German Anabaptist Settlements in Western Ukraine, Walter Kuhn, 1955

Deutsche Täufersiedlungen im westukrainischen Raume by Walter Kuhn (Zeitschrift Fur Ostforschung; Lander und Volker im ostlichen Mitteleuropa)

4. D i e E i n w a n d e r u n g d e r W e i c h s e l - M e n n o n i t en

p490

In the Netherlands, after the catastrophe of Münster in 1535, the older Anabaptist movement was named after its leader named after its leader Menno Simons.  During the Mennonite persecutions of the Spanish period (until 1572), a large number of them fled to the Vistula estuary around Danzig.  They were experienced in draining the marshes; they were gladly accepted and carried out an enormous dike-building and colonization project and quickly achieved economic prosperity.  From the Vistula delta they very soon advanced up the Vistula valley as far as Thorn.  Unlike the Hutterites, their social structure was purely peasant, based on individual property and democratic cooperation of the "neighbors". Economically, besides the cultivation of cereals in the humid lowlands, these Mennonite engaged in dairy farming and cheese-making 22 in accordance with the custom of their homeland (Dutch lowlands).  In order to avoid any stronger ties to a landlord, the Dutch Mennonites rented their land only on a temporary lease, in return for comparatively high monetary payments, rejecting any kind of sharecropping.

Already in the 16th century the spatial expansion of the Vistula-Mennonites came to a standstill.  The development of the Netzebruch by Frederick the Great, for which they had just the right special knowledge, gave them the opportunity to participate in colonization work.  Emissaries of the Mennonites from the Kulmer Lowlands approached the head of the Netze establishment, Chief Finance Councilor Franz Balthasar von Schönberg von Brenckenhoff.  With the councilor’s backing, 16 families settled in Brenkenhofswalde, 13 in Franzthal and 8 in two neighboring small settlements, all in 1765.  These exclusively Mennonite villages were situated just west of Driesen.  Somewhat later followed Neu-Dessau, east of the city, where 12 Mennonite families from the Danzig Lowlands formed only a minority in the village.23   Very quickly, the Mennonites became exemplary leaders in the lowland settlement of Netzebruch.

Soon after, the Mennonites resumed their migration up the Vistula River.  In 1776 they settled Deutsch-Kazun west of Warsaw, opposite the mouth of the Bug into the Vistula 24; and at the end of the 18th century Deutsch-Wymyśle was established near Plock.25  There was thus a modest revival of the Mennonite colonization of Prussian lands and the same thing happened a little later, on a much larger scale, when they undertook to establish settlements in the Russian Empire.  Already in 1766, Vistula Germans were involved in the first large immigration under Catherine II, in the very area under discussion, in the construction of the German enclave of Bielowies in the Konotop district of Gubernia Chernigov.  In addition to the West German and Mecklenburg majority there also came Lutheran and Catholic Germans from the Danzig Werder who did not trave; by ship via St. Petersburg, but came overland in a separate trek.26  The villages of Groß-Werder, Klein-Werder and Rundewiese in the Bielowieser Group are named after their homeland.27  The implementation of the colonization work was in the hands of the Governor General of Little Russia, Count Rumyantsov.

As a result of the first partition of Poland, a large number of the Vistula Mennonites came under Prussian control and thereafter saw state decrees that threatened their freedom of military service and limited the possibility of expansion.  Many therefore followed the Russian government's call in 1786 for them to settle in the in the Black Sea region and in 1789 founded the "old colony" on the Dnieper bend near Chortitza.  Economically, however, they had to change completely from cattle breeding in the humid lowlands to sheep breeding and later to wheat growing in the rainless black steppe.  Closely related to this process is the calling of the Vistula Mennonites to the part of the Ukraine under the ownership of Count Prot Potocki.

