Alexanderwohl 44

We ended the last post in the series on the Alexanderwohl Gemeindebericht (here) at the low point of the village’s early years: after assorted crop failures, locust plagues, cattle diseases, and devastating winter storms, Alexanderwohl—and all of Molotschna—suffered from the das Hungerjahr 1833. The next sentence in the community report introduces a 180 degree turn in the village’s fortunes, so that the report ends with the word prosperity. This post will explore who and what led to that turn. We begin, as before, with the entire final paragraph of the 1848 community report.

The year of settlement, 1821, was unfruitful and returned only the seed sown. 1822 was fruitful, but grasshoppers came and caused significant damage for seven years. 1823 and 1824 were years of crop failure. The persistent storm of the first months of 1825 also resulted in a great loss of livestock for this community, since there was no food for them. At that time the livestock was fed straw from the roofs. In 1828, a devastating cattle disease prevailed. The most difficult year, however, was the starvation year 1833. The improved cattle and sheep breeding and the four-field farming system introduced through the efforts of Acting State Counsellor Contenius and under the leadership of the Agricultural Society’s unforgettable Johann Cornies have brought the community to prosperity.

improved cattle and sheep breeding. An earlier post (here) discussed the improvements made in cattle breeding in detail. To summarize, since the East Friesian cattle that the Mennonites had brought with them were nonnative and thus susceptible to local diseases, the Molotschna farmers cross-bred the East Friesian cattle they brought with them from West Prussia/Poland with the local Ukrainian gray cattle as well as Kalmuk cattle, producing what became known as a Molotschna cow or the German Red cow. This breed combined increased hardiness and disease resistance without sacrificing milk productivity.

Sheep breeding was the primary occupation in Molotschna’s early years, and it continued to play a central role during Alexanderwohl’s first few decades. Whether the Mennonite settlers brought sheep with them from West Prussia/Poland remains an open question for me. On the one hand, Peter J. Klassen reports that Mennonites along the Vistula River in Poland were known for raising sheep as early as the early seventeenth century (2009, 81). On the other hand, sheep are not listed among the livestock that the Mennonites brought to Molotschna; only horses and cattle are recorded on the Russian settlement reports. Further, Peter M. Friesen writes:

Privy Councillor Contenius, the well-known supervisor and benefactor of the colonies, raised the level of prosperity considerably in the colonies through the introduction of sheep-raising. The acquisition of breeding sheep of Spanish extraction (Merino sheep) soon made it possible for every farmer to possess a small flock: many as large as 150 animals. (1980, 182–83)

According to Friesen, Contenius introduced sheep raising to the Molotschna colony. Other evidence confirms the accuracy of Friesen’s statement, but a full account of Molotschna sheep raising must await another post (a third Molotschna Livestock post is in the works; for the first two, see here and here).

In the interim, we can say without fear of contradiction that Contenius (on whom see below) played a key role in the improvement of the quality of the Mennonite flocks. John R. Staples explains:

In 1826 … Contenius proposed that Cornies travel to Saxony on behalf of the Settlement to buy merino sheep as breeding stock for Mennonite flocks. Contenius had been promoting the introduction of high-quality merino sheep into New Russian colonist herds since he first came to the Guardianship Committee in 1800, and after his retirement as chairman of the Ekaterinoslav Office of the Committee in 1818, he made the improvement of sheep-breeding the main focus of his Office for Special Projects. (2015, xli)

To summarize, according to the Alexanderwohl community report, the village’s fortunes changed, in part, due to the breeding of hardier cattle and more profitable sheep. Another contributing factor to the village’s change in fortunes is named in the following clause.

four-field farming system. According to David Moon, traditional farming in the Russian steppe used a long-fallow system in which fields were farmed nonstop until they became nonproductive; peasant farmers would then move to a new field and let the nonproductive field lie fallow for fifteen years or more, until it was once again productive (Moon 2013, 252). Both a true and a modified three-field system of crop rotation was tried in the northern steppe, but the results were mixed. Then, in 1837 

[Johann] Cornies ordered the Mennonites of Molotschna to introduce a four-field crop rotation in place of long-fallow agriculture. … Under the new rotation, each field followed the sequence: 1. Barley; 2. Spring wheat (girka or arnautka); 3. Winter rye or oats; and in the fourth year, the field was left fallow. Peter Köppen, an official of the Ministry of State Domains who inspected Tauride province in 1837, reported: “Out of 43 Mennonite colonies [villages], 23 have already completed the introduction of four-field agriculture (vierfelder Wirtschaft).” He added that he had “invited” more Mennonites to follow suit in 1838. (Moon 2013, 253)

The change in farming practices had a dramatic effect on the local farm economy: within several years grain cultivation had replaced sheep raising as the central agricultural pursuit, and conditions were ripe for Molotschna to become the breadbasket of the Russian Empire.

