Halbstadt 6

We continue our exploration of the Halbstadt community report with a long post on a single sentence. The full report (at least all that has been translated thus far) can be found here.

After spending most of the winter in the Chortitza Mennonite district, they arrived in the spring of 1804 on the steppe assigned to them for settlement by the military governor, the Duke of Richelieu, and the chairman of the Yekaterinoslav Office for Foreign Settlers, Mr. Kontenius.

winter in the Chortitza Mennonite district. As noted earlier, the 1803 immigrants left Grodno in small groups of families; the first families began the approximately six-week trip in early August, while the last groups departed in late October. Instead of pushing all the way through to their final destination, the families traveled first to Chortitza, a distance of roughly 625 miles. They would travel the final 50 miles to Molotschna after spending the winter with their sisters and brothers in the faith. This arrangement not only benefited the travelers (there was not enough time before winter set in to build adequate shelter in Molotschna); it also provided a much-needed financial boost to the struggling Chortitza colony. Heinrich Heese explains:

The arrival of our Molotschna brethren during the years 1803–05 saved our community from total bankruptcy; for it was through them that money once again began to circulate amongst us. These comely brethren encountered much better conditions than had our [Chortitza] fathers; for the late nobleman Contenius … had already arrived, and it was he who poured out upon them all the benefits of which the government was capable, benefits which had been so sparingly extended to our fathers. These new immigrants paid our fathers in cash for living quarters and barns, which till then had not been used because, for the sake of convenience, our cattle had been fed outside throughout the winter. Our fathers, in return for a fee, also took care of their purchases from the Russians and earned money while assisting them in the building-up of their colony on the Molotschna. Thus the wholly enervated community was partially restored to life. (quoted in Friesen 1980, 112–13)

spring of 1804. According to the 1808 Revisions List (Unruh 1955, 305–6), twenty of the twenty-one founders of Halbstadt arrived at their farmsteads on 21 June 1804; twelve families from Muntau and nineteen from Fischau arrived the same day. The Halbstadt founders were thus part of the initial wave of Molotschna settlers. The first group of five families arrived on 18 June, and they were followed by a steady stream of immigrants: three families on 19 June, fifty-one families on 20 June, the fifty-one families already reported for 21 June, ten families on 23 June, and one family on 24 June. Additional families arrived over the next four months: one family on 2 July, eighteen on 5 July, thirty-one on 15 July, three on 20 July, one on 12 September, one on 15 September, and one each on 2, 5, 9, and 15 October. By the end of 1804, over 180 families had taken up residence in the new Molotschna colony.

steppe. For a seven-part series on the Russian steppe, see the following links: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 (vegetation), part 5; (climate), part 6 (black soil), part 7 (drought).

assigned to them. I recall reading somewhere that the original group of Molotschna settlers had their Wirtschaften assigned to them while they were still in Chortitza. I am now unable to find the source of that information, but at least two considerations imply that that is what happened. First, the Heinrich Heese quotation above mentions that Samuel Contenius (see below) was present in the Chortitza colony during the winter of 1803–1804, when the future Molotschna settlers were there; since Contenius was involved in the assignment of Wirtschaften, it is reasonable to think that the assignment took place at that time. Second, most of the residents of each village generally arrived on the same day, which implies that they traveled in village groups, as it were. For example, we already noted that twenty of the twenty-one Halbstadt families arrived on 21 June 1804. Similarly, nineteen of twenty-two Fischau founders arrived on the same day, 20 June 1804, as did twenty out of twenty-two of Münsterberg’s original families. Even the first group of five families to arrive (18 June) all settled in the same village, Altona. The most likely explanation of this overlap between traveling party and village residence is that the Wirtschaften were assigned while families were still in Chortitza and served as the organizing principle for the formation of the traveling parties on the final leg of the journey.

military governor, the Duke of Richelieu. The identity of the individual in view is clear: Armand Emmanuel du Plessis, Fifth Duke of Richelieu (for a brief account of Richelieu’s life, see Height 1975, 97–113). What is less certain is the accuracy of the governmental position attributed to him: military governor.