Like other Polish magnates in the time of King Stanislaus Poniatowski, Potocki was eager to establish industrial enterprises by bringing in Western, especially German, experts.28  Thus, around 1780, he established a number of German textile factories in the small town of Machnówka in an effort to exploit the German textile trades.29  In the surrounding area, he endeavored to rebuild the villages and develop agriculture in these areas that had become desolate in the battles of the 17th century.  In 1791 he settled a group of Vistula Mennonites on the steppe north of the village of Michalin on favorable conditions, similar to that which they were accustomed to in the Gdansk region.  Each family received land according to its capacity, from 18 Morgen to 3 kulmische Hufen, in addition to 100 Polish guilders for travel expenses.  As land for the preacher, cemetery, church, and school Potocki donated 30 Morgen.  In addition, he donated two years’ salary to the preacher of 250 guldens and gave a loan of 3,000 guldens for the church building.  The survey of the land was carried out by a surveyor provided by the count but in the manner familiar to the Mennonites: Deutsch-Michalin became a group of individual farms (Einzelhöfen).30

Only two years later, during the second partition of Poland, the area was assigned to the Kiev Gubernia.  The Russian authorities initially levied the same poll taxes on the Germans as on the serf peasants.  In 1804, after long legal struggles, the Michaliners were finally recognized as colonists in accordance with the 1763 Manifesto of Catherine II, and by the hand of Alexander I they were even refunded the additional taxes they had already paid.31  From then on, the colony enjoyed a good development and formed an important link between the Vistula and Black Sea Mennonites.32

Shortly before the favorable outcome of these legal wranglings, some of the Michaliners, despairing of success, moved away and in 1802 settled south of Ostróg, forming the colony of Karlswald (Karolswald, Polish: Holendry Slobodzkie, after the neighboring village of Slobodka).33  Here in the humid Wilja/Vilia River lowlands, the Mennonites were able to return to their familiar way of farming: breeding of Dutch and Swiss cattle and the production of butter and cheese.  In addition, they also they also engaged in textile weaving.  In the following period they multiplied rapidly and founded additional villages.  Reiswitz-Wadzeck 34 mentions in 1821 two villages with a total of 38 families; in addition to Karlswald was probably Antoniendorf (Antonówka) or Jadwinin.  In 1828 the daughter colony to Karlswald, named Karlsberge, was established.35  Two more villages, Fürstendorf (Lesnaja, Nikitska) and Fürstenthal (Kustarna), were established later although we don’t know exactly when.  These six settlements 36 together formed a cohesive group of remote German-Mennonite villages.

In the years 1806 to 1818 came a second wave of Vistula-Mennonites to Volhynia, some from the Schwetz lowlands, some from the Netzebruch.37  However, we have detailed information about only one of their establishments.  Founded in 1811 by the nobleman Waclaw Borejko, Zofjowka 38 was settled north of the small town of Wysock far to the north on the Horyn River, in the middle of the Polish marshes.  21 families (Beyer, 2 Buller, Böse, 2 Dirks, 3 Voth, Nachtigall, 2 Nickel, 2 Pankratz, Richard, 4 Sperling, Unruh and Zielke)39 leased 33 farmsteads, for each of which they paid the high annual interest of 120 Polish guilders.  In return, they were exempt from all other burdens, specifically compulsory service to the landlord.  They also had freedom of trade without having to join a guild, free choice of judges and freedom of religion.  For school and cemetery, they received half a half Hufe free of charge.  For the first two difficult years, the landowner advance 200 guilders to each house.  The Privilege shows even better than that of Machnówka (Michalin), the exact transfer of the customary Gdansk lowlands to Volhynia.

A second colony of this group, not known in detail, was located near the small town of Rafalówka on the Styr River northeast of Luck.  An additional third colony was probably Waldheim (Waltajem, later Solianka) 30 km southwest of Novograd Wolynsk.40  Certainly also the neighboring Dosilorf (Zabara), for which [Alfred Karasek;Kurt Lück] gives the time of foundation "before 1807" 41, also belongs to the same context.

