Russian History 3

The last post established the basic framework for our exploration of Russia’s history by dividing four centuries, from roughly 1600 through 2000, into two broad periods based on the governing authority (see timeline below). The first period (1613–1917) was a time of tsarist rule (blue), specifically the Romanov dynasty of Russian tsars; the second period (1917–1991) saw the ascendance of socialist power and the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (red). 

Now that we have a working framework in place, we are ready to add pertinent details, albeit without becoming lost in the weeds of minutiae. We will organize those details by filling out the timeline we already have—with one change: for our own visual ease, we will rotate the timeline 90 degrees so we can add meaningful labels to each new subdivision. In other words, instead of the timeline moving from left to right, it will now go from top (1613) to bottom (1991).

We will not reproduce the entire timeline each time but will focus on a significant section within each post. Our real focus will begin with Catherine II, the Great, who ruled from 1762 to 1796 and under whom the first Mennonites settled in Russia, but the following example on 1600–1750 shows well how we will proceed.

A traditional approach would simply list the earliest Romanov tsars in order and offer a comment or two about each.

Michael I, 1613–1645
Alexis, 1645–1676
Feodor III, 1676–1682
Peter I (the Great) and Ivan V, 1682–1696
Peter II, 1696–1725
Catherine I, 1724–1727
Peter II, 1727–1730
Anna, 1730–1740
Ivan VI, 1740–1741
Elizabeth, 1741–1762
Peter III, 1762

As useful as that might be for preparing to take an exam on Russian history, it really does us little good, since most of these tsars are of little interest for Mennonites in general or Bullers in particular. (If you do wish to learn more about these tsars, see the excellent Star Media series on the Romanovs, available on Youtube here.) For this century and a half, only Michael I and Peter I, aka Peter the Great, merit our notice.

Michael I, 1613–1645

The first Romanov tsar’s full name was Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov; similar to the practice seen in our own and other Mennonite families, Michael’s middle name was based on his father first name: Feodor. Although Michael came from a high-ranking and powerful family, he was the first Romanov to rule as tsar over all Russia.

The word tsar (alternative spellings are tzar, czar, and csar), interestingly, is derived from the Latin word caesar. Various Slavic rulers adopted the title tsar to claim, by implication if not directly, that their status was the same as the Roman emperors of old. Of course, the title did not change the reality on the ground: although Michael greatly expanded Russia’s territory, his realm was in no sense an empire at this time.

To put Michael’s reign in perspective for Bullers, our family obviously had nothing to do with Russia or with Michael. The earliest ancestor known to us, George Buller, husband of Dina Thoms, lived in Poland and died about 1718 at an old age; if he lived to age seventy, he would have been born in 1648, that is, after Michael’s reign. I mention this only for perspective: the Romanov dynasty began when our ancestors still lived along the Vistula in Poland. Our family would not come into contact with Russia or its rulers until the Romanovs had been in power for two centuries.

Peter I (the Great), 1682–1725

We might write a great deal about Peter the Great, for example, of his joint rule with his half-brother Ivan V (1682–1696), of his determination to build a Russian navy, of his extensive tours of Europe to develop both political and personal relationships with the rulers of that region, of his founding of Saint Petersburg (named after him, of course), or even of his crowning of his second wife, Catherine I (not Catherine the Great), as empress and co-ruler in 1724. However, for our purposes only a few significant observations need to be made.

First, it was under Peter that Russia became recognized as an empire. As note above, Tsar Michael I expanded Russia’s borders greatly, even to encompass Siberia. However, Peter fought wars both on the north (Finland, Sweden) and the south (Ottoman Empire) and established Russia as a force to be respected, if not feared, leading to a proclamation in 1721 that declared him to be Emperor of All Russia. From this time on Russia itself was considered an empire and its tsar regarded as both tsar and emperor. Thus when our family and other Mennonites emigrated to Russia, they were entering the Russian Empire, one of the great powers of that time.

