| Previous

Book review essay

Peter Rempel. Mennonite Migration to Russia 1788-1828 / edited by Alfred H. Redekopp and Richard D. Thiessen (Winnipeg, MB : Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2000) 249 pp.

Reviewed by Henry Schapansky

It is an exciting event when documentary material on the Russian Mennonites is made accessible to the public in book form. Recent publications such as the Bergthaler Gemeinde Book, the Reinlander Gemeinde Buch and the recent Molotschna 1835 census data (although not yet published in book form, I understand that plans are in the works for the publication in book form) testify to the enthusiastic interest of the general reader in such works. This is to say nothing of the enduring interest in the great work of B.H. Uruuh.¹ There is no reason to believe this current book will not enjoy a similar popularity.

The documentary material presented in the present volume is, in fact, supplementary to all these works but in particular to B.H. Unruh’s book and the 1835 Molotschna census data. Indeed, the reader will want to have both works at hand when going through this volume.

When reading this book, I can’t help thinking of what a great debt Mennonite history and family history owes to B.H. Unruh, and how the pioneering work of this historian has held up over time. All subsequent works seem to be footnotes or enlargements of his justly famous book. The present volume will be of interest to both professional historian and family historian, but like all books of this nature, the interest of the family historian will be the dominant one. I think it is sad that works of this kind are too often neglected by the academic historian, since all history is composed of the countless lives of ordinary people and the data and facts of their lives. The documents assembled for this book may be grouped (and here I differ slightly from the view of the author in his preface) into the following categories.

The Old Colony lists of 1797 and 1806; The Grodno lists of 1803-1810; Lists of households established in Russia 1815-1828; Lists of visas issued by the Russian Consulate at Danzig 1819-1828.

The approach taken by the author is a chronological one with the data being restructured in such a way as to facilitate the comparison of individuals in one list with those in another. This works well for some of the data, less well for other data. In a work of this kind, the reader expects the documentary data to be presented in its original form, in so far as practical, and appreciates additional commentary, as appropriate, and distinguished as such. In general, the author and editors will have met the readers expectations in this volume. I would like to discuss the data of this work under the headings I have indicated above. It would be appropriate to say at this point, that at least some of the material in this book was originally uncovered by the late Dr. D.G. Rempel while in Russia in the 1960s. Dr. D.G. Rempel took copies of much of this material on his return home, including a transcription of the 1797 census. It is astonishing that no one has seen fit to publish any of this material although some of this material has circulated in unpublished form (I have a copy for instance of the 1797 list given to me by Richard D. Thiessen, one of the editors of this book).

The Old Colony lists of 1797 and 1806

The documentary lists under this section are among the most important of the whole book, being compiled at earlier dates than elsewhere in this book. Only the B.H Unruh’s lists of 1793 and 1795 are dated earlier than 1797, and there are Old Colony families who may only be documented in the 1797 or 1806 lists. We may therefore be grateful indeed that this material has been published here.

The two lists were complied for quite different purposes and differ greatly in material presented. The 1797 list was a general Old Colony census (and included Kronsgarten) and contains information regarding the economic data of each household, including the number of horses, cattle, sheep and pigs owned. Only the household head is named, but the total number of males and females in each family is tabulated. The lists are organized by villages, with a last section for new settlers not yet assigned to any particular village. The 1806 list was established for the purpose of establishing the tax-free years remaining to each homestead. By homestead I mean homestead in the Canadian sense, according to the various provincial homestead acts, where families received a free grant of land (and some tax exempt years) under certain conditions. The German word is Wirtschaft. The 1806 list gives the name of the original owner of the homestead rights, and the owner in 1806, along with a count of males and females in the 1806 owner’s family. The 1806 list therefore contains only the data relative to the 1806 Wirtschaft owners, and the original owners. The author has chosen to present the 1797 and 1806 lists in parallel columns so that names from the 1797 list are across from the same names in the 1806 list. This approach will doubtlessly please many readers wanting an easy reference from a name in the 1797 list to the same name in the l806 list. I, however, would have preferred that the original format had been maintained. In fact I feel that even in the present format, the author should have included a description of the record as it was originally created.

