With a promise to return as soon as time permits to the series The Russian Steppe and Searching for Benjamin’s Father, we continue for the moment with the last full entry from the Baron von Haxthausen travel journal. The previous post recorded the baron’s high assessment of Johann Cornies; this is not all that von Haxthausen has to say about Cornies, but first we read similarly laudatory comments about Mennonites in general:
A stranger cannot fail to be struck by the cordial and brotherly feeling which prevails among the Mennonites; he will not find the ceremonious politeness of the Russian peasants, nor the kissing and embracing in which the latter indulge as soon as the brandy mounts into their heads: they are genuine German peasants, stiff and awkward in their movements, taciturn, and each the ruler of his own little kingdom; but when called upon, ready at a moment to assist and stand by one another.
Nowhere is a more complete equality observable in all that relates to religious institutions than among the Mennonites. Agriculture is with them a religious duty, and no one can be either more or less than a peasant; all trades and handicraft are subordinate, and have reference to agriculture: their ruling officers, and even their preachers, are themselves peasants. This prevailing equality is most clearly manifested in the relation between master and servant; I noticed this particularly between Herr Kornies and the servant who drove us; it appeared more like the relation of a son to his father than of a servant to his master. On my remarking this to Herr Kornies, he replied, “With us it is a rule that every one, even the son of the richest peasant, should live as a servant for a few years with one of the neighbours; service therefore with us does not constitute the occupation of a class, but is one step in life, a school; one of my younger brothers was for some time a servant [429] with me, and he is now my superintendent. We pay our men-servants and girls very high wages—from thirty to seventy silver roubles—and keep this custom up strictly, which is found to bring us no loss. In this way even a poor man has an opportunity of accumulating a small fortune, and here, where there is plenty of fertile waste land, of establishing a small farm and becoming a peasant himself. It is by no means unusual for the daughters even of rich peasants to marry a servant of the house, however poor, provided he is worthy and industrious. My daughters may marry any one, even a servant, if she likes him and he is a good man.” (von Haxthausen 1856, 1:428–29)
Nowhere is a more complete equality observable in all that relates to religious institutions than among the Mennonites. Agriculture is with them a religious duty, and no one can be either more or less than a peasant; all trades and handicraft are subordinate, and have reference to agriculture: their ruling officers, and even their preachers, are themselves peasants. This prevailing equality is most clearly manifested in the relation between master and servant; I noticed this particularly between Herr Kornies and the servant who drove us; it appeared more like the relation of a son to his father than of a servant to his master. On my remarking this to Herr Kornies, he replied, “With us it is a rule that every one, even the son of the richest peasant, should live as a servant for a few years with one of the neighbours; service therefore with us does not constitute the occupation of a class, but is one step in life, a school; one of my younger brothers was for some time a servant [429] with me, and he is now my superintendent. We pay our men-servants and girls very high wages—from thirty to seventy silver roubles—and keep this custom up strictly, which is found to bring us no loss. In this way even a poor man has an opportunity of accumulating a small fortune, and here, where there is plenty of fertile waste land, of establishing a small farm and becoming a peasant himself. It is by no means unusual for the daughters even of rich peasants to marry a servant of the house, however poor, provided he is worthy and industrious. My daughters may marry any one, even a servant, if she likes him and he is a good man.” (von Haxthausen 1856, 1:428–29)
Several of von Haxthausen’s comments deserve special mention. As mentioned previously (see here), von Haxthausen is eager to praise the Mennonites because he observes “Germanic” traits among and within them. Of course, the baron himself was German, which explains to a certain extent his dismissive attitude toward Russian peasants and high praise of Germanic ones (i.e., Mennonites). In other words, we should not regard von Haxthausen’s account as a sober, objective description of Mennonite life.
In spite of von Haxthausen’s ethnic-motivated bias in favor of the Mennonites, we can trust some elements of his description. For example, agriculture did play a central role within this particular branch of the the Mennonite community of faith, which sought to live as the “quiet in the land.” In addition, there was no professional class of clergy; rather, the leaders of and preachers in the church were lay ministers who worked just like everyone else.
Likewise, the practice of older children (one imagines teenagers) working within other homes as servants is attested elsewhere. Still, we should not imagine that every child so served or that every household was able to hire one or more servants. One wonders, how many of our ancestors served in the houses of others or, conversely, if any were able to employ others as servants. My understanding is that, as time went on, Mennonites employed more Russians than fellow Mennonites as servants, but this bears further examination.
At this point von Haxthausen turns his focus back on Johann Cornies:
Herr Kornies had only one son and daughter, the latter a pretty girl of eighteen, but as yet unbaptized, and he was said to have amassed a fortune of above a million roubles. It is not however to be inferred that disparity of fortune constitutes in all cases no barrier, or that a purse-proud spirit is not found here also occasionally. I heard various evils which were said to prevail among the Mennonites in the Circle of Khortitz [i.e., the Chortitza colony]; but these find no sympathy or response in the public opinions or the customs of the people: they are exceptions, not the rule.
We dined with Herr Kornies; the dinner consisted of genuine and very palatable household fare: everything placed on the table, even the wine, was the produce of his own farm; the dishes and furniture were old-fashioned and substantial. His wife and daughter did not dine with us; the former remained in the kitchen, and superintended the cooking, while the daughter waited upon the guests at dinner, according to the old German custom. On the 26th of July I drove with Herr Kornies to the [430] other German colonies, which are mostly inhabited by Würtemberg [an area in soutwest Germany] peasants, etc. Neither the order and discipline nor the wealth and comfort which are found among the Mennonites prevail here. These colonies languished for a long period, but they have in some degree revived of late, and in some of the villages there begins to be an appearance of wealth.
