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

ts offered to foreign settlers in the Ukraine, or New Russia as it was then called, attracted the attention of the Prussian Mennonites. Staunch pacifists, their convictions jeopardized by the Prussian military program, they were looking for a new land of opportunity." 36 The Great Trek of the Russian Mennonites To the Steppes of the Ukraine Mennonite agents were sent to St. Petersburg to confer with the government concerning the Russian offer. In 1788, the Russian Min- ister to Danzig notified the Prussian Mennonites that the imperial government was granting special privileges to them. Besides the con- cessions offered to all immigrants — free land and freedom of re- ligion — the Mennonites were guaranteed for all time closed farming communities, freedom of religion, including complete separation of church and state, and freedom from military service." According to the ukase of March 17, 1764, each immigrant farmer coming to Russia was to receive a land allotment of approximately 81 acres, of which 40 were to be of arable land, 14 each of meadow and woodland, 9 1/2 pastureland, and a house and garden plot of four acres in the village. A subsequent ukase of February 20, 1804, granted each family twice the original allotment." The original settlement of West Prussian Mennonites in Russia began in 1789. Approximately 900 people reached the Ukraine in July of that year. Fifteen villages were founded on the Chortitza River, and the area was soon dubbed the “Old Colony’ by later immigrants. In 1803, a ‘New Colony’ was founded on the Molotschna River fifty miles east of Chortitza, and from 1789 to 1810, approxi- mately 18,000 Mennonites settled in and around these two areas. After 1810, other colonies were set up in eastern Russia and Siberia. The Russian Government initially granted 280,000 acres to the Chor- titza and Molotschna colonies. This area was gradually enlarged over the years until by 1914 they possessed 3,750,000 acres. "4 In 1820, the Russian imperial policy of promoting foreign colonization en masse was officially halted, although the Napoleonic Wars and the increasing restrictions of the government had already reduced the influx. A new policy of restriction was applied to all immigrants except the Mennonites, of whom two hundred families could still enter the country annually “in view of the industriousness and the excellent state of farming prevalent among all the Menno- nites in New Russia.”'® In 1841, Prussian authorities introduced military conscription among Mennonites, and additional numbers rushed to the Ukraine to emulate their earlier coreligionists. To the northeast in the Samara region two new colonies were formed along the Volga River. These were Am Trakt in 1855, and Old Samara in 1859. From the Vistula to the Volga 37 Freedom, Problems, and Prosperity These Mennonite colonies in Russia developed a close-knit com- munity life and made no effort to fuse or adapt t