A Mennonite Family in Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union, 1789-1923

A Mennonite Family in Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union, 1789-1923

Author: David G. Rempel

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2011-09-10

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 1442613181

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Rempel combines his first-hand account of life in Russian Mennonite settlements during the landmark period of 1900-1920, with a rich portrait of six generations of his ancestral family from the foundation of the first colony in 1789.


Mennonites in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union

Mennonites in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union

Author: Leonard G. Friesen

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2022-11-17

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 148750568X

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Mennonites in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union is the first history of Mennonite life from its origins in the Dutch Reformation of the sixteenth century, through migration to Poland and Prussia, and on to more than two centuries of settlement in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Leonard G. Friesen sheds light on religious, economic, social, and political changes within Mennonite communities as they confronted the many faces of modernity. He shows how the Mennonite minority remained engaged with the wider empire that surrounded them, and how they reconstructed and reconfigured their identity after the Bolsheviks seized power and formed a Soviet regime committed to atheism. Integrating Mennonite history into developments in the Russian Empire and the USSR, Friesen provides a history of an ethno-religious people that illuminates the larger canvas of Imperial Russian, Ukrainian, and Soviet history.


An Introduction to Mennonite History

An Introduction to Mennonite History

Author: Cornelius J. Dyck

Publisher: MennoMedia, Inc.

Published: 1993-07-01

Total Pages: 563

ISBN-13: 083619733X

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A unique resource for a generation, the preeminent textbook in its field. Cornelius J. Dyck interacts with the many changes in the Anabaptist/Mennonite experience and historical understandings in this revised and updated edition. This is a history of Mennonites from the 16th century to the present. Though simply written, it reflects fine scholarship and deep Christian concern.


Johann Cornies, the Mennonites, and Russian Colonialism in Southern Ukraine

Johann Cornies, the Mennonites, and Russian Colonialism in Southern Ukraine

Author: John R. Staples

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2023-11-01

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 1487549172

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In the late eighteenth century, the Russian Empire opened the grasslands of southern Ukraine to agricultural settlement by new colonists, among them Prussian Mennonites. Mennonite colonization was one aspect of the empire’s consolidation and modernization of its multi-ethnic territory. In the colony of Molochnaia, the dominant personality of the early nineteenth century was Johann Cornies (1789–1848), a hard-driving modernizer and intimate of senior Russian officials whose papers provide unique access into events in Ukraine in this era. Johann Cornies, the Mennonites, and Russian Colonialism in Southern Ukraine uses the life story of Johann Cornies to explore how colonial subjects interacted with Russian imperial policy. The book reveals how tsarist imperial policy shifted toward Russification in the 1830s and 1840s and became increasingly intolerant of ethnocultural and ethnoreligious minorities. It shows that Russia employed the Mennonite settlement as a colonial laboratory of modernity, and that the Mennonites were among Russia’s most economically productive subjects. This microhistory illuminates the role of Johann Cornies as a mediator between the empire and the Mennonite colonists, and it ultimately aims to bring light to the history of nineteenth-century Russia and Ukraine.


A Pilgrimage of Faith

A Pilgrimage of Faith

Author: John B. Toews

Publisher: Kindred Productions (c) 1993

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 9780921788171

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It is now [1990] one hundred and thirty years since the birth of the Mennonite Brethren Church and therefore time for someone in that church to take a backward glance to see how things have developed. Who better to do this John B. Toews. His life spans well over half of those years and he has experienced much of what he writes. "JB" as he is affectionately known by both students and colleagues is a patriarchal figure in the Mennonite Brethren Church. Born in Ukraine, the Russian Revolution and its aftermath were the crucible that shaped his youth and young adult years. After studying in Western Europe, Toews immigrated to Canada in the late 1920s. Much of his life has been in Mennonite Brethren educational institutions in Canada and the United States. During ten years as Executive Secretary of the Mennonite Brethren Board of Missions he traveled widely and came to know Mennonite Brethren people around the world. In between educational and mission administrative responsibilities he pastored in Kansas and California. After retiring from the presidency of the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary he became the founding Director of the Historical Commission of the Mennonite Brethren Church.


