History of the Russian Mennonites

For those interested in Russian Mennonite History please consider a donation to one of the Mennonite archives before the end of the year. They all need our help. Those of us who do Mennonite historical work—whether scholarly or more popular church or family research—know that none of this can happen without the on-going work and support of our archivists, historical societies and heritage museums. Not only do they collect and preserve, but they have a mandate to help interpret and make accessible—on site or increasingly online. I just received this reminder from Mennonite Heritage Archives in Winnipeg. I was able to spend some time there in June this year ( https://www.mharchives.ca/how-to/donate-finances/) . There are many other archives and historical societies that have helped me and others in the past year as well. Please consider:  Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies (Winnipeg), https://cmbs.mennonitebrethren.ca/ . Mennonite Historical Society of BC, https://www.mhsbc.co...

At the time of greatest need for Mennonites in Russia, they were classified as "undesirables" by the Canadian government (1919): “… 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.” ( Note 1 ) The United States had a “national origins quoto,” which also closed the door to all but a few born in eastern or southern Europe; a letter to the American President met with no success. Nonetheless, in 1921 Russian Mennonite “study commissioners” A. A. Friesen, Βenjamin Η. Unruh, C. H. Warkentin were charged to explore all options. Below is a copy of the May 1921 letter sent to the the President of Mexico via the Minister of Fomento ( note 2 ). The letter captures the constructed Russian Mennonite self-identity at this point of loss and trauma. This was their "pitch": Their a...

In a highly secretive meeting in Ohrloff, Molotschna on February 7, 1922, leaders took a decision to work to remove the entire Mennonite population of some 100,000 people out of the USSR—if at all possible ( note 1 ). B.B. Janz (Ohrloff) and Bishop David Toews (Rosthern, SK) are remembered as the immigration leaders who made it possible to bring some 20,000 Mennonites from the Soviet Union to Canada in the 1920s ( note 2 ). But behind those final numbers were multiple problems. In August 1922, an appeal was made by leaders to churches in Canada and the USA: “The way is finally open, for at least 3,000 persons who have received permission to leave Russia … Two ships of the Canadian Pacific Railway are ready to sail from England to Odessa as soon as the cholera quarantine is lifted. These Russian [Mennonite] refugees are practically without clothing … .” ( Note 3 ) Notably at this point B. B. Janz was also writing Toews, saying that he was utterly exhausted and was preparing to ...

In the middle of the war on January 1, 1942, the Winnipeg-based Mennonitische Rundschau published a new issue without the familiar Fraktur script masthead ( note 1 ). One might speculate on the reasons, but a year earlier Hitler banned the use of the font in the Reich . The Rundschau did not exactly follow all orders from Berlin—the rest of the paper was in Fraktur (sometimes referred to as "Gothic"); when the war ended in 1945, the Rundschau reintroduced the Fraktur font for its masthead. It wasn’t until the 1960s that an issue might have a page or title here or there with the “normal” or Latin font, even though post-war Germany was no longer using Fraktur . By 1973 only the Rundschau masthead is left in Fraktur , and that is only removed in December 1992. Attached is a copy of Nazi Party Secretary Martin Bormann's official letter dated January 3, 1941, which prohibited the use of Fraktur fonts "by order of the Führer. " Why? It was a Jewish invention, apparent...

The following propaganda photos are of the Mennonites community in Chortitz, Ukraine during German occupation in World War II. German armies reached the Mennonite villages on the west bank of the Dnieper River on August 17, 1941. The photos below were taken almost two years later. However the war was already turning, and within two months the trek out of Ukraine would begin. The photographs are accompanied by an article about the Low-German speakers of Chortitza for a readership in the Reich ( note 1 ). The author repeatedly draws on the myth of one-sided German pioneer accomplishments abroad: “The first settlers found the land desolate and empty,” the reader is told, and were “left to fend for themselves in a foreign environment” where with German diligence, order and cleanliness they thrived. The article correctly recognizes the great losses of the ethnic Germans under Bolshevism--as if to convince readers that the war is a shared burden of all Germans, and which is now payin...

This weekend my daughter saw the new Hunger Games prequel , “Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.” A few years ago she and I watched two of the Hunger Games movies; when debriefing I thought of the dystopian Stalin years in which millions led dehumanized, fearful lives in a totalitarian, post-apocalyptic world. Because she is in another province and I am shackled by long-haul COVID, I will need to watch and debrief with her at a later date. My thoughts begin, however, with two recently restored photos of my German-speaking Mennonite grandparents in Ukraine, 1923. They show a proud and ambitious young man hopeful for the possibility of emigration, as well as a young mother who with a sparkling eye and faint smile has dressed her first-born in fun baby clothing for the passport photo. Ten years later, in 1933, they were still in the same village, but located squarely in a world so distant from 1923 that it defied description for those involved. It requires a movie, perhaps, but here are a ...

To outsiders, the Mennonite reality in South Russia appeared almost utopian—with their “mild and peaceful ethos.” While it is easy to find examples of all the "holy virtues" of the Mennonite community, only when we are honest about both good deeds and misdemeanors does the Russian Mennonite tradition have something authentic to offer—or not. Rudnerweide was one of a few Molotschna villages with a Mennonite brewery and tavern , which in turn brought with it life-style lapses that would burden the local elder. For example, on January 21, 1835, the Rudnerweide Village Office reported that Johann Cornies’s sheep farm manager Heinrich Reimer, as well as Peter Friesen and an employed Russian shepherd, came into the village “under the influence of brandy,” and: "…at the tavern kept by Aron Wiens, they ordered half a quart of brandy and shouted loudly as they drank, banged their glasses on the table. The tavern keeper objected asking them to settle down, but they refused and...

Two evangelical Quaker missionaries and Bible distributors, Stephen Grellet and William Allen, visited the Mennonite colonies in 1819. They were invited to Russia by their “friend” Tsar Alexander I four years earlier ( note 1 ). The missionaries were advocates of prison reform, good hospitals and schools—including for girls—religious lessons and the broad distribution of Bibles. Their purpose was to teach, to “strengthen,” “comfort” and “give much counsel to Mennonite elders and ministers,” and to distribute Christian reading materials” ( note 2 ). The Quakers found kindred spirits. Allen wrote his daughter that “the whole subject of these [Mennonite] colonies is so interesting, that I hardly know how to keep my letter in moderate compass” ( note 3 ). Two years later the Molotschna was visited by a delegation from the non-denominational British and Foreign Bible Society and the Russian Bible Society—the latter headed by the Minister for Ecclesiastical Affairs and Education in the gov...