Acting State Counsellor Contenius. The individual in view here is obvious: Samuel Contenius; his exact title as given in German, Wirklichen Staatsrats, is less clear. Samuel Contenius was

born in Westphalia in 1748 [and] came to Russia as a private tutor, then entered state service in 1785. … During his tenure of office, 1800–1818, he worked incessantly for the colonists, much to the detriment of his own health, and stayed on even after his final retirement, at the request of the Emperor himself, to help in a re-organization of the colonist administration then impending. … When in 1807 his health became too bad for him to continue running the Office, Richelieu [Armand Emmanuel du Plessis Duke de Richelieu, the governor of Odessa] recommended that he should be given instead the narrower task of supervising the economic development of the colonies, retaining his previous rank and salary. On this basis Contenius remained a valued member of the administration. (Bartlett 1979, 205–6)

The tenure of office in view here is Contenius’s chairmanship of the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Settlers in the Southern Regions of Russia; he was replaced in this position by Andrei M. Fadeev (see here). To be clear, Contenius was responsible for all foreign settlers throughout southern Russia, not just Molotschna colony. His rank as State Counsellor (or Councillor) was equivalent to brigadier in the army, and at that time it carried with it the right of hereditary nobility. In other words, Contenius was a high-ranking official.

The translation above has followed the lead of the translators of Cornies 2015 in rendering the term Wirklichen as “Acting.” If this is correct, then presumably the meaning of the label is that, although Contenius was no longer the chairman of the Guardianship Committee, he retained an honorary position with that body. In this case one might think of Acting as similar to Emeritus.

However, it is also possible that the German title Wirklichen Staatsrats seeks to represent the Russian действительный статский советник, which is typically rendered “Active State Councillor.” This title was applied to individuals one rank higher than a simple State Counsellor, which would not be an unexpected promotion for Contenius to have received, given the high esteem in which he was held even by the emperor. 

Uncertainty about the title notwithstanding, the Alexanderwohl community report correctly attributes much of the village’s prosperity to Contenius. As Staples notes, “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. Cornies modeled strategic aspects of his own economic agenda and administrative practices on Contenius’ example” (2015, xxxvii). 

the Agricultural Society. We have discussed the Agricultural Society previously (see here), so this section draws upon the earlier work. The Molotschna Agricultural Society was created in 1836 as heir to two earlier advisory boards: the Sheep Society and the Forestry Society. The purpose of each of these boards was to promote improvement in its respective area. The Sheep Society fostered the expansion and improvement of Molotschna’s flocks, the Forestry Society promoted and even mandated the planting of trees across the colony, and the Agricultural Society sought to advance and improve all aspects of Molotschna’s farming economy. (This and the following draw upon Staples 2003, 118–23; Urry 1989, 109–19, 126–37.) 

Johann Cornies. The Agricultural Society was established by the Russian governing authorities but was managed by Mennonites, especially in the person of its chairman for life: Johann Cornies. “With the establishment of the Agricultural Society,” Staples writes,

Cornies entered the most important phase of his campaign to transform Mennonite society. He focused his activities on three principal themes: (1) more efficient allocation of limited Mennonite resources, (2) more efficient exploitation of those resources, and (3) rural industrialization. … He confidently believed that if the Agricultural Society “steadfastly directed its own business and tended to the well-being of its brothers,” the end result could only be “morality, industry and love of orderliness … upon which prosperity must follow.” (Staples 2003, 119)

To that end, “with members of his Committee, Cornies inspected agricultural activities in the colony, recommending and advising the farmers on new crops, techniques, and ways to improve livestock” (Urry 1989, 112). Many of Cornies and the Agricultural Society’s policies led to remarkable increase in Molotschna productivity. Most notable of these was the introduction of the previously mentioned four-field rotation system, “with fields being sown in alternate years with barley, then wheat, then rye or oats, and finally being left fallow. The fallow was not left idle. The earth was deep-ploughed, thus exposing the soil to air and moisture” (Urry 1989, 115). Although Cornies had (and has) his critics, there is no disputing the fact that the change in fortunes that Alexanderwohl and other Molotschna villages experienced was due in great part to his leadership. 

have brought the community to prosperity. The result of the developments listed was a dramatic change in Alexanderwohl’s standing. The village founded in 1821 and stressed by all the challenges and obstacles of its early years had arrived, by 1848, to a condition of prosperity. Worth noting is the precise wording of this last clause: the positive developments did not bring prosperity to the village; rather, they brought the community to prosperity. The difference in perspective is significant.

Recent posts have had little cause to comment about the historical accuracy of the community report. Not surprisingly, as the report narrated events closer to 1848, it did so with greater accuracy. Still, it will be useful for us to revisit the report as a whole and identify all the places where the report fails to give a fully reliable account. We will do so in the following post in this series.

Works Cited

Bartlett, Roger P. 1979. Human Capital: The Settlement of Foreigners in Russia 1762–1804. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Friesen, Peter M. 1980. The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia (1789–1910). 2nd ed. Translated by J. B. Toews et al. Fresno, CA: Board of Christian Literature, General Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches.

Klassen, Peter J. 2009. Mennonites in Early Modern Poland and Prussia. Young Center Books in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Staples, John R. 2003. Cross-Cultural Encounters on the Ukrainian Steppe: Settling the Molochna Basin, 1783–1861. Tsarist and Soviet Mennonite Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

———. 2015. Introduction to Johann Cornies, 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.

Urry, James. 1989. None but Saints: The Transformation of Mennonite Life in Russia 1789–1889. Winnipeg: Hyperion.