I have described in this detailed manner the economical state of the Mennonite colony on the Malotchnaya, as it furnishes the strongest proofs of German industry, love of order, cultivation and morality, and likewise because its importance to Russia has not yet been sufficiently recognized. In no district of Russia is there so high a state of civilization, or of the culture of the soil. The Mennonites may serve as a model, to the Government and people, of what may be effected by industry, morality, and order; and likewise in the cultivation and particularly the planting of the Steppe and the whole of Southern Russia, which is indeed the most important point in the whole internal policy of the country. If entire Southern Russia were cultivated like this district, Moscow and St. Petersburg would no longer be the sole centres of the Empire, but their privileges in this respect would be shared by Kharkof, or Ekaterinoslaf and Odessa. (von Haxthausen 1856, 1:429–30)
On the 28th of July I bade adieu to these worthy people. Herr Kornies accompanied me as far as Terpcnic, where I parted from him, and continued my journey toward the tongue of land which separates the Putrid Sea from the Sea of Azof.
We dined with Herr Kornies; the dinner consisted of genuine and very palatable household fare: everything placed on the table, even the wine, was the produce of his own farm; the dishes and furniture were old-fashioned and substantial. His wife and daughter did not dine with us; the former remained in the kitchen, and superintended the cooking, while the daughter waited upon the guests at dinner, according to the old German custom. On the 26th of July I drove with Herr Kornies to the [430] other German colonies, which are mostly inhabited by Würtemberg [an area in soutwest Germany] peasants, etc. Neither the order and discipline nor the wealth and comfort which are found among the Mennonites prevail here. These colonies languished for a long period, but they have in some degree revived of late, and in some of the villages there begins to be an appearance of wealth.
I have described in this detailed manner the economical state of the Mennonite colony on the Malotchnaya, as it furnishes the strongest proofs of German industry, love of order, cultivation and morality, and likewise because its importance to Russia has not yet been sufficiently recognized. In no district of Russia is there so high a state of civilization, or of the culture of the soil. The Mennonites may serve as a model, to the Government and people, of what may be effected by industry, morality, and order; and likewise in the cultivation and particularly the planting of the Steppe and the whole of Southern Russia, which is indeed the most important point in the whole internal policy of the country. If entire Southern Russia were cultivated like this district, Moscow and St. Petersburg would no longer be the sole centres of the Empire, but their privileges in this respect would be shared by Kharkof, or Ekaterinoslaf and Odessa. (von Haxthausen 1856, 1:429–30)
On the 28th of July I bade adieu to these worthy people. Herr Kornies accompanied me as far as Terpcnic, where I parted from him, and continued my journey toward the tongue of land which separates the Putrid Sea from the Sea of Azof.
First we should clear up a minor disagreement between von Haxthausen’s quoting of Cornies about his daughters (plural) being free to marry anyone of good character and the following paragraph’s report that Cornies had only one daughter. Happily, the German original of von Haxthausen’s work is also available online, and it has the singular daughter (Tochter, not Töchter) in the quote of Cornies, which should be translated “My daughter may marry any one.”
Another matter of minor curiosity is Cornies’s net worth: 1,000,000 rubles. It is exceedingly difficult to compare the value of Russian currency in 1843 with our own currency today. More enlightening is to look at Cornies’s wealth within his own context. As noted in an earlier extract above, a Mennonite servant earned between 30 and 70 silver rubles a year (see here for 1860 evidence that these 1843 figures are annual wages). If so, then Cornies’s 1,000,000 (silver?) rubles would be equivalent to the annual wages of over 14,000 servants being paid 70 rubles a year. Another angle on Cornies’s wealth is provided by his own 1827 correspondence about the purchase and sale of Merino sheep to the community herd. Cornies apparently funded the initial purchase of 219 sheep on his own and then asked the Molotschna Mennonite District Office to pay him 24,000 rubles (110 rubles a sheep) for those that would become community property. The District Office could not expend such an amount and asked to pay off the debt over a ten-year period (see Cornies 2015, 209–10, text 142). It seems that Cornies was not only wealthier than all other Mennonites in Molotschna but was also in this case better off than the community treasury.
Of interest also is von Haxthausen’s return to his praise of the Mennonites as exemplars of all that was good about German values and culture. On his tour of Russia, the baron was no disinterested observer but rather an ambassador and advocate for things German. That being said, he was not alone in regarding the Mennonites as model farmers; the Russian government agreed that all those who lived around the Mennonites should emulate their practices so that the steppe could be transformed from grassland to cropland whose harvests would not only feed a nation but also stoke an economy by exporting grain to other countries across Europe and beyond.
* A glance through the German edition of von Haxthausen’s work reveals that in some places the English translation abridged his original text significantly. Further investigation of his original report of the Russian Mennonites is warranted.
* A glance through the German edition of von Haxthausen’s work reveals that in some places the English translation abridged his original text significantly. Further investigation of his original report of the Russian Mennonites is warranted.
Works Cited
Cornies, Johann. 2015. Transformation on the Southern Ukrainian Steppe: Letters and Papers of Johann Cornies. Volume 1: 1812–1835. Translated by Ingrid I. Epp. Edited by Harvey L. Dyck, Ingrid I. Epp, and John R. Staples. Tsarist and Soviet Mennonite Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Haxthausen, August von. 1847. Studien über die innern Zustände, das Volksleben und insbesondere die ländlichen Einrichtungen Russlands. 2 vols. Hanover: Hahn. Available online: vol. 1, vol. 2. For the section on the Mennonites, see pages 171–96 in volume 2.
———. 1856. The Russian Empire: Its People, Institutions and Resources. Translated by Robert Farie. 2 vols. London: Chapman & Hall. Available online: vol. 1, vol. 2.
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