Skip to main content

Nogai Encounters: Memories in the 1848 Village Reports

Biographies, memoirs, interviews, and diaries inevitably include and often exaggerate those parts of the life-story that support the claim of the storyteller, and omit or flatten other parts assumed to be irrelevant or in contradiction to the preferred storyline.

In 1848, the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Colonists President Eugen von Hahn tasked each village administration to work with the schoolteacher to produce an exact historical description of its settlement and key events in its history (note 1). Notably most village histories are silent or say very little about their engagements with their Nogai neighbours whom they had displaced.

Mennonites were fully aware that their colony on the Molotschna River was on lands of the nomadic Nogai, and that the Nogai had been forcibly displaced for Greater Russia’s colonizing program. This earlier history of the land is noted in a few village reports.

“In this location there used to be a large Nogai village. By order of authorities the Nogai moved away in 1805 and settled in a distance of 12 versts from here and further.” (Lindenau, 99)

“On the location of the present village of Altona there were once the tent dwellings of the Nogai, the traces of which can still be seen today [1848] in some raised earthen and dung walls.” (Altona, 115)

“Since the Nogai who lived here do not have houses, but only beehive-like tent huts made of sticks and felt blankets, so-called 'Koschen' [which they transported on their two-wheeled carts from place to place], the first [foreign] settlers found no shelter here, and for the first winter set up earthen huts.” [Before the arrival of Mennonites]“… the Nogai swarmed about with their herds on the open, treeless steppe.” (Muntau, 95; 94; Lindenau, 99)

“The nomadic Tatars who used this steppe had to evacuate the area by order of the authorities when the Germans [Mennonites] arrived, but they remained dangerous neighbours” (Rosenort, 126; 128).

“The village land was originally occupied by [Nogai cattle-herd owners] who vacated the settlement but remained neighbours.” (Blumenort, 128)

“There were no houses in the area, only nomadic Nogai moved from place to place with their felt huts (called Kibitki) to let their herds graze the best possible pasture.” (Ohrloff, 162)

“The village was founded in 1821 … The land was uninhabited at that time and was grazed by the cattle herds of the neighbouring Russians and Nogai people.” (Gnadenheim, 144)

Because the nomadic Nogai constructed no permanent buildings, even their “best” grazing lands and temporary village lands were considered “unoccupied” or “empty.” Their presence was like a “swarm” of unwelcome steppe creatures that come and go, and their “evacuation,” displacement and containment was remembered as part of the state’s civilizing agenda. Mennonites understood their role as a positive force for this vision of colonization.

The recollections of encounter with the Nogai were consistently negative and paternalistic in the Mennonite village histories.

“[Our] interactions were mostly around horses: the old and useless ones they bought for slaughter, and the best ones they stole.” (Blumenort, 128)

“At first the Nogai people were very obstructive to the newcomers in their economic endeavours; they not only disturbed the work in the fields, but also robbed the few horses that one already had. Whatever else the bandits could get their hands on from the herds also disappeared. Most thefts usually occurred in the sowing season.” (Ohrloff, 161; 162)

“Violence and theft were initially perpetrated by the Nogai neighbours. On April 23, 1811, Jakob Friesen, a farmer in this village, was attacked on the steppe and almost beaten to death with hammers. Colonists however rushed to save him from certain death. Horse thefts were particularly common, causing some colonists to lose fortunes in one night. In April 1813, ten of the best horses were taken by force in one night.” (Schönau, 97f.)

Typical was Altona—the Mennonite village closest to the Nogai lands south of Molotschna. Altona resident and District Mayor Klaas Wiens and Secretary Aron Warkentin changed the original name of the village from Altonau to Altona; they explained that it was a mix of Low German and High German words: “alto” (e.g., “all too”) and “nah” (or close), that is: “all too near” to “the still-feared indigenous Nogai herdsmen,” as the village history recalls (Altona, 114).

In 1808 the Nogai were “induced” to build villages, settle permanently and renounce robbery. An “advance in civilization” was slow, according to another (non-Mennonite) account in 1838. “In short, they are a people only emerging from barbarism, and have as yet made but the first step towards habitual industry” (note 2). While Mennonites were rightly worried about horse theft, it is not surprising that land surveyors were not welcomed by the Nogai.

