the request of the Guardianship Committee, based largely on his engagements with these neighbours on Molotschna’s southern border ( note 3 ). Building upon these experiences and relationships, in 1835 Cornies founded the Nogai agricultural colony “Akkerman” outside the southern border of the Molotschna Colony. Akkerman was a projection of Cornies’ ideal Mennonite village outlined in exacting detail, with un...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog