Alexanderwohl 41

We continue our examination of the 1848 Alexanderwohl Gemeindebericht, or community report. The first two posts on this topic are here and here. As before, we will begin with a fresh translation of the report, followed by commentary on select words and phrases (set in bold font).

In 1821 twenty-two families settled there, seven in 1823, and yet one more in 1824, from the Schwetz district office in the Prussian region of Marienwerder. Before the arrival of the Germans, the unsettled steppe was held in lease by Johann Cornies, and used as a pasture by the Nogai and partially for agriculture by Russians.

Of the immigrants, twenty families received a crown advance of 4,104 rubles, 28 4/7 kopeks silver; their own funds amounted to about 8,570 rubles silver.

In 1821 twenty-two families settled…, seven in 1823, and yet one more in 1824. We considered the accuracy of these numbers in an earlier post (here), so we can summarize here. Contemporary immigration records nearly three decades earlier than the 1848 community report present a different picture. When comparing these records to the community report, it is important to keep in mind that the year of entry into Russia is often different from the year of settlement. For example, the largest body of Alexanderwohl residents entered Russia in late 1820 and settled in 1821. To simplify matters, the following summary correlates the two and presents only settlement dates.

As explained in the post linked above, Russian immigration records document at least twenty-three families settling in Alexanderwohl in the first year (1821); the more likely total is twenty-five families, since Peter Christian Dalke and Peter Benjamin Frey probably settled that same year as well (see here). Either way, the community report’s twenty-two is inaccurate. 

Also in contrast to the community report, immigration records list three settlers who settled in 1822 and only one in 1823; the report’s seven for 1823 finds no support in contemporary records. Finally, the community report states that the last settler arrived in 1824; the 1835 Molotschna census reports that this settler, Peter Franz Goerz, took up residence in 1826.

In the end, the community report correctly accounts for thirty settler families and places the majority of them in 1821; beyond that, it cannot be considered a reliable source for the settlement period of the village.

Schwetz district office in the Prussian region of Marienwerder. As noted earlier (here), West Prussia was divided into two administrative regions: one centered around its capital Danzig, the other around Marienwerder. Each region (or Regierungsbezirk) was subdivided into smaller districts (Kreise); Schwetz was one of the fifteen districts within Marienwerder (see the map here; for Schwetz, see here). The community report refers to Schwetz as the Landratsamt, or district office. This is historically accurate in two ways: Schwetz was designated the Kreis district office in the 1818 reorganization, and most of Alexanderwohl’s residents had previously lived in the immediate vicinity of Schwetz (modern Świecie). 

the Germans. Here the term Deutschen distinguishes Alexanderwohl’s settlers from the indigenous Russians (more properly, Ukrainians) and the Nogai. We should not assign too much ethnic precision to the term.

was held in lease by Johann Cornies. Although we cannot be certain, it appears that this clause addresses the legal status of the land, whereas the following clause describes its use. Also in question at first read is whether the statement is meant to apply specifically to the land in and around Alexanderwohl or more generally to the Molotschna colony. There is no doubt that Cornies leased land prior to the founding of Alexanderwohl; it is not clear, however, that the land he leased included Alexanderwohl and its environs. According to John R. Staples, in 1812 Cornies leased “3500 desiatinas (roughly 9500 acres) of pasture land along the Iushanle River just east of Ohrloff” (Staples 2009, 110–11). A 9,500-acre plot of land would comprise nearly fifteen sections, or—strictly for the purposes of illustration, with no hint that Cornies’s estate was this shape—a rectangle 3 miles wide and 5 miles long. As the map below makes clear, it is highly unlikely that Cornies’s original lease extended to the Alexanderwohl area, which was located on a different river 8 miles northeast of Iushanle (also known as Jushanlee or Yushanlee).

