Franztal 15

Two paragraphs remain in the 1848 Franztal Gemeindebericht: one quite short and one exceedingly long. The short paragraph reads as follows:

At their request, eighteen families without funds received a crown advance of 10,721 paper rubles. The rest had their own assets totaling 15,260 paper rubles.

We have previously encountered Molotschna settlers receiving loans from the Russian government (see here). The purpose of these loans, you may recall, was to enable settlers without adequate means to establish their own farms. The loans were not available to all new immigrants, only to those who were assigned Wirtschaften.  

eighteen families. Peter Rempel lists twenty-seven families who settled in Franztal in 1819 (2007, 157–59). Although this probably does not include all of Franztal’s original founders, the information is likely representative enough for us to draw some general conclusions, keeping in mind that not all of the twenty-seven were assigned a Wirtschaft. Twelve of the families had no cash in hand when they arrived; eight others had 300 or fewer rubles. Given the fact that the typical loan for building a house was 589 rubles the following year, twenty of the twenty-seven families did not have sufficient cash to build a house. Thus the report’s report of eighteen families in need seems entirely plausible.

advance. The German word Kronsvorschuss, “crown advance,” makes it clear that the funding was not a gift but rather an advance against future income, that is, a loan that was expected to be repaid. 

10,721 paper rubles. At this time in Russia’s history there were two types of rubles: silver coins and bank notes (see further here). The former was more highly valued, the latter more common. Dividing the total amount of money loaned by the eighteen recipients tells us that the average loan was roughly 595 rubles, the amount typically needed to build and establish a household. 

15,260 paper rubles. The amount recorded here is not supported by the settlement reports in Rempel (2007, 157–59). The total cash held by the seven wealthiest families settling in Franztal was 3,950 rubles; the cumulative value of their livestock and other possessions was 2,495 rubles. The total value of their assets, then, was 6,445 rubles, less than half of the amount stated in the community report. We might explain this discrepancy in one of two ways. On the one hand, it is possible that the settlers did not report all of their assets to the government authorities when they entered Russia; if so, then the total listed in the Gemeindebericht may be correct. On the other hand, and in my opinion more likely, the Gemeindebericht may significantly overstate the amount brought into the colony, in order to give the impression that the settlers brought in more than they borrowed. Whatever the exact truth of the matter may be, we can say that, at its beginning, Franztal included several wealthy settlers and a much larger number of needy families who were no doubt grateful for the opportunity to build their own homes and establish their own farms.

Work Cited

Rempel. Peter. 2007. Mennonite Migration to Russia, 1788–1828. Edited by Alfred H. Redekopp and Richard D. Thiessen. Winnepeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society.