Before we turn to the paragraph of the community report that is the focus of this post, a comment is in order about a translation choice in the preceding one. There, in phrases that described Klaas Wiens and David Hiebert, I rendered the the German word Kolonie with the English village: “a settler in the village Altonau and … a settler in the village Lindenau.” A more wooden translation would have used English colony for German Kolonie, and there would be a certain logic in doing so, namely, reflecting the fact that the Gemeindebericht did not use the usual German words for village: Dorf or Ortschaft.
So why did the authors of the report (and nearly everyone else referring to the Molotschna villages) use Kolonie instead of the more commonly used words? It seems that Kolonie was the preferred German term for a village that had been created for a particular reason or by a particular group, mostly likely in the recent past. A village that had existed for or grown up over a long time was a Dorf or Ortschaft; a village that had been founded by new immigrants or even for artisans or a group of workers such as miners was a Kolonie. Because all three terms refer to what English speakers understand as a village, I plan to continue using that term to translate German Kolonie.
With that brief detour concluded, we are ready to move forward, as are the Mennonite travelers in this section of the Gemeindebericht:
Already on the journey, in the border and governate city of Grodno, these immigrants enjoyed a special favor and benefaction from the Russian high crown: each family was given 50 bank rubles. Moreover, they were also given traveling money from there on for forty days—20 kopeks currency for every soul over twelve years and 10 kopeks currency for every soul under twelve years—as well as funds for food after their arrival up to the first harvest: 8 kopeks currency for each soul.
border and governate city of Grodno. The city (German Stadt) of Grodno was, as the report indicates, on the border between West Prussia and Russia. Grodno had been part of Poland (the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth), but Russia had annexed it during the third partition of Poland (1795). Grodno was also the seat of the Grodno Governate (Russian gubernia) and thus home to government offices and officials. The map below shows the location of Grodno in relation to two important areas. The immigrants had begun their journey from the area to the south and east of Danzig (modern Gdańsk). The distance to Grodno was approximately 175 miles. Their ultimate destination was Molotschna, which is marked by the yellow pin in the extreme lower right; it lay another another 675 miles to the southeast.
The reference to Grodno also tells us that the 1803–1804 immigrants did not follow the same route as the earlier one that led to the founding of Chortitza. The general route of that migration is traced in the map below. The Chortitza Mennonites first sailed from Danzig to the coastal city Riga, some 275 miles away. From there they traveled southeast to a village named Dubrovna on the Dnieper (Dnipro) River, where they spent the winter. The route then followed along the Dnieper, with some traveling overland in carts and others floating downstream on barges provided by the Russian government. Their destination was 500 miles to the south-southeast, marked by the red dot in the lower right corner of the map (Molotschna is the yellow pin below it). The route taken by the Molotschna founders was clearly more direct (indicated by the black arrow).
special favor and benefaction. The treatment received was not unusual but was special in the sense of gracious and generous. Countless other immigrants of various faiths and nationalities received similar funding from the Russian tsar, but that did not diminish the gratitude that these travelers felt for the gift.
50 bank rubles. In 1704, Peter the Great (1672–1725) reformed Russia’s monetary system by issuing two different types of coins. The base unit of currency was the silver ruble; the ruble was equal to 100 kopeks. Although originally Russian kopeks were only copper, by the early 1800s they were issued in copper and silver, depending on the value of the coin: copper for .25, .5, 1, 2, and 5 kopeks; silver for 5, 10, 25, and 50 kopeks. In 1768, Catherine the Great (1729–1796) established the Assignation Bank, whose purpose was to issue paper rubles in various denominations. The Russian Empire’s silver reserves were low due to military expenditures, so issuance of paper rubles was Catherine’s solution to keeping currency circulating even though Russia did not have the precious metal (silver) to back the paper. Why is this information important for understanding the community report? The 50 bank rubles given to each immigrant family were paper money, not silver coins. Not surprisingly, the paper money was generally worth less than the silver coins. In the 1830s, for example, it took 3 bank rubles to equal the value of 1 silver ruble (Morgenstern 1923, 585).
The report does not explain why each family received 50 rubles. Some suggest that this was meant to pay for fodder to feed the animals, which is a reasonable and likely explanation (see Rempel 2007, vi).
given from there on for forty days. The Russian crown gave the 50 bank rubles to each family as a one-time grant. In addition, the immigrants were given a specified amount per day for each person in the traveling party for a period of forty days. The report labels this Zehrgeld, or traveling money. It seems reasonable to deduce from this that the journey from Grodno to Molotscha was expected to take around forty days.
20 kopeks currency … and 10 kopeks currency. The amount given each day depended on the age of the person for whom it was intended: 20 kopeks for each person twelve years and older; 10 kopeks for each person younger than twelve years. Thus an adult received, in total, 8 bank rubles over this forty-day period: 20 kopeks x 40 days = 800 kopeks = 8 rubles.
UPDATE: The community report is incorrect with regard to the amounts received; Russian immigration records indicate that the funding was 25 and 10 kopeks, respectively. See further here.
funds for food. The report does not state explicitly the purpose of the grant of money for the forty-day period, but it was likely for the same reason given here: food.
after their arrival up to the first harvest: 8 kopeks currency for each soul. As we all know, feeding a family at home generally costs less than feeding them on the road. This presumably explains the reduced amount provided once the people arrived at their destination: 8 kopeks a day for each person regardless of age. The report does not state that this was a daily allowance, but the context clearly implies it.
The Mennonite travelers are well on their way by the end of this paragraph of the community report: they have entered Russian territory and been provided funding to complete the final legs of their journey. The report does not mention that the immigrants were expected to pay back the monies received after a ten-year grace period. Apparently the Russian officials at Grodno had kept the original immigrants just as ignorant of that fact before they sent them on their way.
Works Cited
Morgenstern, William. 1923. “The Settlement of Bessarabia, Russia, by the Germans.” Translated by J. C. Ruppenthal. Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society 15:579–90. Available online here.
Rempel. Peter. 2007. Mennonite Migration to Russia, 1788–1828. Edited by Alfred H. Redekopp and Richard D. Thiessen. Winnepeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society.
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