“A particularly sad event hit this village [Rosenort] in 1811 in the night from April 19 to 20. The settler Jakob Berg, who was a district secretary, Jakob Wiens, son of Klaas Wiens, and a stranger named Dirk Reimer, rode across the steppe in the evening on colony business to advance the surveying of the land. They were attacked and murdered by Tartars. The next day their corpses were found on the steppe designated to the village of Tiege. When the stolen items were identified the murderers were discovered.” (Rosenort, 126)

A few villages established in the 1820s and ‘30s note that the still “empty” Molotschna colony lands were leased by leaders Johann Cornies or Klaas Wiens and then rented back to the Nogai for grazing “for a monthly payment” (Lichtfelde, 188; see also Schardau, Elisabethtal, etc.). While Cornies and colony coffers benefitted from this arrangement, the Nogai did not.

The graciousness of the “nation’s father” is remembered in village names (Gnadenheim, 144), but not the Nogai who shared land and labour with them.

By 1848 the wealth and prosperity of Mennonite villages was enabled by new markets available with the construction of the port of Berdyansk. That Nogai lands were also expropriated for the port city is not mentioned in the village histories, nor the fact that many Nogai wagonners were contracted to cart Mennonite grain to the port.

“Another extremely important event for this area is the establishment of the seaside town of Berdyansk, for which we feel deeply indebted to the high government” (Halbstadt, 91). A footnote added by a later German editor explains that “Berdyansk—a port city since 1837—was founded in 1827 on the site of the former Nogai settlement of Kotur Ogu, and offered colonists the opportunity to export grain abroad, which resulted in a transformation of their entire economy.”

The village reports were written a few months after Johann Cornies' unexpected and early death in 1848. Cornies' relationship with the Nogai was of a different scale and very complex. The survey above however offers a broader account of how Molotschna Mennonites as such remembered and spoke of their Nogai neighbours with whom they shared the land. The stories support the narrative of success and prosperity of Mennonites as model colonists on “empty” lands, and omit or flatten other parts as irrelevant—the Nogai encounters, their forced displacement, and labour.

Perhaps these histories are helpful for understanding later Mennonite engagements with Indigenous peoples in North and South America as well.

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Drawings are from Jean de Baron Reuilly, Travels in the Crimea, and Along the Shores of the Black Sea, Performed During the Year 1803, translated from the French (London: R. Phillips, 1807), 55, https://archive.org/details/b29345340_0014/page/54/mode/2up. See other images in previous posts: https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/islamic-nogai-neighbours.html (and forthcoming).

Note 1: Evgenii von Hahn, “Zirkularaufforderung 43 an sämtliche Schulzenämter und Schullehrer (January 8, 1848),” in Josef A. Malinowsky, Die Planerkolonien am Asowschen Meere, Appendix IV, 85–86 (Stuttgart: Ausland und Heimat Verlag, 1928), 85-86, https://chortitza.org/kb/malinows.pdf. All of the village histories /quotes in this post come from the collection by Margarete Woltner, ed., Die Gemeindeberichte von 1848 der deutschen Siedlungen am Schwarzen Meer (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1941), https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/kb/woltner.pdf.

Note 2: See the 1838 English summary and review of Daniel Schlatter’s “Life among the Tatars” (Bruchstücke aus einigen Reisen nach dem südlichen Rußland in den Jahren 1822 bis 1828) in The Athenaeum, no. 553 (June 2, 1838), 388, https://archive.org/details/sim_athenaeum-uk_1838-06-02_553/page/388/mode/2up. Schlatter’s volume: https://www.e-rara.ch/zuz/content/zoom/7881850.

---
To cite this post: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “Nogai Encounters: Memories in the 1848 Village Reports,” History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), July 12, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/07/nogai-encounters-memories-in-1848.html

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Turning Weapons into Waffle Irons!

