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Mennonites in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union
Through Much Tribulation
Leonard G. Friesen (Author)
9781487524654
Paperback / softback, published 13 October 2022
422 pages, 12 b&w illustrations, 3 b&w maps
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.58 kg
"An ambitious study of the Mennonites, stretching from the foundation of Anabaptism to the end of the Soviet Union … Friesen offers a compelling and coherent survey of the history of Mennonites in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, providing a useful guide to the questions answered by current historiography and the holes in scholarship yet to be filled." - Aileen Friesen, University of Winnipeg (The Russian Review) "An expansive history of Mennonite communities from their initial settlements in imperial Russia to their near universal emigration in the waning days of the Soviet Union … The history that emerges from Friesen’s narrative is one of a coherent, but complicated Mennonite identity that is adaptive and layered in response to massive internal and external processes of transformation and rupture." - Emily B. Baran, Middle Tennessee State University (Slavic Review)
Mennonites in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union is the first history of Mennonite life from its origins in the Dutch Reformation of the sixteenth century, through migration to Poland and Prussia, and on to more than two centuries of settlement in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Leonard G. Friesen sheds light on religious, economic, social, and political changes within Mennonite communities as they confronted the many faces of modernity. He shows how the Mennonite minority remained engaged with the wider empire that surrounded them, and how they reconstructed and reconfigured their identity after the Bolsheviks seized power and formed a Soviet regime committed to atheism. Integrating Mennonite history into developments in the Russian Empire and the USSR, Friesen provides a history of an ethno-religious people that illuminates the larger canvas of Imperial Russian, Ukrainian, and Soviet history.
List of Illustrations Introduction Part I: Mennonite Origins 1. Foundations: An Ancient Faith, Swiss Reformation, and Anabaptist Renewal Part II: Mennonites in Imperial Russia 4. A New Homeland in New Russia: Mennonite Settlement in the Russian Empire, 1789–1830 Part III: Mennonites in the Soviet Era 10. After Eichenfeld: Soviet-Era Mennonites between Reconstruction and Emigration, 1917–1927 Bibliography
Acknowledgments
A Note on Transliteration and Nomenclature
2. Melchoir, Münster, and Menno: From Early Dutch Anabaptists to Mennonites
3. A Faith Community on the Move: Mennonites, Poland, and Prussia, 1536 to 1800
5. Pietistic Progressivism: Johann Cornies and the Transformation of Russian Mennonitism, 1800–1848
6. A Community in Crisis: A Divided Faith, the Revolt of the Landless, and Threatened Military Service, 1860–1874
7. From Crisis to Consolidation: The Flourishing of Russian Mennonitism, 1865–1883
8. Glory Days: The Apogee of Russian Mennonitism, 1883–1904
9. Confession or Sect? German or German-Speaking? Mennonite Identity Politics on the Edge of the Abyss, 1881–1917
11. When God Leads You into the Wilderness: Mennonites in the Stalinist Crucible, 1927–1934
12. The Road to Rochegda: Soviet Terror, Nazi Occupation, and Stalinist Repatriation, 1934–1953
13. Detour to Dzhetisai: The Soviet Mennonite Renaissance in Stalin’s Shadow, 1953–1991
14. Coda: Zaporozhe 1989: One Story Ends and Another Begins
Index