History of the Russian Mennonites

The 1902 photos are of the Mennonite Crimean Forestry ( Forstei ) “Commando” in the vineyards and orchards of southern Crimea on route to Yalta (" Gut [estate] Forroß";  note 1). The tasks for the units or commandos were to plant forests, lay out nurseries, and raise model orchards—work not directly or meaningfully connected to non-resistance, but deemed by the state as an acceptable alternative to state or military service. This non-combatant, alternative service program was the largest, most expensive and most formative, faith-based undertaking by Mennonites during the Mennonite "golden era" in Russia ( note 2 ). The first cohort of young men were chosen and sent for their term of alternative service in 1880: “On November 15 [1880] in Tokmak the first German youth were chosen [by lot] in the presence of the [Mennonite] district mayor and also of Elder A. Goerz. There, with singing and prayer, they beseeched the Lord for His mercy, which interested the Russian ...

In 2019, the Canadian Parliament declared the second week in September as “Mennonite Heritage Week.” The bill and statements of support recognized the contributions of Mennonites to Canadian society ( note 1 ). 2019 also marked the centenary of a Canadian Order in Council which, at their time of greatest need, classified Mennonites as an “undesirable” immigrant group: “… because, owing to their peculiar customs, habits, modes of living and methods of holding property, they are not likely to become readily assimilated or to assume the duties and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship within a reasonable time.” ( Pic ) With a change of government, this order was rescinded in 1922 and the doors opened for some 23,000 Mennonites to immigrate from the Soviet Union to Canada. The attached archival image of the Order in Council hangs on the office wall of Canadian Senator Peter Harder—a Russländer descendant. 2023 marks the centennial of the arrival of the first Russländer immigrant groups ...

The illustration below of the “earthen huts” constructed by the first “Black Sea” German settlers does not Mennonites, but likely neighbouring Molotschna German Lutherans, ca. 1804. I think poster by Willy Planck captures the earliest experiences of German settlers with some authenticity. It is entitled: “‘Difficult Beginnings! First field cultivation before house construction in the Black Sea region” ( note 1 ). I was first introduced to the earthen huts in the 1980s when I interviewed elderly siblings of my grandfather. When their parents left Molotschna in March 1891 for the new daughter colony “Neu Samara,” they first lived in earthen huts. They were made of clay, sod, logs and straw were built approximately one metre below and one metre above the ground. Their parents not only brought a few basic farming implements and enough money to purchase a cow from locals, but also a door and window that were incorporated into the structure. “Although the clay huts were far from ideal, the f...

Mennonites can appreciate an orderly garden, but SS- Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler’s vision of a racial garden for annexed Poland—i.e., for Germanic peoples alone—was criminal and murderous. The new Warthegau province was to be a “ Pflanzgarten (nursery) of pure Germanic blood,” with plants of “singular and decisive racial value” ( note 1 ). "Lesser types" were to be pulled out to make space for this expansion of German living space. And all new plants brought in would be carefully screened for their characteristics and purity. Racial selection meant life and privilege for ethnic Germans, and loss of rights, deportation for many, and in some cases (and for all Jews) death. In Himmler's mind, Mennonites were deemed among the most highly desired of these "seedlings" (see below). A few of the phrases above are from a speech Himmler gave in Posen on October 24, 1943, a few kilometers away from resettler camps in Warthegau where many from Molotschna would settle fi...

Throughout 1930, Mennonite defiance and hope for another mass emigration was morphing into deep disappointment and growing apathy as they contemplated a permanent future under communist rule ( note 1 ). Together with rapid industrialization—including the Dnieper hydro dam—Stalin’s new focus on the collectivization of agricultural units in 1930 was both an economic strategy and the critical means for reconfiguring society and for the creation of the new “Soviet man,” with the liberation of women too from “exploitation and social isolation” ( note 2 ). This massive project of social engineering had profound effects on Mennonite faith, community and family life. Economic restructuring brought famine and profound poverty to the countryside. Women were increasingly removed from their children and subjected to impossible labour demands. Newly educated youth and children were the future of the socialist state, but their memoirs mostly speak of a lost childhood clouded by memories of pover...

The biggest temptation of genealogical or in-group history writing is “hagiography”– literally “writing about the lives of saints,” i.e., idealizing a subject matter, writing about a person or people in an unreal, flattering light. Hence the title of James Urry’s classic: “None but Saints” (quote from an Alexander Pope poem: “ Vain Wits and Critics were no more allow'd, When none but Saints had license to be proud; ” note 1 ). Group histories like the Russian Mennonite story are cluttered with myths in need of deconstruction—whitewashed or highly selective accounts, e.g., of the “Golden Years,” of a persecution narrative—either by outsiders, or from the enemy group within because of division—of stories of amazing self-accomplishment, wealth or group accomplishment without recognition of privilege and context—or perhaps exploitation. Family storytelling inevitably leaves much unsaid, and most of that is up to the family to decide to record or not. For example, a birth out of we...