Life in Leeleva

When Andreas returned to Volhynia from his stint in the Forestry Service in Kherson Province during the first weeks of 1895, the Mennonite villages must have seemed a strange place.  His parents, Jacob and Anna, and most of his family had left for America 2 ½ years earlier.  His sister, Eva, and her family still lived nearby.  And his sweetheart, Susanna Wedel and her family also were still living in Leeleva.  Andreas had been discharged from service on the last day of the year of 1894.  He returned to his home and on February 17, 1895, he and Susanna were married.

Leeleva (or Fuerstendorf in German) lay about 6 or 7 miles south of the town of Ostrog.  About 3 miles to the northwest was the Mennonite Parish center of Antonovka.  Between Antonovka and Leeleva, about 2.5 miles to the northwest, was Menziliski, another Mennonite village where Andreas’ parents had lived.  Andreas had been born in Leeleva, but his younger brother Bernard had been born in Menziliski.  Andreas’ sister Eva may have lived in Menziliski with her family. 

The villagers living in the Mennonite colonies considered themselves German.  They spoke the German language to one another and clung to their German heritage.  Surrounding the German Mennonite villages were Russian, Polish or Ukrainian villages like Sievierz, Dankowka, Dertka and Balary.  The larger towns of Miakoty and Pluzne lay directly southeast of Leeleva while the parish center of Kuniv lay to the northwest, just west of Antonovka.  The two larger cities in the area were Ostrog, which was an ancient Russian city and was several miles to the north, and Iziaslaw (Zaslaw), which was several more miles to the southeast.

The majority of the Russians, Poles and Ukrainians in the area followed the Eastern Orthodox religion.  There was an Eastern Orthodox monastery just outside Ostrog to the southwest.  There were also many Lutheran Germans in the nearby villages and maybe in Leeleva too.  As the Mennonites began to leave starting in the 1870s, many Lutherans occupied former Mennonite dwellings, churches and villages.  Also, Jews were numerous in the area.  Volhynia was right in the middle of what was known as the Jewish Pale of Settlement; the only areas in Russia and Eastern Europe where Jews could lawfully live.  Ostrog had a large Jewish population as did the other nearby towns.  Ostrog also had a small Muslim population.  The road that ran north out of Ostrog to the villages of Chorow and Ozenin was known as Tatraska Road after the Tartar Muslims who lived there.  In 1897, the Russian Empire completed its first census.  According to the census, the rural population around Ostrog (but not including the city of Ostrog) numbered about 155,000 people.  Of these, about 84% were of Russian (including Ukrainian and Byelorussian) descent, about 7% were of Polish descent, almost 6 % were Jewish and about 2% were German.  http://demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_lan_97_uezd_eng.php?reg=261

The land in Volhynia around Ostrog was very hilly and covered with forests.  The large Ostrog forest lay just north of Leeleva and was known to be inhabited by wolves.  Russian foresters patrolled the forests to protect the integrity of the environment.  On a satellite view of the area today, one can see remnants of this forest running all the way from Kremenets in the west to Zhytomir in the east; a distance of more than 100 miles.  Furthermore the land was marshy; many rivers, creeks and canals, including the Horyn and the Wilna, crisscrossed the land, and two small lakes lay just north and northeast of Leeleva.  Today, a large reservoir has been built just southeast of Ostrog.  A nuclear powerplant is located at the northeast corner of the reservoir, at Netishyn.

In the satellite view, Lisna (Leeleva) can be seen just left of center.  Kuniv and Antonivka (Antonovka) are northwest of Lisna and the other ex-Mennonite villages of Mykhailivka, Novosilka (Jadwenin) and Prykordonne (Karolswalde) can be seen north from Lisna.  Note the many dark green forested areas.  Menziliski no longer exists, but it once stood in the clearing south of Kuniv and Antonivka.  Ostroh (Ostrog) stands near the top of the map and the train station at Staryi Kryvyn can be seen somewhat east of Ostroh.  Pluzhne, just southeast of Lisna, is the administrative center for the district to which Lisna belongs.  Izyaslav (Zaslaw), another important nearby town, lies at the bottom right hand corner.

Photographs of the area can be found here and there on the internet: http://www.panoramio.com/map/#lt=50.186681&ln=26.535587&z=4&k=2&a=1&tab=1&pl=all and http://wikimapia.org/#lat=50.2397397&lon=26.4701843&z=12&l=0&m=b

There was not much land available, and the little that was wasn’t very good for farming.  A very small tract of land just to the northeast of the main road running through Leeleva had been cleared and was used as communal pasture.  But according to the maps from the late 19^th century, most of the land was covered with trees.  Abe J. Unruh, in his book The Helpless Poles, states that the ground was sandy and not much good for crops anyway.  The Mennonites also didn’t own their own land in Volhynia, rather they rented or leased it from the native Ukrainian landowners or from the government.  German colonists in this area had been invited by the landowners in 1861 when the Tsar freed the serfs and landowners needed industrious farmers to work their land and to clear forests and drain marshland.  After the land was readied, potatoes and beans as well as many garden vegetables were grown.  Wheat and millett were common crops, and a few cattle and horses were also kept.  Today, many sugar beets are grown in the area.

Both Andreas and his father Jacob listed weaving as their occupation in Leeleva.  Many other Russian weavers lived in the area too, spinning flax into linen.  The weavers would hold their cloth until the Jewish merchants came through the village to buy it.  Additionally, Leeleva’s citizens were blacksmiths or carpenters or stone masons or kept bees.  There was a flour mill in the nearby area, but not in Leeleva itself, so any grain had to be transported to be ground into flour.  The village had three wells from which the inhabitants could draw water.  The market town may have been Kuniv and a yearly fair was held in Ostrog.

Abe J. Unruh indicates that the Volhynian Mennonites were much poorer than their brethren in the Molotschna Colony.  Land was more scarce and the land that was available was not good farmland.  The villages associated with Antonovka, including Leeleva and Menziliski, were among the very poorest Mennonite villages in Russia.

Given this economic difference, the Volhynian Mennonite began to fall behind the South Russian Mennonites in areas such as education and industry.  While the Chortitza and especially the Molotschna Mennonites began to establish large estates, primary and secondary educational facilities, hospitals and orphanages, and agricultural equipment factories, the Volhynian Mennonites struggled just to feed themselves.  The government granted privileges enjoyed by the South Russian Mennonites in the form of free land and low taxes, were not bestowed upon the Volhynians.  These circumstances, in addition to the obvious geographic gulf separating the two regions, caused the Volhynians to become more conservative and feel somewhat inferior to other groups.