History of the Russian Mennonites

As long as Johann Cornies was living (d. 1848), Mennonites in Russia received many distinguished visits and reports appeared in any variety of Imperial journals ( note 1 ). The following report was written by a British visitor in 1843 and appeared in a journal of international “commercial treaties, customs tariffs, port laws, etc.” ( note 2 ). The report makes reference to the newly established port city of Berdjansk, which was key to the wheat revolution in New Russia and the fantastic wealth of some like Johann Cornies ( note 3 ). The British editor warns that the description may be exaggerated, e.g., the statement on Cornies’ wealth—but likely the latter is accurate. For his British readers the writer converts Cornies’ net worth to 100,000 Pounds Sterling—what a 1,000 clerks in London might make together in a year ( note 4 ). While the account is not altogether unique or important for understanding Russian Mennonites, parts that stand out in the description include comments on...

In 1843 the Russian Mennonite colonies received a visitation from the London Bible Society. It was the same year that Charles Dickens published "A Christmas Carol" about the miser Ebenezer Scrooge and his conversion after the visitation of three Christmas ghosts! Dickens was not happy that the Church’s overseas mission budget was so large, while in his view they neglected the poor on their own doorsteps in London. Ebenezer was in fact a common British name of the era. A few years earlier the Molotschna was visited by a delegation from the British and Foreign Bible Society. The British agent, Reverend Ebeneezer Henderson, convinced Molotschna elders and Johann Cornies to establish their own Bible Society. "As they live on habits of friendship and intimacy with their Tatar neighbours, and one of their principal men [Cornies] speaks the Tatar with fluency, we furnished him with a good supply of New Testaments, and other portions of Scripture, in that language, that they m...