History of the Russian Mennonites

Recently an acquaintance shared a photo from a Saskatchewan picnic, likely from the late 1930s. Twenty-seven individuals, children, parents and grandparents, are dressed in festive but comfortable clothing. The group includes her grandparents—both children of Mennonites who came to the US from Russia in the 1870s—and other relatives and friends. In the middle of the photograph, spread out like a picnic blanket, is a large swastika flag with the iron cross—the symbol of the German veterans’ association ( Deutscher Reichskriegerbund ; note 1 ); a young boy holds one corner of the flag. There are good reasons to think that this photo was taken at “German Day” ( Deutscher Tag ) celebrations, which were held annually in the 1930s in each prairie province. Saskatchewan German Day rallies rotated annually between Regina and Saskatoon, between seeding and harvest time. Its first gathering was in 1930 which drew some 4,000 attendees ( note 2 ). In 1932, six months before Hitler’s seizure of pow

On October 12 and 13, 1941, as many as 10,000 Mennonites at two Molotschna-area train stations--awaiting deportation to Kazakhstan--were liberated by German military and were free to return to their homes ( note 1 ). Ten days earlier most had been ordered to pack and be ready within two hours to be taken by wagon to the Stulnewo train station (between Hamberg, Klippenfeld and Waldheim) or the station at Nelgovka, east of Franzthal. Advance German reconnaissance spies were active in the Molotschna villages, some in NKVD (Soviet secret police) uniform seeking hidden Soviet military assets. In the villages men “armed with manure forks and pitchforks,” as well as Russian activists and party members in Gnadenfeld with semi-automatic weapons, for example, were sent out in the early mornings to scout for armed German paratroopers ( note 2 ). German spy planes also air-dropped leaflets written in both German and Russian: “Jews and Communists, flee! Not one of you will survive. We will find y

Both Jews and Mennonites in Russia were dependent on separation, distinct external appearance, unique dialect, inner group cohesion, international familial networks, self-governing institutions, a sojourner mentality, sense of divine mission, and a view of the other as unclean or dangerous. Each had its distinct legal privileges, restrictions, and duties under the Tsar, and each looked out for their own. For both, moderation, spiritual values, family, learning and success were important, and their related dialects made communication possible. But the traditional occupation of eastern European Jews was as “middlemen” between the “overwhelmingly agricultural Christian population and various urban markets,” as peddlers, shopkeepers and suppliers of goods ( note 1 ). Jews were forbidden to stay for longer periods in German colonies or to erect houses or shops there. “If they try to stay, they are to be reported immediately. If they are not, the German mayor will be held responsible” ( no

Johann Cornies was a young lad when he immigrated to Russia with his parents. They first wintered in Chortitza where, under the supervision of his aging father, the teen managed Jacob Höppner’s brandy distillery. There he observed the moral impact of poverty on good people (Chortitza pioneers came with little capital; note 1 ). In the years after his death in 1848, a landless crisis dominated the Mennonite Molotschna Colony--the district the had so carefully and energetically nurtured to achieve excellent economic and social outcomes. The crisis was marked by corruption, inequities, and economic disparities. As David G. Rempel summarizes, it shook most of the Mennonite villages “to their very foundation” ( note 2 ). In 1856 the Molotschna Society for Advancement of Schools tasked teachers to submit reflections on the moral condition of colony inhabitants and to offer their advice. Thirty-seven of these essays are buried in the massive 140,000-page archive by Peter J. Braun, lost

In the past few years, two volumes of the extensive John Cornies' correspondence discovered 1990 have been transcribed and published in English ( note 1 ). A third and final volume is forthcoming. No single Russian Mennonite has been as revered historically—or also despised or feared by his own!—as Johann Cornies (1789-1848). He was a larger-than-life figure who ruled over the Molotschna like a benevolent Mennonite Tsar and father of all, as some remember him, and for others as a despot with the demands and ideas of a devil! With some historical distance, David G. Rempel aptly refers to him as an “enlightened despot” ( note 2 ). Cornies was never elected to a Mennonite civic or religious post. But he would acquire a real power over all of those offices—de facto more than de jure—and over the manner in which all landholders in the Molotschna would farm, plant, build and develop. How did this happen? The Russian state required Mennonites and other foreign colonies to adopt a lo

The landless crisis in the mid-1800s in the Molotschna Colony is the context for most other matters of importance to its Mennonites, 1840s to 1860s. When discussing landlessness, historian David G. Rempel has claimed that the “seemingly endemic wranglings and splits” of the Mennonite church in South Russia were only seldom or superficially related to doctrine, and “almost invariably and intimately bound up with some of the most serious social and economic issues” that afflicted one or more of the congregations in the settlement ( note 1 ). It is important from the start to recognize that these Mennonites were not citizens,  but foreign colonists with obligations and privileges that governed their sojourn in New Russia. For Mennonites the privileges, e.g. of land and freedom from military conscription, were connected to the obligation of model farming. Mennonites were given one, and then later two districts of land for this purpose. Within their districts or colonies , villages were