History of the Russian Mennonites

In April 1921 Mennonites in the Caucasus and Don Region officially petitioned Moscow for permissions to emigrate—which Lenin had “flatly refused.” Their rationale was more than economic. “The disruption of economic conditions leads to impoverishment, which again goes hand in hand with the degradation of morals and has an alarming impact on our youth, who are also constantly exposed to the pressure of brutal and ruthless agitation on the part of those in power. … This decay of our spiritual and economic goods will only become greater and more ruinous.” ( Note 1 ) Later that year and some months before the large-scale feeding operations could begin in the Soviet Union, American Mennonite Relief (AMR) commissioner A.J. Miller petitioned the Soviet Embassy in London for exit permissions for 20,000 Mennonites ( note 1b) . He was unsuccessful. Nonetheless in a highly secretive meeting in Ohrloff, Molotschna on February 7, 1922, key Mennonite leaders took a decision to work toward the re...

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...

Stable political arrangements are rarely permanent and can unravel rapidly—and they did for tens of thousands of Mennonites a century ago in the Russian Empire. Not a few asked: “Why is this happening to us?” Russia was a multicultural colonial empire with sense of a manifest destiny, a long history of serfdom and displacement of non-settler populations, and a yawning disparity of wealth. A few hundred Mennonite owners of sprawling estates with extensive landholdings suffered most severely in the first period of lawlessness, chaos and revolution in Ukraine. During a period of civil war in 1919 when the villages in the Mennonite Molotschna colony were largely under White Army protection, Kornelius Bergmann, a teacher and Mennonite Brethren minister, addressed the question everyone was asking, “Why is this happening to us?” Bergmann wrote using the pseudonym "C. Orosander"—in order to speak freely ( note 1 ). He began by admonishing his fellow clergy for general failu...

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...

Another deep dive into the dark side of Mennonite history—this time in Winnipeg. The latest issue of MCC’s journal Intersections on MCC’s entanglements with National Socialism through the 1930s should not be entirely shocking to Canadian Mennonites ( note 1 ). Mennonite support for Hitler and his vision for Germany was very real and public on the Canadian prairies until the start of WWII. The most read newspaper in Manitoba, the Winnipeg Free Press , reported on a large Winnipeg pro-Hitler rally (January 30, 1939, page 3) with the byline: “Hitler Salute: Local Germans hail re-birth of fatherland under Fuehrer ." The pictures show the Mennonite Young People's Choir performing at the event (see also last paragraph of the Free Press article). The choir was led by John Konrad, a Russländer (1920s Mennonite immigrant). Konrad founded an ensemble in 1935 that evolved into the Mennonite Symphony Orchestra; he actively directed choirs with the Manitoba Mennonite Youth Organization, ...

The Bethania Mental Hospital was established by Mennonites in 1910 and remembered as their greatest cultural achievement. After the Bolshevik Revolution it was taken over by the province of Ekaterinoslav and nationalized in 1925, but supported in large part by the Mennonite community. A 1925 "political" assessment of the institution provides a window onto government concerns about "German" Mennonites more generally.  The leadership and staffing (ca. 65) as well as a large number of patients (120 beds) continued to be Mennonites or Germans ( note 1 ; pic ). The following 1925 newspaper article gives us a hint of how authorities viewed the hospital and its Mennonite staff seven years after expropriation, and the connection to nearby church community more generally. “In exemplary order, but political work needs to be improved. Located between Kitchkas (Einlage) and Chortitza; three buildings, one of which houses a kitchen, living room for visitors, the “red corner” [c...