Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2007

ty as Factor of Maintaining Ethno-Cultural Traditions], in Kul'tura nemtsev Kazakhstana: istoriya i sovremennost': Materialy mezhdunarodnoinauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii, Almaty, 9-11 oktyabrya 1998 g. [The Culture of Germans in Kazakhstan in History and Present: Materials of an International Scientific and Practical Conference] (Almaty, 1999), pp. 122-7, 125. 3 Middle Asia includes the republics of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Central Asia is comprised of Middle Asia plus Kazakhstan. 4 The author is grateful to the research group, gathered around the Frankenthal Mennonite Brethren Church and Hilfskomittee Aquila in Germany, and especially to Viktor Fast for helpful insights into the life of German settlers. 5 P.M. Friesen, Die Alt-Evangelische Mennonitische Bruderschaft in Rufiland (1789-1910) im Rahmen der mennonitischen Gesamtgeschichte (Halbstadt: Raduga, 1911, repr. Gottingen: Verein zur Erforschung und Pflege des Kulturerbes des ruBlanddeutschen Mennonitentums, 1991), p. 73. Rebirth in the Valley of Shadow 39 but they were the first faith community of a classic Free Church type in Russia. The German settlers in South Russia were an ideal soil for pietistic seed. In 1845 pastor Eduard Wiist initiated a pietistic revival in several Lutheran and Mennonite villages 6 resulting in the organisation of the Mennonite Brethren (MB) Church in January 1860. The MB’s were instrumental in founding the first German Baptist Church consisting of former Lutherans (1864) 7 as well as the first Russian Baptist Churches (1869) 8 in South Russia, now Ukraine. In time, the protection offered by the privileged status of a German colonist melted faster than expected by the settlers. During World War I, with Russia and Germany as two big rivals, the situation of native Germans in Russia became alarming. From this time there was distrust and suspicion towards the German population in Russia. The Bolshevist revolution made things worse. Collectivisation and religious persecutions, which started in 1929, destroyed the traditional community structures as well as churches. These intensified political repressions led to the martyrdom of many church leaders and ordinary members in 1937-38. Reliable statistics are missing, but there are some vivid examples. For example, in the Mennonite colony of Neu-Samara near the Ural Mountains which consisted of fourteen villages with three Mennonite Churches, 177 men were shot in these two years. 9 World War II completed the picture of devastation. The Soviet Union became involved in the war in June 1941. Two months later, in August 1941, all Soviet citizens of German nationality of the European part of the USSR - almost 900,000 persons 10 - were deported to Kazakhstan, Middle Asia and Siberia. They were considered potential Nazi collaborationists and put under strict supervision until 1956. People were forbidden to leave their locations under threat