The following two decades brought a series of resettlements of the of the Netzebrücher 42, about whose causes and course we know only little.  The Zofjówkaers moved before 182843, leaving their land to German Lutherans.  These Zofjówkaers went to "Ostrowa" in the county of Luck, which is probably synonymous with Józefin, 30 km northeast of Luck, and still included the Zofjówka area to the east.  For Józefin I could find the 1936 settlement contract of the Mennonites in the village Schulzenamt 44 .  For Zofjówka the memory of the Mennonites is preserved in the tradition of the Jews and Ukrainians who later inhabited the village.45  The location of the colony of "Wola", which the Mennonites settled after leaving the area of Rafalówka,46 is uncertain.  Wola may be the Mennonite settlement of Horodyszcze 40 km wnw. of Równe, for which Lück gives as the year of foundation "before 1817.47  The Melanienwald colony was settled on the territory of the later colony named Kruchy, 12 km northwest of  Równe.  Kruchy was occupied by Lutherans who settled on the area of their Mennonite predecessors.  We cannot give a more specific date in regard to the establishment of this colony.48   

22) H. Penner, Ansiedlung Mennonitischer Niederländer im Weichselmündungsgebiet von der Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts bis zum Beginn der Preußischen Zeit. Weierhof i. Pf. 1940.

23) B. H. Unruh, “Die Mennoniten in der Neumark.”  In: Christlicher Gemeindekalender für das Jahr 1941, hrsg.  von der Konferenz der süddeutschen Mennoniten und der Konferenz der ost- und westpreußischen Mennonitengemeinden, Jg. 50, S. 58—76.

24) A. Breyer, “Deutsche Gaue in Mittelpolen”.  In: Deutsche Monatshefte in Polen, Jg. 1934/35, S. 398.

25) B. H. Unruh, Die niederländisch-niederdeutschen Hintergründe der mennonitischen Ostwanderungen: im 16., 18. und 19 Jahrhundert.  S. 172 (according to a notice from Fr. Kliewer): Wymyśle was established in 1792 and Mennonites settled there just a very short time later.

26)  In the language of the Bielowie villages, the dialect of the Upper Hessians prevailed over the Werder Germans (V. Schirmunski, “Die deutschen Kolonien in der Ukraine”. Kharkiv, 1928. p. 20); otherwise, as a result of their isolated location, they were linguistically largely Ukrainized in the 19th century.  As evidence of their origin see J. A. Güldenstädt, Reisen durch Rußland und im Caucasischen Gebürge, hrsg. v. P. S. Pallas. 2. Teil. Petersburg 1791, p. 379: "others are from the area of Danzig and Elbing, and these made the journey here through Poland via Kiev."

27) The mother village to Rundewiese is located 15 km south of Marienwerder in the Vistula lowlands.

28)  This wave of industrialization in Poland, which also created a number of German towns in western Ukraine, created a German social class which, however, quickly faded away.  For general information see Kurt Lück, Deutsche Aufbaukräfte in der Entwicklung Polens.  Plauen i. Vogtland, 1934, bes. S. 309.

29) B. Chlebowski-, Slownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów Slovianskich. Warsaw 1880 ff. Vol V, p. 877 ff.

30) Partial summary of the privilege of 1791 in the Slownik geograficzny, Vol X, p. 247 (keyword “Samhorodek”).

31) Russia under Alexander I, a historical magazine, ed. from Henry Stork, Vol. 4, Petersburg and Leipzig 1804. P. 116.

32) [G. L.] Early v. R e i s w i t z - [F.] W a d z e c k, Contributions to the Knowledge of the Mennonite Congregations in Europe and America (Berlin 1821), reports on p. 379 about the settlement "Michelau," "where the West Prussian emigrants as well as the local (= Black Sea) colonists returning to their homeland stay." On p. 377, a family number of 18 is given for Michalin. 33) Slownik geograficzny, Vol. III, p. 844, also P. R. K a u f m a n n , p. 20, and H. S m i t h , p. 28. When other authors, such as W. L jad o w , European Russia in Physical and Ethnographical Relation, Petersburg 1861, state 1783 as the founding year, this could at most refer to the beginnings of immigration to Deutsch-Michalin; the year is probably incorrect.

