Alexanderwohl 40

We continue our examination of the 1848 Alexanderwohl Gemeindebericht with the second and third paragraphs. As before, the translation of the community report appears first, followed by explanation and evaluation of the accuracy of select portions of the report.

When this local community, which had existed as a church community in Prussia for over two hundred years, emigrated to Russia under the leadership of its church elder, Peter Wedel, and had pitched camp to rest for two days on the south side of the city of Warsaw, Emperor Alexander I, now resting in God, drove out of the city to maneuver a military unit in the field. But we, having been made aware by some passing generals, stood in eager anticipation when the emperor passed by, halted his coach, and waved us with his right hand. Three of our church leaders went there, who were asked from where we came and where we wanted to go. To the answer that we wanted to go to the Molotschna in southern Russia, the emperor said, “I wish you luck on your journey; greet your brothers. I have been there.” This happened on 14 September 1820.

Upon arrival in the Molotschna, these greetings were relayed promptly by our church elder Peter Wedel in the prayer houses before the assembled communities. When the Office in Ekaterinoslav was also informed of this memorable event, Chief Justice Fadeev commemorated it by naming the colony Alexanderwohl, for he said, “Emperor Alexander has wished you well.”

local community … church community. Of some interest is the distinction between the community as a localized group (hiesige Gemeinde) and as an organized congregation (Kirchgemeinde), using the same term Gemeinde in both contexts. It may be that the former descriptor focuses on the group as a Molotschna village, which is more a political entity, while the latter term clearly has the congregation in view.

had existed as a church community in Prussia for over two hundred years. The reference here is, of course, to the Przechovka church that we have frequently encountered. The community report puts the age of the Przechovka church at more than two hundred years before it left Prussia/Poland for Molotschna, so sometime before 1620. Although we should not press the report for precision, the dating seems roughly accurate, with the first documentary evidence for Mennonites in the area dated to 1642 (see Duerksen 1955, 77).

We have already examined carefully the account of the meeting south of Warsaw (see here, here, here, and here), so the remainder of this post will note only matters of particular interest. By way of reminder, the posts linked above established that the account of Alexander meeting the Przechovka Mennonites is entirely plausible, though such a meeting is not the most likely explanation of the naming of the village.

emigrated … under the leadership of its church elder, Peter Wedel. The community report ignores the fact that members of the Przechovka church emigrated to Molotschna as early as 1819 and continued to emigrate at least through 1822. The report focuses on the one group that really matters in terms of the story being told: the one that encountered the Russian emperor Alexander I in late 1820. This group was indeed led by elder (Ältester) Peter Wedel, who was discussed earlier here, so the report is reliable on this point.

now resting in God. A more idiomatic rendering would be “may he rest in peace.” Alexander I died of typhus in 1825.

to maneuver a military unit in the field. The original does not allow us to determine if Alexander was leading maneuvers or watching maneuvers, so the ambiguous (and awkward) phrasing has been retained.

we … stood in eager anticipation when the emperor … waved us. The shift from third-person (its church elder) to the first-person we and us is abrupt and unexpected. Whether the writer of this section was actually present at the meeting twenty-eight years earlier cannot be determined from the first-person references; it may well be that the writer is exercising literary license in order to heighten the sense of immediacy in his telling of the event.

prayer houses. The German term Bethaus generally refers to a building used for church functions, often on a temporary basis; it is not what one would classify as a church building per se. The use of the term in this context likely reflects a carryover from the Mennonite experience in Poland, where they first were prohibited from constructing church buildings, then allowed to do so in the mid-1700s provided that their worship buildings did not resemble a typical church of that day. Within this context, Mennonites typically referred to their houses of worship as prayer houses. Thus the term no doubt included the church building at Ohrloff (contructed 1809; see Friesen 1996, 275) and all other buildings in which the Molotschna Mennonites gathered for worship.   

I wish you luck on your journey. … Alexander has wished you well. Worth noting once again (see the links above) is the disconnect between what Alexander actually said and how it was reported with the naming of the village. Although the story of the Przechovka Mennonites encountering Alexander is likely historical, it does not explain the naming of the village. In all likelihood, Fadeev named the village as an expression of well wishes to Alexander, not as a commemoration of well wishes from him. 

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The accuracy of this account has been thoroughly discussed in the posts linked above. Suffice it to say that, as before, the Gemeindebericht is found to be generally reliable, though not entirely accurate in all of its details.

Works Cited

Duerksen, J. A. 1955. Przechowka and Alexanderwohl: Beginnings of Alexanderwohl, Tabor, Hoffnungsau and Other Churches. Mennonite Life 10:76–82. Available online here.

Friesen, Rudy P., with Sergey Shmakin. 1996. Into the Past: Buildings of the Mennonite Commonwealth. Winnepeg: Raduga.