Second, Peter was committed to westernizing Russia so that it was more European than Asian. This passion to learn European ways led Peter to spend eighteen months traveling through Europe, even working within a shipyard for four months to gain hands-on experience that he would later apply to the construction of a navy. Peter also sought to develop close relationships with many of Europe’s rulers, even to the extent that he sought to have members of his family marry into Europe’s royal families. Peter’s initial efforts to turn Russia’s gaze to the west, to Europe, no doubt explains to some degree how within the next half-century Russia came to be ruled by someone who was not a native of the land, someone who played a crucial role in the Mennonite migration to Russia.

We will return to that in the next post; for now we close by contextualizing our family with respect to the reign of Peter the Great. The Bullers remained in Poland throughout Peter’s rule, living within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth under the rule of Augustus II the Strong; our ancestors probably had no direct contact with Russia or its ruler during this time. George Buller died during the last decade of Peter’s reign; George and Dina’s three sons Hans, George, and Peter were raising their own families. Presumably their lives were largely localized, centered on the village Przechovka and the Mennonite church there.

Russian History for Bullers 2

As noted at the end of the previous post, our exploration of Russian history will begin by dividing the period of our interest into two smaller chunks. We should admit at the outset that simple explanations and broad generalizations inevitably run the risk of sketching a portrait that is neater than reality, of obscuring the particulars of a situation in our quest for order. This is an important caution to keep in mind as we move forward. Our framework is merely a means of organizing and arranging various historical facts into a meaningful narrative, not a mold into which we must fit every fact we encounter.

The timeline shows two major periods in Russian history over four centuries. The blue bar represents tsarist rule, the red socialist rule. The three dates immediately above the bars are all significant turning points in Russia’s history: 1613 marked the beginning of the Romanov dynasty; 1917 was the year of the Russian Revolution, which likewise entailed the end of Romanov rule; and 1991 was the year when the USSR, or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, dissolved into a number of independent states.

Obviously, many significant changes took place during these centuries, including wars of expansion and defense, assassinations and executions too numerous to count, the emancipation of the serfs and the subjugation of the peasantry, seasons of prosperity and times of famine and starvation, even the building of a transcontinental railroad and the first flight into space. In spite of this great diversity, Russia’s governance was for the most part remarkably stable: the first three centuries saw tsars from a single dynasty in power, after which they were supplanted by a single party of socialist rule. 

With this overarching framework in view, we are ready to fill in a few details about these three crucial years. Starting with the next post, we will be ready to examine more closely various people, events, and times within each of these two periods and to begin correlating those historical particulars with both Mennonite history in general and the history of our larger family in particular.

1. 1613

The beginning of tsarist Russia, more properly the Tsardom of Russia, is generally dated to 1547 and the rule of Ivan IV, or Ivan Vasilyevich, aka Ivan the Terrible. This is when a unified Russia was ruled by a single monarch. As interesting as Ivan may be, we need not say more about him; our interest in Russia begins much later with a different ruling dynasty: the Romanovs.

Michael I, or Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov, was crowned tsar in 1613, thus bringing to an end the Time of Troubles, a period of chaos and anarchy throughout the land. For the next three hundred years, a member of Michael’s family, either by birth or by marriage, would rule over Russia. We have already encountered some of these Romanovs, including Catherine II (the Great), Alexander I, and Nicholas I. We will have cause to become acquainted with others in upcoming posts, as we deepen our knowledge of and appreciation for Russian history during this time.

2. 1917

The end of tsarist Russia was concurrently the beginning of socialist rule, and the shift in power took place within a single year. As World War I (1914–1918) slogged on, many workers and especially soldiers within Russia became disillusioned with their leaders, particularly with Tsar Nicholas II, who embodied for them an autocratic form of rule that they rejected in favor of a more egalitarian system of self-governance.

Over the course of a few weeks in February 1917, these workers and soldiers sparked such a rebellion that Nicholas was forced to abdicate his throne and turn power over to a new authority. Unfortunately, Nicholas’s abdication did not lead to the end of a struggle but rather launched a new Time of Trouble, a years-long battle between not only tsarist loyalists and the revolutionary forces but also between various socialist groups who sought to impose their vision of utopia upon the Russian people.

