Alexanderwohl 1

Whether or not Benjamin Heinrich Buller stands in our direct family line, the Molotschna village in which he lived—Alexanderwohl—is of central importance to the Russian phase of the larger Buller family history. It was in Alexanderwohl, for example, that Bullers first lived in Molotschna (as far as we know), and it was in Alexanderwohl that the majority of Bullers lived during the first half-century of the colony’s existence. Consequently, Alexanderwohl warrants attention alongside the Benjamin Buller series (which we will continue).

We begin with geography, with a satellite photo that helps us place Alexanderwohl in relation to other villages that we have encountered.

The modern village names are too small to read, but only three need to be highlighted (the numbers below correspond to those on the map):

1. modern Svitle = Mennonite Alexanderwohl
2. modern Vladivka = Mennonite Waldheim
3. modern Hrushivka = Mennonite Alexanderkrone

Waldheim, which was established seventeen years after Alexanderwohl and counted Benjamin Benjamin and David Benjamin Buller among its early residents, was located roughly 8 miles east of Alexanderwohl. Alexanderkrone, where Peter D and family lived before moving less than a mile west to Kleefeld (no longer extant), was roughly 7 miles south of Alexanderwohl. Clearly, the three main villages with which our family was associated were relatively close.

With a clearer sense of where Alexanderwohl fits within the broader context, we are ready to zoom in on the village itself. The following map shows the layout of Alexanderwohl around 1874. The names of the plot owners do not interest us at this point, some fifty years after the village was founded, but the layout itself does, since the division into Wirtschaften likely remained unaltered.

The extension of the village around a bend to the west is probably a somewhat later development and not part of the original settlement. An aerial photo of Svitle/Alexanderwohl today reveals that the modern village retains its former shape.

The original part of Alexanderwohl is of greatest interest, so we will focus—visually and otherwise—on that.

The original village was laid out, as one can see, as a series of thirty numbered plots; the two plots at the east end are unnumbered in this map. The numbering begins at the northwest corner and proceeds east through number 15, then crosses the center street to the south and picks up with 16 on the east end and proceeds west through number 30 on the west. One element of the numbering is uncertain at this point: the 1835 census we have referenced lists plots 1–32 for Alexanderwohl, so clearly by that time there were thirty-two plots, not merely thirty. Presumably the two unnumbered plots on the east were counted in 1835, but how they were numbered remains unknown. This may affect where we locate Benjamin in Alexanderwohl (below).

Several landmarks deserve mention. The red number 2 marks the site of the school in the center of the village, where many Molotschna schools were located. I have not yet discovered when the school was built, but it was probably early in Alexanderwohl’s history, since the school building doubled as the congregational meeting house until a church building (number 4) was constructed in the 1860s.

Note that Alexanderwohl had both an old (5) and a newer (6) cemetery. Presumably the old one served the needs of the early settlers, but as time went on and generations passed, a larger area was set aside closer to the location of the new church building.

Finally, the plot that Johann and Katharina Ratzlaff owned and at which Benjamin Heinrich Buller lived was Alexanderwohl 16 (number 3 above). If the numbers on the 1874 map are same as the plot assignments of 1835 village, then we know where Benjamin lived. However, it is possible (though not likely, in my view) that the plot numbering changed over those four decades, in which case we do not know exactly where Benjamin spent his final years.

Assuming that Alexanderwohl 16 in Benjamin’s day was located in the same place as on the map, we can spot roughly, if not exactly, where Johann, Katharina, and Benjamin lived on a satellite photo of the east end of Svitle.

The numbering is the same in the photo as in the map, so the church is on the left (4), and eight plots to the right (east) is the likely site of Alexanderwohl 16, where we think the final home of Benjamin Heinrich Buller was located. 

We are not yet finished with Alexanderwohl or with satellite photos of its modern equivalent Svitle. The next post in this series will explore how a bird’s-eye view might expand and even clarify our understanding of a significant site in this Molotschna village. 

Map Credit

The map of Alexanderwohl is taken from Duerksen and Duerksen 1987, 25. The map itself offers further credit as follows: Richard H. Schmidt, 1981. Adapted from a sketch by Peter Boase, born in Alexanderwohl in 1863, and a map by Abraham Warkentine, teacher in the village school in 1912. Prepared in consultation with Bernhard Sawatzky, Gerhard G. Baergen and Franz Klassen, all thoroughly acquainted with the Alexanderwohl village.

Work Cited

Duerksen, Velda Richert, and Jacob A. Duerksen, trans. 1987. Church Book of the Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church in the Molotschna Colony of South Russia. Translation of the Kirchen Buch der Gemeinde zu Alexanderwohl. Goessel, KS: Mennonite Immigrant Historical Foundation.