Moving to Molotschna 4

Thus far this series has covered the distance that our forebears traveled to emigrate from Przechovka to Alexanderwohl, the time required to make such a journey, and the documents authorizing them both to leave West Prussia (passport) and to enter Russia (visa)—as well as the frequency with which people, including Mennonites, we may assume, left West Prussia without authorization to do so, that is, engaged in secret (illegal) immigration. 

This post takes up another aspect of the move to Molotschna: finances. We cannot at his late date offer a reasonable estimate of how much the actual journey cost a typical family. However, we can outline some of the general financial demands imposed by the relocation and resources available to those who made the effort to move to a new land.

In addition to the costs of the journey, those wishing to emigrate were obligated to pay a special tax for the privilege to do so. Heinrich Goerz writes: 

The Prussian government was not pleased that so many of its best farmers were leaving the country. In order to impede the exodus, the emigrants were compelled to pay an exit tax which amounted to 10 percent of their assets. (Goerz 1993, 4)

The choice of the word assets is probably not accidental, since it seems that the tax was levied not just on cash in hand but on the value of all the assets that would be removed from West Prussia (see also Adalbert Goertz’s comment here). In all likelihood, this emigration tax had to be paid before a passport would be issued. The only way to avoid paying the tax, of course, was to leave secretly and immigrate illegally.

Some of the Mennonites would have been landowners who needed to sell property before emigrating; those who owned only livestock and household goods would have had a smaller tax to pay and fewer arrangements to make before they were ready to leave.

We have seen the value of the assets listed in many of the settlement reports for Alexanderwohl’s earliest citizens. The following list presents only a representative sampling:

Heinrich Buller: They had no cash. They brought possessions valued at 330 rubles.
Peter Voth: They had with them 2150 rubles cash, possessions valued at 335 rubles.
Johann Schroeder: They had no cash. They brought possessions valued at 308 rubles,  75 kopecks.
Andreas Nachtigal: They had no cash. They brought possessions valued at 250 rubles, 10 kopeks.
Peter Dahlke: They brought possessions valued at 400 rubles, horses valued at 30 rubles.
Peter Frey: They had no cash. They brought possessions valued at 400 rubles.
Andreas Schmidt: They had no cash. They brought possessions valued at 304 rubles, 5 kopeks.
Jacob Pankratz: They had with them 2300 rubles cash, possessions valued at 610 rubles, 40 kopeks.

Even with only eight listings, we can see some trends. Only two of the settlers reported cash on hand when settling Alexanderwohl. If all the others reported their lack of cash accurately, then one might conclude that those without cash had no land to sell; they would have paid the 10 percent tax on the value of their possessions and prepared to leave. Those with cash, it seems reasonable to think, had sold property, paid the emigration tax on that amount and the value of their other possessions, and brought the remainder to fund their new lives in Russia.

Those who had no cash on hand owned possessions of roughly comparable value: 330 rubles, 308 rubles, 250 rubles, 400 rubles, 400 rubles, 304 rubles. The most commonly listed cost for establishing a household in Alexanderwohl is 589 rubles, which significantly exceeds the total value of all of their possessions. Obviously, these individuals required some funding in order to build and set up their homes; we will return to that part of the story in a future post.

For now we close by noting that Adalbert Goertz compiled a list of Land Disposals by Mennonites in the Marienwerder District, 1803–1856 (here). His list contains nineteen Mennonites from Przechovka and nine from (Deutsch) Konopath who sold land in 1819, the year before the large migration that led to the founding of Alexanderwohl in 1821. We will examine the entire list in the following post, but I leave you with the following abbreviated entry as a teaser:

Nachtigall, Andreas       Przechowken 8       –  26 –       1819       1266

What the entry signifies is that Andreas Nachtigal of Przechovka 8 sold 26 Morgen (ca. 14.5 acres) of land in 1819 for a sum of 1,266 Reichsthaler (= ca. 1,180 rubles). Notice anything unusual about this entry as compared to the settlers list above? If so, what might that imply about the amounts reported in the Russian settlement records?

Work Cited

Goerz, Heinrich. 1993. The Molotschna Settlement. Translated by Al Reimer and John B. Toews. Echo Historical Series. Winnipeg, MB: CMBC Publications and Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society.