By most accounts, Tsar Alexander I appointed Armand Richelieu governor, or mayor, of Odessa in 1803, then two years later, in 1805, promoted him to governor-general of New Russia (LeDonne 2000, 172; Height 1975, 104). There is no mention of Richelieu as military governor in the usual story of his life. However, according to LeDonne, prior to 1822 the specific title usually translated governor-general with respect to Richelieu’s assignment was “military governor of Kherson (or Odessa) and ‘administrator in chief’ … of Kherson, Ekaterinoslav, and Tavrich (Crimea) provinces” (2002, 25 n. 49). In light of this, a reference to Richelieu as military governor seems plausible.***

That still leaves the problem of the timing: as noted above, most date Richelieu’s promotion to 1805, a year after the Mennonite colonists had been assigned their land. Thus far I have found only one scholar who dates it to 1804. Julia Malitska writes, “In 1804, Richelieu was appointed Military Governor of Kherson province, based in Odessa and with responsibility for other southern provinces of the empire” (2017, 100). Unfortunately, she does not cite any sources to document her claim. She does add, “From the time of his appointment in 1803 as Town Commandant [or governor or mayor] of Odessa, Richelieu had taken a close interest and concern about the colonies. His office was involved with the activity of the Guardianship Office” (2017, 100).

If Malitska is correct about her dating of Richelieu’s promotion, then the community report is probably correct not only in referring to Richelieu as a military governor but also in reporting that he was involved in the assignment of land to the first Molotschna settlers. However, in the absence of corroborating evidence, we should hold that conclusion as only possible, perhaps not even plausible, but definitely not certain.

***Interestingly, LeDonne reports elsewhere that the title governor-general fell out of favor during the early 1800s and was replaced with the designation military governor (2001, 14). This likely explains why the pre-1822 title highlighted the military governor part of the role. For governors-general in Russia, see also Shandra 2021.

Yekaterinoslav Office for Foreign Settlers. This short phrase offers a great example of how confusing historical details can become for readers far removed from the events being reported. Consider, first of all, the name of the city: Yekaterinoslav. One frequently encounters the spelling Ekaterinoslav, which is just as correct as the version used here. To complicate matters further, the name of the city has undergone numerous changes. The first recorded name of the settlement was Novyi Kodak (New Kodak, since the original Kodak had been destroyed). In 1784 Catherine II renamed the city Yekaterinoslav after herself, but in 1796 her son and successor, Tsar Paul, removed her name from the city and gave it the name Novorossiisk. His son and successor, Alexander I, reversed his father’s decision in 1802 and restored the name Yekaterinoslav. That name stood until 1918, when it was changed to Dnipropetrovsk, a word that combined and commemorated the Dnieper River (Dnipro) and a Soviet revolutionary named Grigory Petrovsky. Finally, in 2016, with the Soviet Union now only a memory, the name was shortened to Dnipro. The city itself is located roughly 85 miles north-northwest of Molotschna.

Like the city, which had five different names over its history, the government office in view went through various incarnations, which can create significant confusion. In 1763, during Catherine II’s reign, the Russian government formed a department in St. Petersburg called the Bureau of Guardianship of the Foreign Colonists. As its name implies, the department was to oversee the settlement and care of foreign peoples settling within Russia’s borders. This centralized approach lasted all of three years, after which it was supplemented by the establishment of a regional office in Saratov. Sixteen years later, in 1782, both the bureau and its Saratov office were abolished, and foreign colonists were placed under the authority of the provincial (gubernia) authorities. According to David Rempel, “This meant that they were now subject to the same oppression and extortions as the native peasantry and with the same results” (1933, 37). Consequently, within the first year of Paul’s reign, on 4 March 1797, Russia returned to the former model, with the establishment of the Expedition (Department) of Political Economy, Guardianship of the Foreigners and Domestic Economy. After several years devoted to on-site investigation of conditions in the colonies, a local bureau was established in Novorossiisk (i.e., Yekaterinoslav) on 6 April 1800. This is the office to which the community report refers. However, the story does not end here. According to the Mennonite Heritage Centre (here), the Yekaterinoslav office was initially named the Guardianship Office for Foreign Settlers in New Russia but changed its name ever so slightly a year later, in 1801, to the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Settlers in New Russia. Eventually the number of colonists in New Russia increased to the point that the local bureau could no longer manage its workload. Therefore, in 1818 a new governmental department was organized to meet the need; that department is known in English-language documents as the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Settlers in Southern Russia, the Guardians’ Committee of the Foreign Colonists in the Southern Region of Russia, and the like. This Guardianship Committee continued to operate until it was finally abolished in 1871.

