Franztal 1

From 1804 through 1863, the Mennonite settlers of Molotschna founded sixty new villages. Nearly a third of these villages—nineteen, to be exact—were established in the first two years of the colony’s existence. Due largely to the Napoleonic Wars, the pace slowed down considerably after that, with six founded between 1811 and 1819, but it picked up again in the 1820s, with another nineteen villages. The 1830s saw four new villages founded, with one in the 1840s, seven in the 1850s, and four in the 1860s.

Some of these villages were, and still are, quite well known, even some with which members of our family were associated. Waldheim, for example, where David Buller spent a considerable portion of his life and where he presumably was laid to rest, was founded halfway through this sixty-year period, in 1838 (see here for the dating), but it eventually became the largest village in the colony and was even home to several agricultural equipment manufacturers. Alexanderwohl, where our ancestor Benjamin Heinrich spent his final years, was founded a number of years earlier, in 1821. Early on it was known for being founded primarily by a sizable portion of the Przechovka church, who moved to Molotschna en masse; five decades later history repeated itself as nearly the entire Alexanderwohl congregation emigrated to the United States.

Franztal is a different story. Founded in 1820, this village is relatively unknown and little considered. Neither the four-volume Mennonitisches Lexikon, the five volumes of the Mennonite Encyclopedia, nor the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online (GAMEO) devotes even a brief article to this village. On the other hand, Frantzal in Neumark (along with Brenkenhoffswalde) is the subject of two entries (here and here), even though that Prussian/Polish village was a Mennonite village for a much shorter time than Franztal in Molotschna. 

It is not as though nothing is known of Franztal in Molotschna. The Mennonitische Geschichte und Ahnenforschung website, for example, provides information about and links to additional resources on Franztal from the time of its founding until well into the twentieth century (see here). Given the fact that Franztal was the first Molotschna village in which a member of our broader family lived, not to mention that it it is worth our time and effort, then, to assemble a coherent and complete narrative of the early years of this village.

The first part of the series will work carefully through the Franztal Gemeindebericht, or community report, just as we did with Alexanderwohl (see here). However, before we explore the history of the village, we need to locate it geographically, that is, place it on a map. The map below, which comes from the GAMEO website (here), will get us started.

The earliest settlements in Molotschna were made along the Molochna River that forms the western boundary of the colony. As new villages were established, they were often located along rivers that flow east–west and join the Molochna. Located in the middle of the map are two villages well known to us: Alexanderwohl (left line) and Waldheim (right line). Franztal can be seen on the far lower right of the map, on the very edge of the border of the colony.

A satellite photograph of the area today reveals an important truth: Franztal is no more.

The original villages Rudnerweide (modern Rozivka) and Grossweide (Prostore) are still identifiable. However, all the area where Franztal once stood is now merely field and farmland. This is not at all unusual; a number of other Mennonite villages in Molotschna suffered the same fate. 

The Mennonitische Geschichte und Ahnenforschung website confirms that by 2010 Franztal existed no more. In fact, the latest records provided for Franztal date to 1943–1945, that is, the last years of World War II. During this time the Soviet government relocated some Molotschna Mennonites east before the German army advanced through the region (this was not to protect the Mennonites but because the Soviets feared the German-speaking Mennonites would collaborate with their enemies); later, when the German army retreated west, many Mennonites went along in an attempt to escape the Soviet oppression. We do not know that Franztal ceased to exist at this time, but it is a reasonable hypothesis until more definitive information becomes available.