Alexander Fedoseevich Voronin, in his treatise "About Foreign Settlers in the Southwest Krai", 1873, gives an amazing account of the establishment of the Mennonite colonies in Volyn and Podol. Some details listed by Voronin are not found anywhere else. Following is my personal translation of pages 1-6 of Voronin's history.
The beginning of the settlement of foreigners in the southwestern part of the country dates back to the days of the Polish government, in the last days of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The first colonists here were sectarians from Western Europe, who left their homeland because of religious persecution and settled in the region, attracted by the extraordinary privileges granted them by rich landowners, who had not enough workers to cultivate their own land. For example, in 1791 the governor of the Makhnovka and Samgorod estates in the Berdichev district of the Kiev province, Prot Potocki, in Warsaw issued a privilege to 20 families of Mennonites who had come from Holland to settle on the land of the village Samgorodok. This privilege granted the resettlers significant privileges and benefits. Potocki obligated to allot the land for each family up to 3 [small pieces of Chelmno measure], and to give 100 zlotys (Polish) free of charge as allowance for transportation to the place of settlement; to give every family in the first year of resettlement loan corn of different kinds for replanting the fields according to the size of the occupied lands and, in addition, 10 корцевъ [unit of measure] for food; to grant the colonists with a loan of 1,000 zlotys per family, without interest, for six years, and with the donation of building material, 10 oaks and 30 pines per family, as well as the donation of stone from the quarry; To maintain the preacher, the cemetery, the church, and the school, 30 morgs were assigned for perpetual free use, and to give the preacher 500 zlotys as a gift during the first two years; in addition, the society was given 3000 zlotys on credit without interest for the construction of the church for 3 years. For the land plots, the colonists were obliged to pay 3 zlotys per morg.
This fee was determined by the average price of rye and was to be changed every 12 years in accordance with the change in the price of rye, and after 60 years from the conclusion of the contract it was to be finally determined by deduction from the average prices of 12 years and to remain unchanged forever. Then the colonists were relieved of military service and all duties and tributes to the landlord, committing themselves only to pay the state taxes. The new settlement was given the name Makhalin (Махалинъ), and Potocki's Privilege was approved in 1781 by King Stanislaus Augustus, and in 1800 it was listed in the land registers of Makhnovsky Poviat.
It was the first foreign colony in the region. It still exists today (1873). After the reunification of Polsha, Volyn and Podolia, the Makhnovka Mennonites took Russian citizenship and were enrolled as colonists according to the (ревизскимъ сказкамъ; revision lists). A part of the Mennonite craftsmen settled in Makhnovka and at the same time were registered as petty bourgeoisie in this place. At present 44 families comprising 258 souls of both sexes, who on the ground of the mentioned Privilege have in termless use 300 dessiatin from the lands of Samgorod domain and in addition to that they bought 650 dessiatin from neighboring landowners on various occasions. The men are engaged only in farming and run a farm, owning in families 20 to 50 dessiatin of land. At the last census there were 34 families of mennonites in the Makhnovka village, consisting of 187 souls of both sexes. They form a special petty bourgeois society and are engaged in different trades and crafts.
After the reunification of the region, the first foreign settlers in it were also Mennonites, who came from Prussia. In 1801 the owner of the Ostroshkago estate, Prince Karl Yablonovsky, signed a contract with 16 families for their perpetual use from the lands of Slobodka, located in the vicinity of Volyn province. Ostrog, Volyn province, 34 [уволоки] of haymaking lands and undeveloped lands and obliged to give settlers free of charge and on loan for 3 years 200 zlotys per family for the building timber, to give half of the [ ] land for the preacher for indefinite use and to guarantee them not to fulfill any other duties, except those specified in the contract, which they had to fulfill for the benefit of the owner as well as from correction of the recruitment duty. For their part, the colonists undertook to pay 60 [k.] annually to the proprietor for each morg of haymaking and plowing land, excluding that which is under fallow; they were obliged to buy beverages only [from the estate], to grind bread only [in estate mills], and to submit to the power of the landlord as regards court and punishment, so that he would allow the colonists to choose a foreman from among themselves, who, upon approval of the owner, was to keep order and to administer court between them with the right of the offended person to appeal to the landlord.
Three years later, in 1804, under the same conditions a second colony was founded by newcomers, Antonovka, near the town of Kunev, and in 1817 a third colony under the name of Валъдгойма (Walhoyma [Waldheim]) was founded there. These colonies quickly grew and, separating from their environment landless families, formed new settlements. So in 1857 they founded the fourth colony - Yadvinin, and in the last five years of the decade three more colonies: Grundal in 1865, Firstendorf in 1868, and Firstental in 1869. Registered in the last revision as colonists in all these colonies there are only 120 families of 1524 souls of both sexes. Settlers of the first colony, Karls-Wald, are still using 608 ½ dessiatin of land indefinitely on the basis of the contract of 1801; the subsequent colonies Jadwinin, Grintal, Firschendorf and Fierstental (together) leased 1,438 dessiatin of land from the Ostroshkago estate's owner (pursuant to independent contracts). The colonies of Antonovka and Вальдъ-Гоймъ (Wald-Hoym), founded on the lands of Kunev’s estate, which were confiscated/ lustrated after the 1831 mutiny into the treasury, received 260 dessiatin as part of the lustration.
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