Bullers in Molotschna 2

An earlier post (see here) suggested that what we know for certain about Peter D Buller hints at his socioeconomic status during the Molotschna years. Specifically, his movement from the village of Kleefeld to Alexanderkrone and then back to Kleefeld within the space of several years, followed by his emigration to the U.S. only eight years later, where he immediately bought 80 acres, imply that while Peter D lived in the Molotschna colony he was a farmer but not a landowner.

Surprising as this might seem to some, it corresponds well with what we know about life in the Molotschna colony. Two aspects of that life deserve special attention: the village-based social organization of Molotschna’s Mennonites; and the socioeconomic conditions created by historical events during the 1850s and beyond. The first aspect will be addressed in the post that follows, the second in a subsequent post.

As noted earlier, the Molotschna colony was organized around a number of villages located along the Molochnaya River on the west and its tributaries running east–west.

Map © William Schroeder, used by permission. For the original, see http://www.mennonitechurch.ca/programs/archives/holdings/Schroeder_maps/058.pdf.

As can be seen in the map above and especially in the detail of Alexanderkrone and Kleefeld below, the villages tended to be rectangular. The Kleefeld map shows particularly well how villages were organized as a series of rectangular-shaped plots of land set perpendicular to the village’s main (and often only) street. Houses were located next to the street, the associated farmland extending behind.

Map © William Schroeder, used by permission. For the original, see http://www.mennonitechurch.ca/programs/archives/holdings/Schroeder_maps/059.pdf

Map © William Schroeder, used by permission. For the original, see http://www.mennonitechurch.ca/programs/archives/holdings/Schroeder_maps/073.pdf

Also of interest are the smaller plots located on the ends of villages. These areas provided housing (cottages) but little more for those who did not own land and who thus had to carve out a living as rent farmers, artisans, or laborers.

Of course, villagers owned more farmland than the plots that formed part of the village itself. In fact, according to Franz Isaac (Die Molotschnaer Mennoniten [Halbstadt: Braun, 1908], 72–73), in 1860 Alexanderkrone was associated with forty full farms that together accounted for 8,100 acres (202.5 acres per full farm); Kleefelds’s thirty-seven full farms plus six half-farms encompassed 8,662 acres (216.5 acres per full farm). Isaac also records that twenty-five landless families were associated with Alexanderkrone, thirty-eight with Kleefeld.

GoogleMaps satellite view of the village formerly known as Alexanderkrone (modern Hrushivka). The strips of land bordering and perpendicular to the main street are still visible on the left side of the photograph. The small structure circled in red is the windmill shown here. To access the GoogleMaps satellite view directly, click here. It appears that nothing remains of Kleefeld, which should be directly left of Alexanderkrone.

The point of all this is to show the connection between Molotschna village organization and land ownership. The number of full farms listed for Alexanderkrone and Kleefeld roughly corresponds to the number of “full” village plots (house plus land) that one can count in the maps above. It thus seems likely (although I have not yet been able to confirm this) that one did not own just a village plot; rather, one owned both that plot (house and land) plus whatever land outside of the village was associated with the plot. The total size of the two pieces of land would have been no less than 175 acres (the original size of the grant to each family), although it could be (and often was) more.

If this is reconstruction of village organization and its effects is generally accurate, then one can begin to understand why an ever-increasing number of Molotschna Mennonites became landless. Ownership of the land outside of the village was inextricably tied to ownership of a plot inside the village. If there were forty village plots, only forty people associated with the village would own land. If no one wanted to sell his entire holdings, the only option open to a potential land buyer was to move elsewhere, in hopes that another village might provide better opportunity or land would be available in a newly established village.

An additional factor compounded the problem: Molotschna Mennonites were prohibited by law from subdividing their 175-acre farms for distribution (through inheritance or sale) to anyone else. All full farms were to remain intact. Thus, a father with three sons and 200 acres was unable to divide the farmland equally between them; one son would become landed; the other two, landless. John R. Staples reports, “Already by 1834 almost half of all Mennonite families were landless, and by 1860, almost two-thirds were without land” (“Putting ‘Russia’ Back into Russian Mennonite History: The Crimean War, Emancipation, and the Molochna Mennonite Landlessness Crisis,” Mennonite Life 62.1 [2007]). The statistics for Alexanderkrone (38.5 percent landless) and Kleefeld (50.7 percent) are favorable by comparison, but that probably reflects the fact that these villages were relatively young in 1860; in time, the rank of landless families in these villages would also grow.

To bring it all back to the Bullers, Peter D’s move from Kleefeld to Alexanderkrone, then back to Kleefeld, and finally across the ocean to Nebraska are not the actions of a settled landowner. They seem more characteristic of someone looking to make ends meet any way he can. Because Peter D immediately turned to farming after arriving in the U.S., it is reasonable to conclude that he was either a rent farmer or a laborer in the Molotschna colony. A future post will sharpen this picture historically with a discussion of how forces outside the Mennonite community led first to prosperity for Molotschna rent farmers, then left them in full crisis mode when there was no longer available land to rent.