We know what likely motivated many Waldheim residents to leave their new home in 1848, and we even have learned a fair amount about the person who apparently stood at the center of the storm: Elder Peter H. Schmidt. What we have yet to uncover is why the Waldheim residents who departed did not immediately return, as apparently many others did (per John Staples), when Johann Cornies’s control over the lives of the Molotschna Mennonites ended with his death.
The circumstances of Schmidt’s own departure from Waldheim may offer a hint, but first we should learn more about travel within the Russian Empire during this time. Our guide is someone from whom we have already gained much: David Moon, the author of The Plough That Broke the Steppes: Agriculture and Environment on Russia’s Grasslands, 1700–1914. For this post we turn to his essay “Peasant Migration, the Abolition of Serfdom and the Internal Passport System in the Russian Empire, c.1800–1914” (2002).
Moon sets the broad historical context for the regulation of travel within Russia’s boundaries, and his entire essay is well worth reading. To summarize, historically Russia sought to control the movement of its subjects, especially peasants, in order to ensure that nobles and government officials did not have to worry about its labor force moving away and to guarantee that there were adequate bodies to be conscripted into the army.
In the early eighteenth century (30 October 1719), Peter the Great both expanded and regularized the law “by introducing a system of internal passports for the entire population” (Moon 2002, 326). The phrase entire population is key here. Although the peasantry provided the impetus for the new legal constraints and the internal passport system, the entire population were governed by them—including foreign colonists such as the Mennonites. Moon explains that the “fundamental principle” of the 1719 law was simply: “No one may leave their place of permanent residence without a legitimate permit or passport” (327, quoting article 1 of the Digest of Regulations concerning Passports and Fugitives, which was volume 14 of the 1857 edition of the Digest of Laws of the Russian Empire).
Moon then discusses the lengths to which the Russian government went to enforce the law and what consequences law-breakers suffered (military service, hard labor, often exile to Siberia). Moon also notes that enforcement was not as rigorous in frontier regions such as New Russia (aka Ukraine), since labor there was in short supply and officials were more likely to welcome “illegal” migrant workers. The latter may be of significance for our interests.
Something that obviously was relevant for the Waldheim residents who left was the passport system itself. Moon explains that there were three types of internal passports, each appropriate for a different type of travel (Moon 2002, 327–28).
The three types of papers (permit, pass, passport) were also distinguished in other ways. Permits, for example, were issued to peasants by their owners, stewards, or village elders or officials, passes by “estate owners, their managers, or local state authorities.” Finally, passports all originated from the “district offices of the state treasury, which were to keep a record of them,” although village were allowed to keep already-approved blank passports to issue as needed (Moon 2002, 327–28).
What relevance does all this have for the Waldheim residents who resettled in Heinrichsdorf in 1848? First, it should be clear by now that these Mennonites, although free (relatively speaking) colonists, not indentured peasants, still had to abide by Peter the Great’s law: it applied to all members of the population. Consequently, the Waldheim group needed permission to relocate north to Volhynia. They could not simply pack up and move.
Second, their journey was not a jaunt to a nearby market to sell grain (a common use of the permit) but a lengthy journey to a destination hundreds of miles away. Clearly, each one leaving had to secure either a pass (from the local state authorities) or a passport (possibly from the village mayor). Each person would have to pay some amount for the privilege of moving to another part of the empire.
Of course, the fact that they were moving, not merely traveling somewhere and back, introduces a complication: How did the internal passport system work for those who wished to relocate? Moon does not address this question directly, but he offers enough evidence that we can suggest a probable (or at least reasonable) explanation.
Moon mentions that “peasant migrant laborers were obliged to present their documents to the police when [they] arrived at their destinations” (2002, 329). The Waldheim Mennonites obviously were not peasants or migrant laborers, but the same principle probably applied.
Specifically, one imagines that each head of household wishing to leave not only had to apply for permission to travel to Volhynia but also was required to list the names of all those who would travel with him or her and state the purpose of the journey, in this case, to live in Volhynia. The granting of permission would thus cover both the journey and the outcome: relocation. Once the head of household reached the destination, he or she would check in with the police (or local authorities) and present the pass/passport to prove that the journey and its purpose were authorized. The Volhynian official would then certify that the holder of the paper had full permission to remain in the new home. To repeat: we do not know that the system worked precisely as described, but this scenario seems to correspond well to all that we do know about Russia’s internal passport system.
Why this long detour? Now that we have adequate background to the lived reality of the Waldheim group (which, we should remember, included our own ancestors Benjamin and Helena and their son David and his wife Helena and even their son Peter, who was born in 1845), we can examine with increased understanding and insight a primary (i.e., contemporary) source that records important data about the group who left. We will pick up the story at that point in the following post.
