History of the Russian Mennonites

Mennonite memoirs say little about the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. In the second half of that year Ukraine was dealing with a typhus epidemic, cholera epidemic and the Spanish Flu pandemic—all at the same time. Troubles were compounded by the withdrawal of protective German troops and increased but still sporadic attacks by anarchist bandits. In September and October 1918, the Mennonite newspaper Friedensstimme recorded outbreaks of the Spanish flu in the Molotschna, Sagradovka, Memrik, Fürstenland, and Naumenko Mennonite settlements. The Friedensstimme summarized that “the Spanish disease is running rampant everywhere in our colonies. Deaths are also resulting here and there” ( note 1 ). September 1918: In the Sagradovka Settlement, Katharina Unruh Thiessen died of the Spanish flu at the age of 69. She suffered 12 days ( note 2 ). Also in the Sagradovka Settlement, Gerhard Jakob Wiebe struggled with the Spanish flu for 10 days before dying at the age of 38 ( note 3 ). In the Memrik S...

Abraham Kröker (1863-1944) was the well-known editor of the Molotschna-based paper—variously named Volksfreund , Friedensstimme or Flugblatt , as well as the annual Familienkalender . He published through WW1 and the anarchy and early Bolshevist years, which included six months of friendly German occupation in 1918. His editorials from those times are all online and fascinating to read,  https://chortitza.org/FB/mennru.htm . Looking back on the collapse of Mennonite life in Ukraine, he pointed to the love of “mammon,” the “materialistic disposition” and “nationalistic arrogance” of Mennonites, and not least to the forgetfulness of the unique call of the community to “sacrifice, suffering and renunciation for the sake of others.” In 1918--a very dangerous context in which to publish news--Kröker reminded his readers that according to the example of the Apostle Paul who suffered under unjust authorities, the Christian is to pray and intercede “for kings and all those in authority, ...

In mid-August 1917--two months before the Bolshevik Revolution, but in preparation of national elections--the first “All-Mennonite Congress” met in Ohrloff, Molotschna to organize and strategize Mennonite civil affairs (i.e., as separate from the church) with 198 representatives from various regions and interest groups. Significant debate around Mennonite non-resistance and military service was on the agenda, but also questions around more equitable land distribution and the compatibility of Christianity and socialism. The minutes ( note 1 ) record that there was clearly a group of Mennonites at this meeting who were both convinced socialists and Christians, and that delegates had a longer, protracted debate on the compatibility of socialism and Christianity. First they discussed what was most critical: more equitable land distribution (this topic was "in the air") and the right to private land ownership. There was broad agreement (even with the socialist leaning Mennon...

Mennonite self-defence units  ( Selbstschutz ) did not simply arise through the encouragement and training of German military units leaving southern Ukraine in Fall 1918. This has sometimes been suggested to explain the unprecedented armed Mennonite response to the anarchy that followed. One Selbstschutz chaplain, and later elder in Waterloo, Canada ( Jacob H. Janzen )  turned blame away from 1918 Selbstschutz participants and pointed instead to the parents: they “were only what we had brought them up to be” ( note 1 ). A 1914 list of firearms confiscated from Mennonites by the state help s us to reconstruct the roots of one of the most problematic chapters in Mennonite history. Self-defence with a weapon was real option for some Mennonites long before the days of terror. Suspicious about Mennonite loyalties in an impending war with Germany, 2,350 firearms were seized from 1,850 Russian Mennonite households—including 600 handguns or revolvers—in 1914 ( note 2 ). T...

They were in unchartered waters when the Neuland (Colony) Mennonite Church in Paraguay was organized on November 12, 1947 under the innovative leadership of Hans Rempel (1908-2001). Rempel was ordained during German occupation of Ukraine, when “simple, untrained men and women called the believers together, read the Word, sang, and prayed” ( note 1 ). And for the others? In resettlement camps in Warthegau (annexed Poland) Rempel was encouraged by Heinrich Winter, the "last elder of Chortitza" to “make a new beginning ... like a farmer breaking up hard unplowed ground” (Jeremiah 4:3). After the refugees arrived in Paraguay in 1947, the church issues were many and the need for innovation was urgent. First , what should be the role of women in church leadership ? The tradition was very restrictive. The men however were largely missing and many of the women had experience of leadership in the re-establishment of church services during the German occupation of Russia. Innov...

It is well known that Soviet secret police (GPU) spied and reported extensively on Mennonite communities in Ukraine from the early 1920s on ( note 1 ).  Less well known is that the German consulates in Kharkiv and Odessa were also gathering information confidential information on, and formulating opinions for, the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin about Mennonites. This included not only demographic information, but also Mennonite receptivity or resistance to the Bolshevist Revolution, on the Revolution’s impact on the economic, cultural and religious aspects of ethnic German settlements, their current attitudes and on Germany’s options for maintaining and strengthening “the German cultural islands” in Ukraine ( note 2 ). Berlin had its own priorities in the Soviet Union; the impact of Bolshevism on the German-speaking Mennonites in Ukraine was important gauge to determine its strategies for intervention, support or non-involvement. A Soviet Secret Police (GPU) report in 1925, fo...

I recently viewed the 2023 Academy Award winning film, All Quiet   on the Western Front . As an undergraduate I read the novel in German and now watched it in German as well. It is rated R for “strong bloody war violence and grisly images”—which really is the case. It is not pro-war, however, but unfolds and displays the futility of patriotism and strong national pride. Though written by a German and published in Berlin, it was among the first books burned by the Nazis in 1933. While watching the film my ears popped up when the lead character shouted in German for a Sanitäter (medic); I had to think of Germany’s “eastern front”. Russia experienced as many military casualties as France (upwards of 1.5 million each) in WW1 and even more civilian casualties. Some 7,000 Russian Mennonites were on that front as Red Cross Sanitäter / medics, including both my grandfathers. Our best source for stories is the edited collection: “Onsi Tjedils”: Ersatzdienst der Mennoniten in Rußland u...