Eventually the Bolshevik faction (later called the Russian Communist Party) led by Vladimir Lenin, among others, crushed all opposition in a brutal civil war. This victory was followed in 1922 with the establishment of the USSR. The USSR was governed by various leaders, the most notorious of whom was Joseph Stalin, but they all belonged to the same ruling party. In other words, although the form of Russia’s governance had changed, the reality remained largely the same.

3. 1991

The socialist experiment did not last as long as the Romanov dynasty, and sixty-nine years after the USSR came into existence it was formally dissolved. Russia, of course, did not cease to exist; recent events demonstrate that Russia is in many ways as vital, in ambition if not in fact, as ever before. For our purposes, the most significant difference is that all, or nearly all, of the Bullers who still lived in Russia in 1991 have since left. In other words, although Russia is a significant part of our past, it it no longer a part of our present.

The dates 1613, 1917, and 1991 mark crucial turning points in Russian history; they also mark off the period of the Buller, and Mennonite, experience in Russia. With this basic framework in mind, we are ready to fill in a number of details within each of the two periods, especially as they relate to either the Mennonite or our own familial sojourn in this great land. To that end, we will pick up with the Romanovs in the following post.

Russian History for Bullers

As mentioned several posts ago, our primary goal for the next few months is to identify Bullers who remained in Russia after our ancestors emigrated to the United States and to describe their lives in as much detail as our sources and knowledge of the Russian context permits. Of course, to understand and appreciate the lives of the Bullers who remained, we need to be able to place them accurately in their historical circumstances and contexts, which, in turn, requires us to learn a little Russian history.

That will be the task of this series: to teach us all enough Russian history that we understand how the times and places in which these Bullers found themselves affected or even determined the outcomes of their lives. Consider Peter Buller of Tiege, for example (see here). All we know of him is that he lived in a village named Tiege, in the Zagradovka settlement, until he was killed by a marauding band on the night of 29 November 1919. A number of questions arise:

• Where in Russia was the Zagradovka settlement located?
• What was its relation to the other Mennonite colonies?
• Why was at least one Buller family living in that place?
• Why were Peter and sixteen other Tiege residents killed?
• What was the political situation that such a thing could happen?

One could offer a brief answer to all of these questions: Zagradovka, a Mennonite settlement located slightly more than 100 miles west-northwest of Molotschna, was established in the 1870s to provide land for some of Molotschna’s landless families; during the chaos of the civil war between the Red Army and the White Army, anarchist bands of men under Nestor Makhno’s command roved about robbing, pillaging, raping, and killing. Peter Buller was one of their victims.

Helpful as it is, this brief answer may obscure important considerations, such as: Was it, in fact, Makhno’s group who killed Peter, or might it have been vengeful Russian peasants? In addition, because it is so brief, the answer raises as many questions as it answers:

• When did Russia undergo a civil war?
• What caused the civil war to break out?
• Who made up the Red Army? the White Army?
• Who was Nestor Makhno? Why was he an anarchist? 
• Why did Makhno command a band of marauders?

In the end, we will be better off not settling for quick answers or brief explanations; we should rather learn enough history that we can genuinely understand, even appreciate, the contexts and situations in which these Bullers found themselves. That is what this series will seek to do.

Our approach will be to begin at a macro-level, dividing the last four centuries of Russian history into two broad periods. With that framework in place, we will progressively fill in the details, add flesh to the bones, as it were, until we arrive at an understanding of Russian history adequate to the task of placing both our immediate ancestors and the members of our larger family within their historical contexts and circumstances. 

Daniel C Buller, 1930–2020

Sad news arrived last week in a text message from Dad that Uncle Daniel had passed on to his eternal reward. He had been preceded in death by Marie, his wife of sixty-three years (the photograph to the left was taken in 1990; see here for the post on Marie’s passing).