Contenius. In keeping with the theme of the previous paragraphs, we begin by noting that this person’s name is often spelled differently: Contenius is more common in English-language contexts, Kontenius in German-language works. Samuel Contenius (1749–1830) conducted the on-site investigation of New Russia referenced above, so it was only natural that he was appointed the first judge (chairman) of the Yekaterinoslav Guardianship Office. According to John R. Staples,

Contenius was an energetic proponent of agricultural modernization, and his wide contacts with the central Guardianship Committee administration in Kishinev, and with senior governmental authorities in St. Petersburg, often allowed him to bypass administrative red tape and push through reforms among the foreign colonists under his supervision. Contenius was a domineering bureaucrat who … placed enormous demands on everyone he commanded…. Although Contenius officially retired in 1818, he retained an office and staff in Ekaterinoslav until his death in 1830, and continued to be a driving force in colonist affairs until almost his last days. (Staples 2015, xxxvii)

Contenius enjoyed close and positive relations both with Armand Richelieu, military governor/governor-general of the province, and Johann Cornies, the most influential Mennonite within Molotschna colony. As already noted above, Contenius certainly was involved in the assignment of land to the founders of Halbstadt, as reported in the Halbstadt Gemeindebericht. Whether that consisted only of assigning the general area on the steppe or extended to the assignment of village areas and perhaps even individual Wirtschaften remains unknown.

Works Cited

Friesen, Peter M. 1980. The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia, 1789–1910. 2nd ed. Translated by J. B. Toews, Abraham Friesen, Peter J. Klassen, and Harry Loewen. Fresno, CA: Board of Christian Literature, General Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches. Available online here.

Height, Joseph S. 1975. Homesteaders on the Steppe: Cultural History of the Evangelical-Lutheran Colonies in the Region of Odessa. Bismarck: North Dakota Historical Society of Germans from Russia.

LeDonne, John P. 2000. “Frontier Governors General 1772–1825 II. The Southern Frontier.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas NS 48 (2000): 161–83.

———. 2001. “Russian Governors General, 1775-1825: Territorial or Functional Administration?” Cahiers du Monde russe 42:5–30. Available online here.

———. 2002. “Administrative Regionalization in the Russian Empire 1802–1826.” Cahiers du Monde russe 43:5–34. Available online here.

Malitska, Julia. 2017. Negotiating Imperial Rule: Colonists and Marriage in the Nineteenth-Century Black Sea Steppe. Södertörn Doctoral Dissertations 135. Södertörn: Södertörn University. Available online here.

Rempel, David G. 1933. “The Mennonite Colonies in New Russia: A Study of Their Settlement and Economic Development from 1789 to 1914.” PhD diss. Stanford University. Available online here.

Shandra, Valentyna. 2021. “Governor-Generals of Southern Ukraine: Formation and Implementation of Development Policy in the 1770s–1880s.” Pages 84–105 in Port-Cities of the Northern Shore of the Black Sea: Institutional, Economic and Social Development, 18th–Early 20th Centuries. Edited by Evrydiki Sifneos, Oksana Υurkova, and Valentina Shandra. Black Sea History Working Papers 2. Rethymnon, Crete: Institute for Mediterranean Studies– Foundation of Research and Technology. Available online here.

Staples, John R. 2015. Introduction to Transformation on the Southern Ukrainian Steppe: Letters and Papers of Johann Cornies. Volume 1: 1812–1835. Translated by Ingrid I. Epp. Edited by Harvey L. Dyck, Ingrid I. Epp, and John R. Staples. Tsarist and Soviet Mennonite Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Unruh, Benjamin H. 1955. Die niederlandisch-niederdeutschen Hintergründe der mennonitischen Ostwanderungen im 16., 18. und 19. Jahrhundert. Karlsruhe-Rüppurr: self-published.