History of the Russian Mennonites

In 1847 agricultural scientist and Russia expert Baron August von Haxthausen reported that for the conservative Mennonites in Russia tilling the soil is a “religious duty from which no one is exempt except those with special need, for the Bible teaches: ‘By the sweat of your brow you will you cultivate the ground’” ( note 1 ). This same rationale for Mennonite farming is picked up in Friedrich Matthäi’s 1866 volume of German settlements in Russia ( note 2 ). The biblical reference is a composite of Genesis 3:17 and 3:23. God says to Adam: “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life” (3:17); and 3:23; God “banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.” That perspective however was rooted neither in Mennonite tradition nor theology. In the sixteenth century Flemish Anabaptists were largely urban; ability to read scripture was an imperative—not farming. While Genesis 3:17 is qu...