Benjamin Buller correction

Didn’t take long for a correction to become necessary, eh? Thankfully, it does not involve anything directly related to our family, merely the background and history of Ostrowka.

Several posts in this series have noted that, although Benjamin Buller still enjoyed a tax-free status, the first nine families from Ostrowka (families 1–9 here) had been paying taxes since 1818. From that I carelessly deduced that families 1–9 lived in Ostrowka and leased land from Michael Bischkowsky well before 1818. The rationale was that they must have received a tax exemption from Bischkowsky that expired in 1818, which rather strongly implies that they had moved there earlier.

There is only one problem with this theory: it is contradicted by other evidence that we will consider in the near future. Suffice it to say for now that none of the nine families lived in Ostrowka in 1818 or even several years after. In fact, they still lived in Zofyovka in 1820. In all likelihood, they moved to Bischkowsky’s land in 1828 along with the other families (including Benjamin Buller), exactly as Martin Schrag states.

However, a bigger question now arises: Why had these families been paying taxes since 1818 (and to whom) but the other ten families still enjoyed a tax-free status? Some background will both explain and complicate the question.

When Catherine the Great first invited Mennonites to settle in Russia, she promised those willing to relocate certain benefits and privileges. Among those benefits was a grant of 65 dessiatines (= ca. 175 acres) of land and freedom from taxes for ten years—in the Chortitza (or Khortitsa or Chortiza) and Molotschna colonies.

The obvious problems with understanding any of these Mennonite families paying taxes are twofold: (1) these families did not own any land but rather leased land; (2) these Mennonites lived in Volhynia, not Chortitza or Molotschna.

There is also a third problem. As we will discover shortly, those of families 1–9 whom we can trace originally settled in Volhynia in 1811, while those of families 10–19 settled in 1817–1819. If families 1–9 began paying taxes in 1818, their tax-free period was no more than seven years. If the same rules applied to families 10–19, they should have started paying taxes in 1824–1826. However, even as late as 1833 families 10–19 enjoyed a tax-free status. Why did families 10–19 apparently receive a longer period of no taxation than families 1–9?

Putting all this information together leads to only one possible conclusion: we have no idea how to explain the statements that families 1–9 had been paying taxes since 1818 (when they still lived in Zofyovka) and families 10–19 not being subject to taxation as late as 1833. None of the details fits nicely: the Mennonites involved were tenants, not owners, so we do not know what taxes they might have been liable for; they were in Volhynia, not Chortitza or Molotschna, so the Catherine-promised governmental exemption from taxes did not apply; even the individual groups were treated differently, with some being liable for taxes after only seven years but others enjoying tax-free status after sixteen years of Volhynian life.

If someone can offer background to or an explanation of all this, please send it our way.

Work Cited

Schrag, Martin H. 1959. Volhynia (Ukraine). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Available online here.