Alexanderwohl 39

It has been over two months since we last turned our gaze toward Alexanderwohl, but we are not yet finished with that Molotschna village. A full recap is offered at the previous post in the series (see here); I highly recommend that you reread that post as a refresher before moving on. (I had to do the same.)

In case you have forgotten why we are interested in Alexanderwohl, recall that one of our ancestors, Benjamin Heinrich Buller, took up residence in that village in 1821. Benjamin Heinrich was the father of Benjamin Benjamin, who was the father of David Benjamin, who was the father of Peter D, who was the father of Peter P, who was the father of Grandpa Chris. Alexanderwohl was thus our family’s first Molotschna home, as it were. This is why Alexanderwohl is important to us and why we are devoting so much time to learning about the village.

As we have learned thus far (see the earlier recap), the 1848 Gemeindebericht, or community report, is largely reliable but does contain the types of errors or, perhaps better, inaccuracies that one would expect in a report based on the memories of people recalling and recounting events twenty-five years after the fact. 

Given the mix of accurate and inaccurate information in the report, it makes sense for us to work carefully through the report paragraph by paragraph both to explain the information presented by it and to evaluate the accuracy of the statements made. Sort of in the manner of a commentary, we shall do precisely that over the course of the next few posts. We begin with the first paragraph, then follow with commentary on select phrases from the report (formatted in bold).

This colony was founded in 1821 under the administration of the chief justice in the Office for Foreign Settlers in Ekaterinoslav, Mr. Fadeev, and the leadership of the district mayor, Gerhard Ens of Altonau. It is located on the left bank of the Behemtscherkark (Begin Tschokrar), a distance of 47 wersts from Orechow and 90 wersts from Berdjansk. The gently rolling land consists of rich black soil in the lowlands and a mixture of clay and loam on the higher ground, and is suitable for agriculture, pasture, and cultivation of trees, but not for production of abundant hay.

This colony. Although we refer to the entire Mennonite community as the Molotschna colony, at that time and place the term colony (German Kolonie) designated a village. Thus colony here refers to the village Alexanderwohl.

founded in 1821. The main party from Przechovka, Poland, journeyed to Molotschna in late August–September 1820. We do not know where the future residents of Alexanderwohl spent the winter, but we can say with certainty that the village was established the following year, in 1821.

Office for Foreign Settlers in Ekaterinoslav. The name of the governmental department listed is not precisely accurate. The official title was Fürsorge-Komitee für die Kolonisten der südlichen Gebiete Russlands (Russian: Канцелярия опекунства Иностранных Колонистов в южных регионах России), which is generally translated Guardianship Committee for Foreign Settlers in the Southern Regions of Russia (or simply: … in New Russia). According to John R. Staples, “The Committee was headquartered in Kishinev until 1834, when it relocated to Odessa. Until 1834, a local Guardianship Committee Bureau in Ekaterinoslav oversaw New Russian Mennonite affairs with considerable autonomy from Kishinev; after 1834, the Molochnaia and Khortitsa Mennonites answered directly to the central offices in Odessa” (introduction in Cornies 2015). Therefore, apart from the casual naming of the committee, the community report conveys accurate information.

chief justice … Mr. Fadeev. The report spells this individual’s name Fadejew, which is an acceptable variant, given the lack of uniform spelling in the nineteenth century. Andrei M. Fadeev served as the chairman of the Guardianship Committee from 1818 to 1836, so the community report is correct to name him as the chief governmental officer over the Molotschna colony in 1821.

district mayor, Gerhard Ens of Altonau. According to an official document included among  the papers of Johann Cornies (2015, 6), a Mennonite named Toews was district chairman (i.e., district mayor) as late as 19 May 1820; another individual named Enns was his deputy. According to a note later in the Cornies volume, “Gerhard Enns of Altonau was one of [Johann] Cornies’ closest allies in the Molochnaia. He was deputy chair of the District from 1818–22 and chair from 1822–6” (28 n. 3). Notice the dates carefully. In fact, it appears that the community report is mistaken to name Gerhard Enns as district mayor at the time of the village’s founding. He did not become district mayor until the year after Alexanderwohl was established.

On the other hand, the report correctly locates Gerhard Enns at Altonau; the 1835 Molotschna census indicates that Gerhard Johann Enns settled Altonau Wirtschaft 16 in 1804 and still lived there at the time of the census. The note quoted above continues:

One of the wealthiest Molochnaia Mennonites, he [Enns] was the foremost wool merchant in the Molochnaia. In 1831, he became one of the original members of the Forestry Society, and in 1836, he took the same role in the Agricultural Society. In the 1840s, Enns became one of the two biggest silk manufacturers in the Molochnaia.

Given Enns’s later tenure as district mayor and prominence in Molotschna colony, it is no wonder that his name was remembered and the actual district mayor in 1821 forgotten by the writers of the report and remembered today only as someone named Toews.

left bank of the Behemtscherkark (Begin Tschokrar). It is not at all obvious how the writers of the report arrived at the first spelling; it appears to be unique to this document. Thankfully, the report clarifies the name of the river: Begin Tschokrar, more properly known as the Behim-Chokrak today. Alexanderwohl was founded on the south side of the stream, so identifying that side as the left bank indicates a west-facing orientation, which was also looking downstream. According to those who know about such things, one should always look downstream when deciding which bank is the left and which the right.

a distance of 47 wersts from Orechow and 90 wersts from Berdjansk. A werst—more commonly spelled verst—was a Russian unit of measurement equivalent to .663 miles. Thus, the distances given were equivalent to roughly 31 and 60 miles. The first city listed is known as Orikhiv today (but also spelled Orechov, after the Russian Орехов). The city lies almost directly north of Alexanderwohl, 28 miles as the crow flies. The port city of Berdyansk, or Berdiansk, is roughly 50 miles to the southeast of Alexanderwohl. It seems reasonable to think that the measurements given were based on the roads traveled from Alexanderwohl to each city and thus differed from the straight-line distances we use today. Notice that no directions are given for the two reference points; it seems that anyone reading the report was expected to know that Orikhiv was to the north and Berdyansk to the southeast.

agriculture, pasture, and cultivation of trees. The description of the land around Alexanderwohl is self-evident and can be taken as reliable, since the report writers were describing the very land that they farmed. We need note only that the three agricultural activities listed reflect the time when the report was written, 1848, not the entire history of the village. In Molotschna colony’s early years the agricultural economy centered around animal husbandry, hence the importance of pasture. By the 1830s the cultivation of trees, including fruit trees, became a vital concern. Over time the cultivation of field crops (agriculture) grew in importance, so that by 1848 it was the leading agricultural activity in the colony.

not for production of abundant hay. This meaning of this statement is simple and straightforward, but the background to it is not obvious. If I understand correctly, hay was generally, or at least often, grown in the lowlands along a river. If so, it seems that Alexanderwohl did not have abundant space along the Behim-Chokrak to grow substantial amounts of hay.

This brings us to the end of the first paragraph of the Alexanderwohl Gemeindebericht. We have seen, as we did before, that the community report is generally accurate but does contain some errors. The next post in this series will continue on with the next paragraphs, a process that we will repeat until we have worked our way through the entire report.

Work 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.