Konstantinovka 3

As was already mentioned, Konstantinovka was not the only Mennonite village established on the Kazakh Steppe. In fact, there were a number of other villages founded at the same time in the same locale and throughout the region. This post will provide background to the larger phenomenon of Mennonite settlement in the Kazakh-Siberian region, so that we may understand Konstantinovka and other similar villages of interest within their proper contexts.

We have typically considered the Mennonite experience in Russia in terms of its westernmost sites: the Molotschna and Chortitza colonies. This is understandable, since our direct ancestors lived in Molotschna and left before any significant Mennonite emigration to the east. However, as noted earlier, Heinrich Buller, son of our ancestor David, and his family were part of a movement eastward. That emigration to what was loosely referred to as Siberia was not a minor event; rather, it extended over a number of years and involved large groups of people who founded a number of new colonies, each of which comprised multiple villages of Mennonites.

In fact, the Mennonite presence in Siberia and Kazakhstan was of such significance that the Journal of  Mennonite Studies devoted an in entire issue in 2012 to the Mennonites in Siberia (see here). One article in that issue is of particular interest for this post: Yulia I. Podoprigora’s “The Formation and Development of the Mennonite Congregations in Kazakhstan: From the End of the Nineteenth Century to the Early Twenty First Century.” Podoprigora divides Mennonite history in the region into four periods, which will give us a good framework for thinking about this topic.

Period 1 encompassed “The Late Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Centuries.” Emigration east began in the late 1880s with the followers of Abram Peters and Claas Epp, the latter of whom led a group of adherents to await Jesus’s imminent second coming somewhere “in the east.” Epp and his followers were disappointed, of course, but they remained in the east, and over the next decades large numbers of Mennonites moved to Siberia for more earthly reasons, namely, available land. 

Podoprigora reports that “fourteen Mennonite daughter settlements were established from 1900 to 1910 in Pavlodar uezd, Semipalatinsk oblast” (2012, 38; Pavlodar is the area that interests us). As Podoprigora explains, the new life on the wide open spaces of the steppe started out well but, with the coming of communist rule, took an alarming turn for the worse.

Mennonite congregations functioned in the aforementioned areas till the end of the 1920s and into the early 1930s when it became clear that they could not accept the new Soviet regime policies (collectivization, forced military service, anti-religious campaign, etc.). Many sought to emigrate. There were Mennonites who were at the forefront of the emigration movement in Pavlodar uezd. One observer noted that “in Mennonite settlements an inclination for emigration to America was especially noticeable.” Similar emigration sentiments were shared by Mennonite community members of Southern Kazakhstan, who in the late 1880s had considered Central Asia as a place of refuge but in the late 1920s “were burning with one desire, to emigrate.” During this initial period, some Mennonites emigrated but those who stayed were no longer able to observe religious practices as meeting houses were closed and presbyters and deacons were repressed. (2012, 39)

Period 2, “From the Early 1930s to the Early 1940s,” was a time of oppression. The Mennonites who had been unable to emigrate in the late 1920 were effectively living within a prison: they had no chance to leave the Soviet Union and little freedom within it. In addition, this period “was characterized by the forced, repressive resettlement of [other] Mennonites to Kazakhstan.” In the 1930s many Mennonites were designated kulaks (wealthy peasants), thus enemies of the people, and sent into exile in the east. The following decade, during and after World War II, the Mennonites and countless other Germans were deported to various areas of Kazakhstan, including the formerly Mennonite villages.

Period 3, “From the Late 1950s to the Late 1980s,” that is, after the death of Joseph Stalin, saw a gradual relaxing of the oppressive measures that had characterized the previous decades. Although the Soviet state continued to promote atheism and to dismiss religious faith as a relic of “reactionary ideology” (Podoprigora 2012, 40), some churches were permitted to reopen and hold services, albeit under strict scrutiny. During the 1960s, some Mennonite congregations allied themselves with other groups, such as the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists. By the mid-1980s there were eleven Mennonite churches registered in Kazakhstan, four of which were Mennonite Brethren (2012, 41).

Period 4, “From the End of the Twentieth to the Beginning of the Twenty First Century,” witnessed the end of any significant Mennonite presence in Kazakhstan. According to Podoprigora, “During this period the majority of Mennonite congregations of Kazakhstan disintegrated as a result of the emigration of believers to Germany” (2012, 42). As we noted in the previous post, this exodus is echoed by Igor Trutanow, who writes, “All my friends and colleagues in Konstantinovka went as Spätaussiedler (late repatriate) to their ethnic homeland,” to Germany (2015, 164). Podoprigora mentions one only congregation with several branches that has two hundred members total; clearly, the Mennonite presence in Kazakhstan is much diminished.

For over a century significant numbers of Mennonites lived, worked, and worshiped in Kazakhstan. We have long known that some members of our immediate family were among that group, but we have recently discovered that members of the broader Buller family remained in Kazakhstan through the terrible years of communist oppression, then left for Germany after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Both Heinrich Buller son of David and the later Heinrich Buller who lived in Konstantinovka were located in the Pavlodar uezd (district), as did a number of other Mennonites beginning in the early 1900s. Now that we have our chronological bearings, we are ready to explore the development of the Mennonite communities in this particular locale.

Works Cited

Podoprigora, Yulia I. 2012. The Formation and Development of the Mennonite Congregations in Kazakhstan: From the End of the Nineteenth Century to the Early Twenty First Century. JMS 30:37–44. Available online here.

Trutanow, Igor. 2015. Konstantinovka—A Mennonite Village in the Soviet Empire: The Last Chapter of the History of the Mennonites in Russia. Toronto: Lulu.