History of the Russian Mennonites

Johann Cornies was a young lad when he immigrated to Russia with his parents. They first wintered in Chortitza where, under the supervision of his aging father, the teen managed Jacob Höppner’s brandy distillery. There he observed the moral impact of poverty on good people (Chortitza pioneers came with little capital; note 1 ). In the years after his death in 1848, a landless crisis dominated the Mennonite Molotschna Colony--the district the had so carefully and energetically nurtured to achieve excellent economic and social outcomes. The crisis was marked by corruption, inequities, and economic disparities. As David G. Rempel summarizes, it shook most of the Mennonite villages “to their very foundation” ( note 2 ). In 1856 the Molotschna Society for Advancement of Schools tasked teachers to submit reflections on the moral condition of colony inhabitants and to offer their advice. Thirty-seven of these essays are buried in the massive 140,000-page archive by Peter J. Braun, lost