The original lease is included as  in the collection of Cornies’s papers we have cited from time to time (Cornies 2015, 3–4)

On 1 January 1812, the following contract to lease part of the land designated for Mennonite settlement was concluded by inspector for the Molochnaia colonies, Mr. Sieter, with the undersigned, the Mennonite Johann Cornies Jr. of Ohrloff.
     1. Johann Cornies Jr., Ohrloff, will lease whatever land remains after the Mennonites are settled, designated as tracts number sixty-two and fifty-eight on the Uezd map, plus whatever land remains after land belonging to the Crown village Bolshoi Tokmak and to Fuerstenau and Rueckenau villages has been subtracted. If it is decided to transplant the Schoensee community to one of the above numbered tracts, the area remaining after land designated for this community has been subtracted is also included, as well as land traded with the Nogai land district, east of the Iushanle [stream] as far as the border of tract number fifty-six. J. Cornies Jr. will assume the lease for the combined land described above for one year, from 1 January 1812 until 1 January 1813.
     2. To ensure that accounts are in order, leaseholder Johann Cornies will pay the Honourable Inspector 300 rubles rent for the land listed above for the specified time, 100 rubles when the contract is concluded, 100 rubles at the beginning of the second third of the lease period, and the last 100 rubles at the beginning of the last third.…

This lease was renewed annually for a number of years, well beyond the founding of Alexanderwohl. In fact, as late as 1836 Cornies asked the Russian government to sell him the land outright instead of continuing to lease it from them.

In the end, it seems highly unlikely that Cornies ever leased the land around Alexanderwohl, so either the Alexanderwohl community report is mistaken in thinking that he did or is speaking generally of the legal status of the entire Molotschna colony before “the Germans” arrived. The latter explanation seems the most likely.

used as a pasture by the Nogai and partially for agriculture by Russians. As noted above, this clause focuses on the use of the land prior to the Mennonites’ arrival. Again taking this as a general description, the community report distinguishes between two groups in the colony. The Nogai were, as we have read previously (here), seminomadic Muslims who lived primarily to the south of Molotschna. Cornies reported that “the predominant occupation of the Nogais is livestock breeding, and horse breeding is most favoured though it is not very profitable” (2015, 488). The steppeland that later Mennonites turned into productive farmland had formerly been Nogai pastureland.

To the north of Molotschna lay the state peasant land (shaded green in the map here) populated by Ukrainian and Russian peasants whom the Russian government relocated into the Molotschna region because their original locales were regarded as “land poor,” in other words, no longer able to sustain the increased population living there. The reference to these settlers as Russians should be understood first as a matter of convenience—the Molotshna area included at that time Germans, Russians, and the Nogai—then perhaps as a recognition that the Ukrainian and Russian peasants were members of the Russian Orthodox Church. At any rate, these “Russian” peasants were moved into the general area of Molotschna beginning in 1784 and extending through at least 1806. The Russian settlers were given smaller land grants than the Mennonites, and the land they were allotted was inferior to the Mennonite territory (see further Staples 2003, 29–32).

twenty families received a crown advance. In our earlier examination of immigration documents relevant to Alexanderwohl (here), we did confirm that twenty families received a government loan, that six funded their own settlement, and that four who moved to Alexanderwohl after living in the Molotschna for a number of years were ineligible for a government loan because they were not recent immigrants. The community report is accurate on this count.

4,104 rubles, 28 4/7 kopeks silver. The same post also listed the amount that each of these twenty families received to purchase necessary livestock and to establish a household. The total of all those amounts is 11,860 rubles. In this case, the community report is wildly unreliable.

their own funds amounted to about 8,570 rubles silver. In this case the community report is closer to reality, although still 20 percent off. The actual amount that the immigration records report was 10,700 rubles. Interestingly, here the community report admits that the precise amount is not known, that the total was about the number given. By contrast, the loan amount, which is off by a factor of nearly three, is given down to a fraction of a kopek, 1/100th of a ruble. The overly precise number may already be a hint at its fictional nature. The impression that the community report presumably wishes to give is that the Alexanderwohl settlers brought in double the cash that they need to take out on loan; in other words, from the very first day their presence was a financial net positive for the Russian government. The reality, however, is that they took out on loan slightly more than the brought in; they paid back those loans, of course, and their presence did enrich the Russian Empire greatly, but that did not happen overnight.

Works 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.

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

———. 2009. Johann Cornies, Money-Lending, and Modernization in the Molochna Mennonite Settlement, 1820s–1840s Journal of Mennonite Studies 27:109–27.