Exiting Waldheim 4

Why did more than half of the early residents of Waldheim leave within the first decade? It was likely not due to financial or social oppression, since many of the group leaving were landowners, and some were Waldheim’s original settlers. Further, although the Molotschna Agricultural Society claimed that unscrupulous politicians and land agents from the north tricked many Mennonites into leaving that same year (1848), the Waldheim group apparently was not so victimized, since they they had been planning their departure since 1845, and they ended up leasing land, not purchasing it, as the others Mennonites had done. The search for the cause or additional contributing factors goes on.

Although the last post did not highlight it, John Staples’s closing sentence merits special attention: “Apparently by the end of 1849 they [those who had left] had indeed returned to Molochna, but there is no further reference to them in statistical reports or Agricultural Society correspondence” (Staples 2003, 126). This statement does not relate directly to the Waldheim group, since most of them did not return in 1849, but it does hint at a possible contributing factor for why Mennonites first left and then returned in 1849 and after. More on that later.

First, however, we will consider another possible factor that prompted the Waldheimers (and others?) to leave Molotschna: the Agricultural Society. Space does not permit a full discussion of the origins of the Agricultural Society; suffice it to say for the moment that the Agricultural Society was created in 1836 as heir to two earlier advisory, and sometimes ruling, boards: the Sheep Society and the Forestry Society. (This and the following draw upon Staples 2003, 118–23; Urry 1989, 109–19, 126–37.)

The Agricultural Society was established by the Russian governing authorities but was managed by Mennonites, especially in the person of its chairman for life: Johann Cornies. “With the establishment of the Agricultural Society,” Staples writes,

Cornies entered the most important phase of his campaign to transform Mennonite society. He focused his activities on three principal themes: (1) more efficient allocation of limited Mennonite resources, (2) more efficient exploitation of those resources, and (3) rural industrialization. … He confidently believed that if the Agricultural Society “steadfastly directed its own business and tended to the well-being of its brothers,” the end result could only be “morality, industry and love of orderliness … upon which prosperity must follow.” (Staples 2003, 119)

Lofty goals indeed. Unfortunately, noble ends do not justify any and every means, which is precisely where many found Cornies lacking. Some of the Society’s actions were nonthreatening, to be sure. For example, “With members of his Committee, Cornies inspected agricultural activities in the colony, recommending and advising the farmers on new crops, techniques, and ways to improve livestock” (Urry 1989, 112). Moreover, many of Cornies and the Society’s policies led to remarkable increase in Molotschna productivity. Most notable of these was the introduction of a “four-field rotation system … with fields being sown in alternate years with barley, then wheat, then rye or oats, and finally being left fallow. The fallow was not left idle. The earth was deep-ploughed, thus exposing the soil to air and moisture” (Urry 1989, 115).

Other activities were not so benign. During Cornies’s chairmanship of the Forestry Society, Staples reports,

the society looked to reallocate existing farms more efficiently. Forestry Society regulations threatened that people who disobeyed society orders would be dispossessed of their land, and their farms would be given to young families willing to follow directives. On this basis, in at least one instance, Cornies apparently succeeded in convincing the district administration to evict a householder, seventy-year-old Cornelius Fast, from his farm. Cornies justified the eviction on the grounds that “Fast could not have maintained himself further on his farm, even without the [matter of] his not fulfilling the plantings, in that he is a man of almost 70 years without means.” A second important factor in the decision was that “a good, industrious farmer came along,” willing to take over the farm and work it properly. (Staples 2003, 120)

This action was a precursor of things to come.

Once the Agricultural Society was created, Cornies expanded his efforts to evict inferior farmers from their land and replace them with younger families that promised to abide by society policies. Farmers who failed to keep up the condition of their farms, whether as a result of alcoholism, marital problems, sloth, disease, or age, were pressured to turn over their land to younger families. These, it was expected, would be better able to meet the demands of Mennonite society as expressed by the Agricultural Society. (Staples 2003, 120–21)

Although one might excuse such actions as unfortunate but justifiable for the sake of the greater good, Cornies made matters worse by acting in a tyrannical way. According to Urry, Cornies “possessed a short temper and was not above physically assaulting recalcitrants. The obdurate nature of many Mennonites, however, was matched by Cornies’ own intolerance and seeming disregard for Mennonite traditions” (1989, 126). Cornies was, if nothing else, a polarizing figure who was loyally loved by some but disliked in every way by others.

What does this have to do with the decision of many of Waldheim’s early residents to leave within the first decade? Perhaps a great deal. As we noted long ago (here), Johann Cornies was vitally involved in the founding of Waldheim. Not only did he provide the village land from his lease holdings and give the town its name; he also managed the actual creation of the village. Staples elaborates on the sort of role that Cornies played:

Cornies drafted contracts defining the duties of families taking over farmsteads and pressed congregational officials to insist that such families sign them. When the Guardianship Committee placed Cornies in charge of establishing the new villages of Waldheim and Gnadenfeld (1835) and Landskrone (1839), he used the opportunities to rigorously apply his new standards to the new villages. (Staples 2003, 121)

The final clause is particularly arresting: “he used the opportunities to rigorously apply his new standards to the new villages.” The Mennonite ethos was usually not receptive to those who sought to exercise rigorous control, even when the controlling person was another Mennonite. By virtue of his role as the founder of the village of Waldheim, however, Cornies was in a position to enforce such control on the village residents.

I know of no extant record that directly supports this theory, but it seems plausible that some in Waldheim (and the other villages) left Molotschna in order to escape Cornies’s control. Resistance to Cornies would have been futile, of course, given Cornies’s record of seizing and redistributing property. There really were only two options: comply or leave.

We do not know that the scenario outlined here was actually the cause of the great Mennonite exodus of 1848, but it seems as plausible an explanation as any. Perhaps if we can access the Kammeral Liste that Staples cites (see the previous post), we can determine in which villages the ninety-nine families who left Molotschna originally lived. If the villages were largely those over which Cornies exercised great control, then the theory gains further credibility.

One final piece of evidence: the year 1849. Why might those who had left have begun to return so soon after leaving? Staples hints that their expectations of cheap land were disappointed and that they returned defeated. That may well have been the case. Nevertheless, another explanation is equally plausible: they returned because the reason for their leaving was now gone. That is, Johann Cornies died on 13 March 1848, and the news of his passing may have prompted those who left on account of him to return to a place they had never really wanted to leave in the first place.

To be clear, Staples’s theory and this one can both be correct at the same time; one does not exclude the other. That being said, neither of these explanations seems entirely accurate for the Waldheim group, since most of them did not return in 1849 or immediately after. Thus we still lack a sufficient explanation for the departure of the Waldheim group. They may well have decided to separate from Cornies and the Agricultural Society rather than comply with their demands, but some other reason must also have been in play. We will explore one final possibility in the following post.

Note

For a laudatory obituary for Cornies, see Harvey L. Dyck’s translation of the piece written by an agronomist named Gavel. Originally published in a supplemental issue of the Unterhaltungsblatt für deutsche Ansiedler im südlichen Rußland (October 1848; see here for the original), the translation can be accessed online here.

The Cornies family has its own blog here. Interestingly, John Staples left an extensive comment on the blog in which he discusses his own work on a biography of Cornies (here). It will be well worth reading once it sees the light of day.


Works Cited

Staples, John R. 2003. Cross-Cultural Encounters on the Ukrainian Steppe: Settling the Molochna Basin, 1783–1861. Tsarist and Soviet Mennonite Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Urry, James. 1989. None but Saints: The Transformation of Mennonite Life in Russia 1789–1889. Winnipeg: Hyperion.