Turning Weapons into Waffle Irons:  Heart-Shaped Waffles and a smooth talking General In 1874 with Mennonite immigration to North America in full swing, the Tsar sent General Eduard von Totleben to the colonies to talk the remaining Mennonites out of leaving ( note 1 ). He came with the now legendary offer of alternative service. Totleben made presentations in Mennonite churches and had many conversations in Mennonite homes. Decades later the women still recalled how fond Totleben was of Mennonite heart-shaped waffles. He complemented the women saying, “How beautiful are the hearts of Mennonites!,” and he joked about how “much Mennonites love waffles ( Waffeln ), but not weapons ( Waffen )” ( note 2 )! His visit resulted in an extensive reversal of opinion and the offer was welcomed officially by the Molotschna and Chortitza Colony ministerials. And upon leaving, the general was gifted with a poem by Bernhard Harder ( note 3 ) and a waffle iron ( note 4 ). Harder was an inf...

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, ...

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 ...

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...

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...

"A Small Town near Auschwitz” – Chortitza Mennonite Refugee/ Resettlement Camps

Simple proximity to a place of horrors does not equal knowledge or complicity. Many Gnadenfeld-area Mennonite refugees were, for example, temporarily housed 20 km. away from the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp where 15-year-old Anne Frank died ultimately of typhus ( note 1 ). The day after liberation by British troops on April 15, 1945, camp survivors began to flow through neighbouring villages. “What a sight they were! They had been tortured and starved, and were swollen from lack of food. … We could hardly believe that the glorious country of Germany could commit such crimes against people,” Susanna Toews wrote ( note 2 ). My mother was only seven, but she remembers overhearing shocking descriptions given by their host family’s teenaged girls forced by the British to clean some of the camp buses. What about the much larger death camp at Auschwitz? There is a book entitled: A Small Town near Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and the Holocaust. It is about an administrator living near the ...

1921: Formation of the “Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine”

Famine was imminent; unprecedented drought; taxes and requisitions exceeded what was harvested; some villages had no horses; extortion and arrests were widespread; many men were disenfranchised and barred from village affairs (see note 1 ). Lenin responded with the 1921 “New Economic Policy” (NEP), which allowed for a degree of market flexibility within the context of socialism to ward off complete economic collapse. A fixed-tax was imposed, grain quotas were eased, farmers were allowed a small amount of land and could sell excess produce at free-market prices after taxes had been paid. Much was in the air. In secret talks, Soviet Trade Commissar Leonid Krasin told the head of the Eastern Section in the German Foreign Office, Gustav Behrendt, that the USSR was “prepared—just like Catherine the Great of old—to call hundreds of thousands of German colonists into the land and transfer them to large, closed complexes for settlement,” especially in Turkestan and the North Caucasus, be...

Mennonites and the Crimean War (1853-56)

Martin Klaassen was traveling through the Molotschna Mennonite Colony when the Crimean War broke out in 1853 ( note 1 ). His diary notes that the following hymn was sung before the sermon: December 1853 . With regards to the war which broke out between Russia and Turkey, the song, No: 723 “O Lord, the clouds of war are threatening now, above our heads we see them roll” was sung before the sermon” ( note 2 ). As the war effort grew, thousands of troops came through Molotschna: January 14, 1854 . Today our colony has received billets: in Halbstadt about 1,000 soldiers. It is said that Joh. Neufelds have offered liquor ( Branntwein ), naturally without charge. The soldiers are supposed to have marched in with jubilant singing and much hilarity. They had been very happy for the wonderful reception they got, and promised to accomplish great things. In March, England and France also declared war on Russia. March 26, 1854 . At noon today there was suddenly a military transport at ...

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...

Molotschna Elder Heinrich Dirks and tensions with Mennonite Brethren

Russian Mennonites were not always kind to each other—and nowhere is this seen better than in the tensions between “old” Mennonites and the “separatist” Mennonite Brethren, who had their beginnings in Gnadenfeld, Molotschna in 1860. Heinrich Dirks (1842-1915) was the first Russian Mennonite overseas missionary and later long-time Gnadenfeld, Molotschna ( note 1 ). Everything about Dirks’ life suggests that he would have joined the Brethren in 1860. He too was influenced by the "powerful and gripping” conversionist ministry of Eduard Wüst in his youth. Dirks was a young adult in the Gnadenfeld congregation in South Russia where the Mennonite Brethren /separatist movement began. Shortly thereafter, he was trained in the German pietist Barmen Mission School (1863-67), and famously travelled to Sumatra (Indonesia) where he started a mission outpost and school. The Mennonite Brethren too would later connect the global mission imperative with the impending return of Christ as did Dirk...