Alexanderwohl 43

The last post in this series on the Alexanderwohl Gemeindebericht (here) began our examination of the final paragraph of the 1848 report; this post will offer commentary on a crucial sentence in the history of Alexanderwohl and the rhetoric of the report. For the sake of convenience, the entire paragraph is repeated below, after which we begin where we left off.

The year of settlement, 1821, was unfruitful and returned only the seed sown. 1822 was fruitful, but grasshoppers came and caused significant damage for seven years. 1823 and 1824 were years of crop failure. The persistent storm of the first months of 1825 also resulted in a great loss of livestock for this community, since there was no food for them. At that time the livestock was fed straw from the roofs. In 1828, a devastating cattle disease prevailed. The most difficult year, however, was the starvation year 1833. The improved cattle and sheep breeding and the four-field farming system introduced through the efforts of Acting State Counsellor Contenius and under the leadership of the Agricultural Society’s unforgettable Johann Cornies have brought the community to prosperity.

the starvation year 1833. After reporting on a series of difficult years after the village’s founding, the report ends the string with what it describes as the most difficult year: das Hungerjahr 1833, the year of hunger, famine, starvation. 

According to David Moon, the disaster of 1833 had begun a year earlier: “In 1832 the whole of the southern part of Russia and the Ukraine had been hit by a serious harvest failure. The problem was exacerbated in many areas when the harvest failed for a second year in succession in 1833” (Moon 1993, 41). Other sources indicate that some localized areas, including several villages in Molotschna, were also plagued by cattle diseases.

As Moon notes, the problem was not a localized phenomenon. In fact, “all the southern, and some central, provinces, stretching from the Carpathian mountains in the west to the Caucasus in the south-east” suffered under extreme drought, hot winds, and widespread harvest failure. “Reports indicated that all hope had been lost of harvests of winter and spring grain in Ekaterinoslav, Kherson, Tauride, Caucasus, Poltava, Slobodsko-Ukraine (later Khar’kov), Voronezh, and Penza provinces, and some districts of Saratov province” (2013, 66). The Molotschna colony was located in Taruide guberniya (governorate or province) and thus was in the area hardest hit. 

The red arrow is pointing to the area of Molotschna colony. After Moon 1993, 27.

Alexanderwohl was not the only Molotschna village to single out 1833 as the worst year during the Mennonite sojourn in Molotschna. Other Gemeindeberichten gave a similar account. Halbstadt noted that 1833 was a year of complete crop failure (gänzlicher Mißwachs), and Muntau reported that “in the years 1833 and 1834 the distress exceeded all previous events.” Lindenau and Ladekopp also labeled 1833 as the Hungerjahr. Franztal listed both famine and a cattle epidemic (Hungersnot und Viehseuche) for 1833, while Mariental, Alexandertal, Wernersdorf, and Sparrau described 1833 as a terrible year of hardship (schreckliche Notjahr).

Several of the community reports also reference the relief efforts undertaken by the government and wealthy individuals in the community to secure food and fodder to keep Molotschna’s residents and livestock alive. The Muntau report states:

The authorities established a chief commission over all the colonies, which made a loan so that they could purchase grain from distant regions. The commissions set up for the individual colonies were responsible to distribute the purchased grain among the destitute, but in such a way that they were obliged to repay everything later. 

The Halbstadt report describes a parallel relief effort: “Bread grains for the needy were purchased in Poland with funds borrowed from wealthy residents.” Moon confirms the Russian government’s intervention across the affected area, which included making loans to landowners, postponing the collection of taxes, allowing duty-free importation of grain, and giving peasants permission to hunt and sell wild game (1993, 42). In spite of all these efforts, many Russian peasants fled their estates illegally in hopes of escaping the famine. 

Johann Cornies, not surprisingly, offers us a thorough description of the situation. In a letter penned 26 August 1833, he writes:

This year’s total crop failure, particularly in all local guberniias, is causing serious shortages. Some of our neighbours are starving. In our community, starvation has been avoided by communal efforts and arrangements we find beneficial. It is still impossible, however, for us to sustain our livestock through the winter. Because no hay and virtually no pasturage is available, thousands of animals will be destroyed. This fodder shortage extends over an area of approximately 300 verstas [200 miles]. Several thousand head of livestock have been accommodated for the winter in distant guberniias at the frightfully high price of four to five rubles per sheep. But where will people without means take their livestock? I have provided for the livestock on my sheep farm by buying winter fodder. To protect almost 4,000 sheep with the Nogais and on my breeding farm, I have today also sent someone out to buy feed and pasturage in the Black Sea region near Kinburn, about 250 to 300 verstas away. We look towards the future with sadness. … The price of grain is currently at twenty-two to twenty-five rubles per chetvert for rye, twenty-six to twenty-eight for wheat, and twelve to fourteen for oats. Almost nothing is available of these grains and there is no barley. We expect that when deputies sent out by the community to purchase 5,000 to 6,000 chetverts of grain return, grain will be more readily available, but not at a lower price. (Cornies 2015, 336)

With the year 1833 the community report reaches a nadir in its history of Alexanderwohl. From the founding in 1821 until the year of starvation, the village was on a steady progression downward.

1821: unfruitful
1822: grasshoppers
1823: crop failure
1824: crop failure
1825: livestock lost
1828: cattle disease
1833: the year of starvation

From this lowest point in Alexanderwohl’s history and community report, everything changes in the following, and last, sentence of the Gemeindebericht, which we will take up in the following post.

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.

Moon, David. 1993. Russian Peasants and Tsarist Legislation on the Eve of Reform: Interaction between Peasants and Officialdom, 1825–1855. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

———. 2013. The Plough That Broke the Steppes: Agriculture and Environment on Russia’s Grasslands, 1700–1914. Oxford Studies in Modern European History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.