In my view, the comparative approach taken doesn’t work here, essentially because the lists do not contain comparable data, although most of the 1797 families did in fact own a homestead. Many of the unlisted (not yet assigned a particular village) 1797 families had by 1806 acquired a homestead, and to have done a full comparison would have required a gross distortion of the 1797 list. As it is, the 1797 list comes off poorly in this volume. There are a number of errors and omissions in the 1797 list. The name Lehn is sometimes misstated as Lepp, and the name of Johann Leppky (at Insel Chortitza) is misstated as Lempke, even though the adjacent Russian is clear. The error of Karl Stumpp is continued in the Kronsgarten entry under the entries for Bartel Meussen. There should have been a footnote, at least at this entry, indicating the name is Bartholomaeus (as in B.H. Unruh), a variant of the name Bartel (Bartel is a short form). More serious however, is the omission of the Chortitza entry for Jacob Berg (Bark/Barg) and the Neuendorf entries for Abraham Dyck and Michael Loewen. (The Michael Loewen entry is misplaced into the 1806 list).

The great value of the 1806 list is the confirmation and extension of the B.H. Unruh data regarding the various homestead transfers that took place over the years. The 1806 list is particularly important in documenting the movement of the various settlers to the new villages such as Burwalde and Niederchortitza. For the villages such as Neuenburg and Schoenhorst, the 1806 list is the last in the available early Old Colony lists. However, as stated above, non-homestead owning families (the trademen, craftmen, smiths, etc.) are not included in the 1806 list.

In the 1806 list, the data is sometimes confusing, oweing no doubt to the predilection for the comparative approach. There are several 1797 entries needlessly put under the 1806 list (for instance the third Isebrandt Friesen entry under Schoenhorst) and a duplicate entry for Martin Wiens under Rosenthal. This has the potential of confusing the reader. As well it appears there is an entry missing under Einlage for Isaac Born/lsaac Woelcke, although I do not have any original to verify this.

The Grodno Lists (1803-1810)

These lists document the settlers arriving at the border point at Grodno and continuing on into the interior of New Russia. Most of these families settled in the Molotschna, although some settled in the Old Colony. The majority of these families are found in the 1808 Molotschna or Old Colony lists of B.H. Unruh. As well, B.H. Unruh documents many of these families by year of immigration.

The great value of the Grodno lists is the inclusion of a considerable amount of information regarding the individual families, their traveling companions (relatives and servants) and the financial aid received. A good many details regarding arrival and departure dates, illnesses and routes taken are included. There is certainly a lot of new and additional material in this section, and for some families who do not overtly appear in the l808 lists, this may be the only data presently available.

The Lists of Households and Visas after 1815

Here again the author has used a comparative approach, with the list of visas issued in a given year followed by the list of new households established in New Russia (in either Molotschna or Old Colony villages) for the same year. Helpful notes are included in the visa lists indicating the probable location of a family in the new household list. This approach works well in these sections because the data are comparable and because there is no obvious distortion of the original list, except perhaps an alphabetical ordering of the new household lists.

The data of both lists separate naturally by year. Furthermore, the visa lists appear to be represented in their entirety and include many non-Mennonite immigrants. The new household lists complement the 1835 Molotschna census. Of special note are the lists of families moving to the Molotschna from the Old Colony, although much of this information (and perhaps more) is already in the Molotschna census (and does in fact seem to originate from the 1835 census sources). Some interesting new data is presented for new households established in the Old Colony. Included in the data presented for the new householders is a brief economic description regarding the economic affairs of the household.

The most interesting and informative new data is contained in the visa lists themselves. All the persons traveling on the passport are generally named and include various relatives (and the relationship to the passport owner), maiden names (in some cases) and the village where the passport-holder resided. All of this adds a great deal to our knowledge of the settlers.

As will be apparent to the reader, this volume contains much new and varied information. Some of the data will he more useful than other data. The importance of the data in sections 3 and 4 (as outlined above) have been recognized in this volume by the inclusion of a brief but excellent economic overview of the new settlers (1815-1825) by Conrad Stoesz. Also included is a map of the Visual Delta and valley, detailing the villages from which many of the new settlers originally came. Included as well is some informative introductory commentary re the original lists. This book undoubtedly deserves the popularity it will achieve.

B.H. Unruh. Die Niederlaendisch-nieder-deutscher Hintergruende der Mennonitischen Ostwanderungen. (Karlsruhe, 1955)

| Previous

Last modified October 30, 2000.

© 2000 Mennonite Heritage Centre and the Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies.
Masthead and usage information.