Life in the Vistula Delta

From time to time this blog has mentioned how a good portion of the Mennonite community, including our family, lived along or near the Vistula River (the north–south river left of center in the map to the left).

The Vistula begins in the south from smaller rivers and tributaries in Belarus, Ukraine, and Slovakia and flows north until it empties into the Gdańsk Bay of the Baltic Sea. With a total length of approximately 650 miles and an average discharge of 38,140 cubic feet per second, the Vistula is easily Poland’s longest and largest river.

The Vistula is often thought of in terms of two different areas: the large delta where the river spreads out into several “fingers” before emptying into the Baltic; and the river and river basin heading upstream (i.e., south).

As far as we can tell, our family’s life in Poland/West Prussia was associated primarily with the upstream area, specifically along the Vistula in the Schwetz area. However, Mennonites first settled in Poland in the Danzig area (mid-1530s), at the northwest corner of the Delta, and shortly thereafter they spread eastward into the Delta itself (note the high density of Mennonite communities marked in that area).

The primary reason for their move east was to turn the swampy and water-logged delta ground into productive farmland. Earlier inhabitants had maintained dikes to hold back the river water as much as possible, but massive breaks in the dikes in 1540 and 1545 had reduced the Danzig Werder (German for “river peninsula, lowlands”) “to a watery waste which gradually became overgrown with reeds and rushes, since it lay below sea level” (Driedger 1957, 16).

The owners of this land—the king of Poland, the Catholic Church, and the cities of Danzig and Elbing—initiated a massive drainage project in 1547 whereby they leased various parcels of land to Mennonite associations who were then responsible to drain and maintain the land.

Johann Driedger, a twentieth-century farmer-minister in East Prussia, offers a detailed account of what was required to accomplish this feat:

The land area of each of the [leasing] associations had to be diked off against the inroads of water from the outside, and accordingly the associations had to join each other in arrangements to dike in the channels for the discharge water. Then a windmill was erected at the lowest place in the land area at the outlet channel, which then was constantly worked to lower the water level of the polder which it served. Side channels then had to be dug out to make possible the steady flow of water to the windmill, since the drop in the land level was very gentle. These side channels were so arranged that the smallest parcels of land were from about 2½ to 7½ acres in size. These individual tracts then had to be so leveled that there was a slight drop in the surface. Water furrows were then marked at right angles to the plow furrows to make possible the rapid discharge of rain water, since the land in any case also suffered under a high ground water level. The land also had to be cleared of all bushes and grass. All this hand labor became a very severe burden to the families of the settlers, who seldom possessed any capital.

This first and most difficult drainage work took three to four generations. The first fruit of the drainage was meadows and pastures with excellent grass. Since the drainage channels with their low dikes carried water which stood considerably higher than the surrounding land there was great danger in rainy seasons or snow thaws that the north wind would blow and drive the water of the Baltic back into the land and through the channels into the rear areas so high that the windmills would not dare to pump the water out of the polders, since in that case the dikes would have been immediately flooded. Consequently the polders were often flooded, and this was tolerable only for meadows and pastures. …

The Mennonites of the Vistula Delta settled not only in areas which lay below sea level but also in swampy areas which lay above sea level but had poor drainage because of lack of discharge channels. In such areas they also succeeded in draining considerable areas of land through development of controlled discharge channels. On such land wheat and rape could be planted, in addition to the raising of dairy cattle. This combination of grain raising and cattle raising gave the Mennonite farmers a considerable advantage above their other neighbors in the delta since they were able to use a considerable amount of animal manure at a time when artificial fertilizers were not yet available.

The amount of labor that these Mennonites expended—building dikes, digging channels, leveling each field so that it dropped slightly toward the drainage ditch, building a windmill, clearing the land of brush—boggles the mind. That families invested this amount of labor for three or four generations amazes. It is little wonder that European monarchs frequently welcomed Mennonites to come and farm their land. Although our ancestors were not part of this Delta work force, it is no doubt safe to assume that they, too, demonstrated the same industry, determination, and commitment in their own settings and situations.

Source

Driedger, Johann. 1957. Farming among the Mennonites in West and East Prussia. Mennonite Quarterly Review 31:16–21.