Daniel was born 26 September 1930, the third child but first son of Grandpa Chris and Grandma Malinda. Like all of his brothers and sisters, Daniel was raised on the Buller farm a mile south of Lushton (see here). According to his obituary (here), he graduated from Lushton High School in 1948. 

In the aftermath of the severe blizzards of 1948–1949, I am told, Daniel wanted to help with Operation Haylift, in which U.S. Air Force cargo planes dropped hay bales to cattle stranded on the plains. Grandpa overruled that idea, but it may well have been a hint of things to come.

Daniel and Marie married on 25 April 1951. Shortly thereafter Daniel enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, serving from 1951 to 1955 in the Korean Conflict. Upon his return, he and Marie and their growing family farmed first in the Lushton area (they lived down the street from us in Lushton for a while) and then north of Bradshaw (see here); in the early 1970s Daniel and family moved to a large farming operation north of O’Neill. 

Upon his retirement, Daniel and Marie moved to Torrington, Wyoming, where they both lived until their respective deaths.

The memorial service for Daniel is taking place even as I write; a second memorial will take place in the Lushton Community Bible Church later this year, followed by burial of his ashes in the Mennonite (Buller) Cemetery north of Lushton.

Our thoughts are prayers are with Daniel’s sisters and brothers, his children Sheryl, Stan, Brenda, Debbie, Denise, Michael, and the twenty-five grandchildren and twenty great-grandchildren he leaves behind. 

Bullers Who Remained

A little more than a century ago, on 29 November 1919, Peter Buller, resident of a Russian village named Tiege, was mutilated to death in the middle of the night (Lohrenz 2000, 109). Sixteen of his fellow villagers, all Mennonites, met a similar fate. 

Thousands of miles away, another Peter Buller enjoyed a life of security and growing prosperity on a farm 4 miles east of Henderson, Nebraska. As far as we know, Peter and his wife Margaretha Epp Buller and their eleven children—including thirteen-year-old Cornelius, or Chris—slept through the night of 29 November without incident.

Although these two men shared a name, a common ancestry and religious heritage, and likely even a vocation (farming), their fates could not have been more different. One Peter died violently at the hands of a lawless mob; the other lived to age ninety-five and passed on peacefully after a full, rich life. How, one might wonder, could two men with so much in common meet such different ends?

The answer lies not with the men themselves but with their locations. Peter Buller of Tiege lived in Russia in the aftermath of the 1917 revolution; Peter Buller of Henderson, our own ancestor, enjoyed the stability and security of life in the United States. The determining factor of each man’s fate was simply whether his family had emigrated from or remained in Russia.

Since we already know, in general if not in every detail, the story of the Bullers who left Russia, this series will focus on those who remained. Our goal will be to identify as many Bullers who remained in Russia as we can and to describe their lives in as much detail as our sources and knowledge of the Russian context permits.

Unlike many other Buller Time series, this one will not involve systematically sifting through a body of evidence; rather, this series will, I expect, find bits of information, pieces of evidence, that we will then place within their historical, geographical, social, and, if possible, genealogical contexts so that we learn not only about other members of our broader family but also about the worlds in which they lived. To use a cinematic analogy, Bullers Who Remained will not be a feature length film but rather a series of independent short clips with a common interest.

We should realize at the outset that we will not be able to locate genealogically some of the Bullers whom we discover. Peter Buller of Tiege, for example, is certainly a member of our larger family, but thus far we cannot even hint at where in the family tree he might fit. At present we cannot even say if he was married and had children and, if so, what happened to them after his murder that night. It may be that, over time, as we collect and then connect the puzzle pieces of the Bullers who remained, we will be able to locate Peter Buller of Tiege more precisely or even put flesh on the bare bones of his life. However, it is also possible that we will never learn anything more of Peter Buller of Tiege; should that be the case, let us take heart in the fact that Peter has at least been named, that his story has not been forgotten, that a memory of him still lives on this earth.

