The Great Trek of the Russian Mennonites to Central Asia, 1880-1884, Fred Richard Belk, 1976

sia, where a number of flourishing congregations had their beginning along the Vistula Delta. Regarded as aliens and heretics, they met distrust and sus- picion everywhere, and were only slowly accepted in their new homes. In 1686, the Elector of Cologne forbade his subjects to have any *AIN}UBD YZ LE au) Bursnp umojUueW IBS pue yIOA Ma 0} JUAM AUWWOS pjajaly pue SpuepiayJaN sy, woly ‘eissny pue puejog Olu! panaow Aay} a19y woly ‘elssnig pue ‘Bizueg ‘ulaysjoy]-Bimsajyos ‘Bbunquiexyy ‘puelseny ‘eeydisapg ‘QuIyY 18MO07 :$31NID pue saoulAold UeW -425) BunoqyBGiau ayj o}u1 (Wnibjag pue pueyoy) saijUuNn0y MO7 ay} Wold peaids sajyiuouUaW Yo3NG ay) Aunjuad YQ, ayy Bung SALINONNAW HOLNG AHL JO GV4auddS 3SHL apes wuYyrs}ojo,] pus £0810 3 ¥zZ}1H045) 6BLIX ~E-AIN = NIAVIOUN aa “MSTOUYY oe ATHOSAW.AA © NASYOL ms aaa SONY TUFHLIN IAA = / From the Vistula to the Volga 32 The Great Trek of the Russian Mennonites relationships whatever with these ‘ungodly vagabonds.”' In 1694, the Elector of the Palatinate cruelly persecuted the new settlers at Rheydt. And even as late as 1818 the Prussian prefect of Braunfels still distrusted them because “‘they had long beards and no buttons and attended neither state church worship nor religious instruction.’ The Dutch-German heritage of the Mennonites, taken for granted to- day, involved a slow process of adaptation. Dutch refugees were among the earliest of Mennonites to locate in the region of the Vistula Delta and the Baltic coast to the east, settling on lay and church estates near Danzig, Elbing, and Kénigsberg. Slowly they began taking on the customs of their adopted land. One important phase of Mennonite development was their gradual accep- tance of the German language rather than the Dutch.’ This lan- guage essentially became a Low Dutch dialect. By 1671, Georg Hansen, an elder of the Danzig Church, was lamenting that the young people read German rather than Dutch; a hundred years later all ministers in the Danzig area were preaching in German. When the immigration to Russia began a short time later, the original Dutch language had been all but obliterated — a fact that is very important for the subsequent history of Mennonites, not only in Russia but also in North and South America. In 1772, West Prussia was united with East Prussia under Fred- erick the Great. The Mennonites of the region were delighted with Frederick because of his reputation for religious toleration, and showed their loyalty to him by giving him 2 oxen, 400 pounds of but- ter, 20 cheeses, 50 chickens, and 50 ducks on the occasion of the annexation. Frederick was pleased with their demonstrations of loyalty and their gifts and in return granted them freedom of worship, the right to erect new churches, permission to establish schools, freedom from military service, substitution of an affirmation for an oath, the right to enter any line of industry open to others, an