Work Cited
Moon, David. 2002. “Peasant Migration, the Abolition of Serfdom and the Internal Passport System in the Russian Empire, c.1800–1914.” Pages 324–57 in Coerced and Free Migration: Global Perspectives. Edited by David Eltis. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Moon sets the broad historical context for the regulation of travel within Russia’s boundaries, and his entire essay is well worth reading. To summarize, historically Russia sought to control the movement of its subjects, especially peasants, in order to ensure that nobles and government officials did not have to worry about its labor force moving away and to guarantee that there were adequate bodies to be conscripted into the army.
In the early eighteenth century (30 October 1719), Peter the Great both expanded and regularized the law “by introducing a system of internal passports for the entire population” (Moon 2002, 326). The phrase entire population is key here. Although the peasantry provided the impetus for the new legal constraints and the internal passport system, the entire population were governed by them—including foreign colonists such as the Mennonites. Moon explains that the “fundamental principle” of the 1719 law was simply: “No one may leave their place of permanent residence without a legitimate permit or passport” (327, quoting article 1 of the Digest of Regulations concerning Passports and Fugitives, which was volume 14 of the 1857 edition of the Digest of Laws of the Russian Empire).
Moon then discusses the lengths to which the Russian government went to enforce the law and what consequences law-breakers suffered (military service, hard labor, often exile to Siberia). Moon also notes that enforcement was not as rigorous in frontier regions such as New Russia (aka Ukraine), since labor there was in short supply and officials were more likely to welcome “illegal” migrant workers. The latter may be of significance for our interests.
Something that obviously was relevant for the Waldheim residents who left was the passport system itself. Moon explains that there were three types of internal passports, each appropriate for a different type of travel (Moon 2002, 327–28).
- “A written permit (vid) was sufficient for peasants traveling inside their own districts or less than 30 versty [ca. 20 miles].
- “Peasants traveling further than 30 versty but for less than six months needed a pass (bilet) written on official stamped paper.”
- “Finally, passports were required if peasants were traveling further than 30 versty and would be away for more than six months, up to a maximum of three years.”
The three types of papers (permit, pass, passport) were also distinguished in other ways. Permits, for example, were issued to peasants by their owners, stewards, or village elders or officials, passes by “estate owners, their managers, or local state authorities.” Finally, passports all originated from the “district offices of the state treasury, which were to keep a record of them,” although village were allowed to keep already-approved blank passports to issue as needed (Moon 2002, 327–28).
What relevance does all this have for the Waldheim residents who resettled in Heinrichsdorf in 1848? First, it should be clear by now that these Mennonites, although free (relatively speaking) colonists, not indentured peasants, still had to abide by Peter the Great’s law: it applied to all members of the population. Consequently, the Waldheim group needed permission to relocate north to Volhynia. They could not simply pack up and move.
Second, their journey was not a jaunt to a nearby market to sell grain (a common use of the permit) but a lengthy journey to a destination hundreds of miles away. Clearly, each one leaving had to secure either a pass (from the local state authorities) or a passport (possibly from the village mayor). Each person would have to pay some amount for the privilege of moving to another part of the empire.
Of course, the fact that they were moving, not merely traveling somewhere and back, introduces a complication: How did the internal passport system work for those who wished to relocate? Moon does not address this question directly, but he offers enough evidence that we can suggest a probable (or at least reasonable) explanation.
Moon mentions that “peasant migrant laborers were obliged to present their documents to the police when [they] arrived at their destinations” (2002, 329). The Waldheim Mennonites obviously were not peasants or migrant laborers, but the same principle probably applied.
Specifically, one imagines that each head of household wishing to leave not only had to apply for permission to travel to Volhynia but also was required to list the names of all those who would travel with him or her and state the purpose of the journey, in this case, to live in Volhynia. The granting of permission would thus cover both the journey and the outcome: relocation. Once the head of household reached the destination, he or she would check in with the police (or local authorities) and present the pass/passport to prove that the journey and its purpose were authorized. The Volhynian official would then certify that the holder of the paper had full permission to remain in the new home. To repeat: we do not know that the system worked precisely as described, but this scenario seems to correspond well to all that we do know about Russia’s internal passport system.
Why this long detour? Now that we have adequate background to the lived reality of the Waldheim group (which, we should remember, included our own ancestors Benjamin and Helena and their son David and his wife Helena and even their son Peter, who was born in 1845), we can examine with increased understanding and insight a primary (i.e., contemporary) source that records important data about the group who left. We will pick up the story at that point in the following post.
Work Cited
Moon, David. 2002. “Peasant Migration, the Abolition of Serfdom and the Internal Passport System in the Russian Empire, c.1800–1914.” Pages 324–57 in Coerced and Free Migration: Global Perspectives. Edited by David Eltis. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
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