Finally, understanding the contexts of the Bullers who remained requires a working knowledge of Russian history. Therefore, before we proceed with this series, we will lay the foundation by briefly surveying the high points of Russian history from the mid-nineteenth century on, roughly from the time of the Crimean War through the reigns of Alexander II, Alexander III, and Nicholas II and then on to the Russian Revolution and the consequent formation of the Soviet state. Our survey of Russian history will be kept separate from the Bullers Who Remained series for the sake of simplicity, but it will be crucial for our explorations in the latter series, so I hope readers give the historical context its proper due.

That is the broad plan for the first part (or more) of 2020: to begin with history, then turn to a search for all the Bullers who remained in Russia.

Work Cited

Lohrenz, Gerhard. 2000. Zagradovka: History of a Mennonite Settlement in Southern Russia. Translated by Victor G. Doerksen. Echo Historical Series. Winnipeg: CMBC Publications and Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society.

New Year’s Resolution

I resolve (hope) to write more regularly in 2020 than I did in 2019.

Although writing has been nonexistent the past six months, I have continued to read and research in areas related, even if loosely, to our broader family history. Since September, for example, I have been reading biographies of the Russian tsars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

I began with Alexander I, the tsar who ruled Russia when our ancestors first moved to Molotschna colony. Marie-Pierre Rey’s Alexander I: The Tsar Who Defeated Napoleon is both an engaging read and a reliable source of insight into this peculiar man. Rey’s account of Alexander I’s spiritual side may even shed light on the Przechovka party’s encounter with him outside of Warsaw (see here). From its account of Alexander’s childhood under the care of his grandmother Catherine the Great through the events surrounding the killing of his father Paul to the shock of his abrupt death, not to mention the possibility that he faked his death in order to abdicate, Alexander I: The Tsar Who Defeated Napoleon clearly deserves the high praise that it has received since its publication in 2012.

Skipping over Alexander I’s brother and successor, Nicholas I, I then read a biography of Alexander II, who was tsar when our family ancestors left Russia for the United States. Edward Radzinsky has written extensively on Russian history and many of its key figures; his Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar puts his literary talents and deep knowledge of Russia on full display. Alexander II is commonly referred to as Russia’s Abraham Lincoln, since he was the tsar who finally freed Russia’s serfs from centuries of bondage and servitude: Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863; Alexander beat him by two years, issuing his Emancipation Manifesto in 1861. The similarities do not end there: like Lincoln, Alexander II fell victim to an assassin. In fact, assassins attempted to end Alexander’s life and reign on multiple occasions; they finally succeeded in 1881, two years after our family had emigrated to the United States.

Skipping once again over the next tsar, Alexander II’s son, Alexander III, we come to Nicholas II, eldest son of Alexander III and Russia’s last tsar. Edward Radzinsky also authored a biography of Nicholas II: The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II. I have not yet finished this work, but I do know how the story ends: after the 1917 Russian Revolution, Nicholas and his family were placed under house arrest, then executed in a basement in the middle of the night and hastily buried in a forest, all so that no Romanov heir would ever again rule over Russia. Interestingly, their graves were discovered in the late 1970s and finally exhumed in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Several other tsar biographies await, but reading is not the only way to learn about the Romanov dynasty. Posted on Youtube is a series of eight hour-long documentaries about the Romanov rulers (see here). The documentary was produced in Russian by Star Media, but the episodes have all been dubbed in English and are easy to follow. The Romanov dynasty began with Mikhail, ascended to great heights under Peter the Great, reached another high point with Catherine II, the Great, the ebbed and flowed through the last century and a quarter with her successors: Paul I, Alexander I, Nicholas I, Alexander II, Alexander III, and, finally, Nicholas II. I know of no better source for gaining a significant understanding of the Romanovs and their times than this Star Media production, which is expertly produced in every detail.

I find the history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russia interesting all on its own, but adding to this the recognition that our ancestors lived through many of the events recounted makes the search and discovery all the more satisfying. In the spirit of the new year, then, I do resolve to (try to) record more of my discoveries in writing so that others can share in the enrichment and the fun.