34) p. 377.

35) Slownik geogr., Vol. III, p. 843.

36) Perhaps Grünthal (Polish: Olendry or Moszczanówka) east of Ostróg also belonged to this Mennonite group. The name Heinrichsdorf, listed in the Ostroger group by H. Smith, p. 160, is uncertain; perhaps it is the German name for Jadwinin? 

37) The most reliable, because oldest, information about them is found in a community report of the Waldheim colony in the Molotschna Mennonite area, written in 1848 (M. W o l t n e r, The Community Reports of 1848 of the German Settlements on the Black Sea, Leibbrandt Collection, Vol. 4, Leipzig 1941. p. 158): “The 68 families of this colony came from the Volhynia Governorate, specifically from the following places: 1) From the Ostrowa colony, in the Lutsk District, on the estates of the nobleman Michael Bitschkowskij, where they had come from the Rokonosch District, not far from the town of Wissotzk, from the manor of the nobleman Watzlaf Vorainy; 2) From the Wolla colony, on the estates of the nobleman Ignat Bitschkowskij, where they had come from the Count Olisarow's manor near the small town of Ravalowka in the Lutsk District, and 3) from the Nowograd Volhynsk District from the estate of Prince Ljubomirskij. Their mostly deceased fathers, however, migrated to the mentioned places between 1806 and 1818 from the province of Neumark near Driesen and from the village of Schwez in West Prussia." This establishes the origin of the Mennonites. The difficulty lies only in identifying the places in Volhynia mentioned under 2) and 3).

38) The German version of the settlement agreement of April 19, 1811, printed by A. Karasek — K. Lück, The German Settlements in Volhynia, History, Folklore, Life Issues (German Gaue in the East, Vol. 3)Die deutschen  Siedlungen  in Wolhynien, Geschichte, Volkskunde,  Lebensfragen  (Deutsche  Gaue  im Osten, Bd 3). Plauen i.V. 1931. pp. 22-24.

39) According to a friendly letter from Prof. D. Dr. B. H. Unruh, Karlsruhe, these names indicate origins in the Netzebruch region.

40) According to the Unruh family tradition, Benjamin Unruh, the great-grandfather of Professor B. H. Unruh, emigrated in 1816 with several other families from Franzthal in the Neumark to Waldheim in Volhynia. (B. H. Unruh, The Dutch-Low German Backgrounds . . . , pp. 152 and 155.) Waldheim would therefore be the village in the Nowograd Volhynsk district mentioned in the 1848 municipal report, after whose migrants in 1836 the settlement in the Molotschna region was named Waldheim. H. S m i t h , The Coming . . . , p. 28, attributes the beginnings of Waldheim to those who emigrated from Deutsch-Michalin in 1802, but his information is probably based only on the memories of the American Mennonites.

41) A. Karasek — K. Lück , p. 21.

42) cf. community report of the Waldheim colony in M. W o l t n e r , Community Reports, p. 158.

43) In this year, their contract received a supplement for the Lutherans. See A. Karasek — K. Lück, p. 24.

44) The copy I took at that time, along with my other Volhynian collections, was lost due to the expulsion from Breslau. I seem to remember that the year was 1828, that all the colonist families listed in the treaty had the same names as in the Zofjówka Treaty of 1811, and that a map of the area drawn up before the land division bore the designation "Ostrów."

45) A. Karasek — K. Lück, p. 21. The popular second name of the village, Trochimbrody, was interpreted by the Ukrainians as the German "Trockenbrot" (dry bread), as the Mennonites jokingly called their village.

46) M. W o l t n e r, Gemeindeberichte (Community Reports), p. 159.

47) A. Karasek — K. Lück, p. 21.

48) Own oral survey, 1936.