Mennonites, Politics, and Peoplehood

Mennonites, Politics, and Peoplehood

Author: James Urry

Publisher: Univ. of Manitoba Press

Published: 2011-07-15

Total Pages: 782

ISBN-13: 0887554113

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Mennonites and their forebears are usually thought to be a people with little interest or involvement in politics. Mennonites, Politics, and Peoplehood reveals that since their early history, Mennonites have, in fact, been active participants in worldly politics. From western to eastern Europe and through different migrations to North America, James Urry’s meticulous research traces Mennonite links with kingdoms, empires, republics, and democratic nations in the context of peace, war, and revolution. Urry stresses a degree of Mennonite involvement in politics not previously discussed in literature, including Mennonite participation in constitutional reform and party politics, and shows the polarization of their political views from conservatism to liberalism and even revolutionary activities. Urry looks at the Mennonite reaction to politics and political events from the Reformation onwards and focuses particularly on those people who settled in Russia and their descendants who came to Manitoba. Using a wide variety of sources, Mennonites, Politics, and Peoplehood combines an inter-disciplinary approach to reveal that Mennonites, far from being the “Quiet in the Land,” have deep roots in politics.


Red Quarter Moon

Red Quarter Moon

Author: Anne Konrad

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2012-01-30

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 1442694173

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Anne Konrad's Red Quarter Moon is the gripping account of her search for family members lost and disappeared within the Soviet Union. Konrad's ancestors, Mennonites, had settled the Ukrainian steppes in the late 1790s. An ethno-religious minority, they became special objects of Soviet persecution. Though her parents fled in 1929, many relatives remained in the USSR. Konrad's search for these missing extended family members took place over twenty years and five continents - on muddy roads, lonesome steppes, and in old letters, documents, or secret police archives. Her story emerges as both haunting and inspiring, filled with dramatically different accounts from survivors now scattered across the world. She aligns the voices of her subjects chronologically against the backdrop of Soviet policy, intertwining the historical context of the Terror Years with her own personal quest. Red Quarter Moon is an enthralling journey into the past that offers a unique look at the lives of ordinary families and individuals in the USSR.


On Stony Ground

On Stony Ground

Author: James Urry

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2024-03-01

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 1487547404

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On Stony Ground presents a historical ethnographic account of a generation of Mennonites from the Soviet Union who, following Russia’s revolution and civil war, immigrated to Manitoba during the 1920s. James Urry examines how they came to terms with a new land and with their new neighbours, including other Mennonites, Ukrainians, French Canadians, and Indigenous Peoples. The book discusses the impact of the Great Depression and how the immigrants struggled with their identity in Canada as Hitler and Stalin rose to power in Germany and the USSR. It reveals the immigrants’ desire to maintain their faith, language, and culture while encouraging their children to take advantage of an education conducted mainly in English. On Stony Ground explores how prosperity following the Second World War helped the immigrants to build a community in conjunction with others, including Mennonites and non-Mennonites, and to accept their new home in Canada.


Minority Report

Minority Report

Author: Leonard G. Friesen

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2018-02-05

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1487514271

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The history of the Black Sea littoral, an area of longstanding interest to Russia, provides important insight into Ukraine as a contemporary state. In Minority Report, Leonard G. Friesen and the volume’s contributors boldly reassess Mennonite history in Imperial Russia and the former Soviet Ukraine. This volume engages scholars from Ukraine, Russia, and North America, and includes translated and accessible contributions by scholars from the Ukrainian-German Institute of Dnipropetrovsk State University. Minority Report is divided into four sections: New Approaches to Mennonite History; Imperial Mennonite Isolationism Revisited; Mennonite Identities in Diaspora; and Mennonite Identities in the Soviet Cauldron. An appendix is included which recounts for the first time the emergence of Mennonite public history in southern Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The volume’s contributors reveal that far from being isolated from the larger society, Mennonites played an integral role in shaping the entire region. Minority Report successfully places Mennonite history within the recent historiographical insights offered by Ukrainian and Russian scholars and significantly enriches our understanding of minority relations in Soviet Ukraine.