In the summer of 1786, Georg von Trappe, an agent for the Russian state, appealed to Mennonites in Danzig to consider Tsarina Catherine II’s invitation to settle in the newly conquered territories of New Russia. By late October, Mennonites had sent a delegation, consisting of Jacob Hoeppner and Johann Bartsch, to scout these new lands and choose a spot to build a new settlement. The travel route of Hoeppner and Bartsch took them to Riga on the Baltic then down the Dvina River, through Orsha and Dubrovno, to Kremenchug. In Kremenchug they were met by Grigorii Potemkin, who performed a key role in the military subjugation of the territory and its subsequent settlement. The Mennonite emigration from Danzig and West Prussia would come under his administration; hence negotiating the move was part of his duties. Potemkin received the Mennonites briefly, and handed them over to a guide who would help them explore possible sites of settlement along the Dnieper River. After weighing their options, Hoeppner and Bartsch settled on a section of land where the Konka and Dnieper Rivers met, on the bank opposite the town of Berislav. Back in Kremenchug, on April 22, 1787, Bartsch and Hoeppner submitted to Potemkin a petition which requested a set of privileges for Mennonites as a condition of their settlement.¹

It is not clear if these proposed terms of settlement had been worked out within the community before the delegates began their journey or if they drew them up themselves en route to meet Potemkin. Most likely the text included petition points decided on in Danzig and West Prussia and others fine-tuned by the delegates after they had seen the land and as they negotiated the wording of the petition.

The negotiations between the Mennonite delegates and Potemkin came at an awkward time because the latter was focused on Catherine’s grand trip to the region. The arrival of the Mennonite delegation overlapped with the travels of the tsarina and Potemkin presented them to her on May 2, 1787. The meeting included a preliminary statement on the concerns of the delegates and Catherine invited them to accompany her royal entourage to Crimea. Although they were eager to return home to their families, the scouts accepted the tsarina’s invitation.

Bartsch and Hoeppner obtained an answer to their petition from Potemkin in early July 1787.² It is not clear if the two delegates checked the finished agreement, signed by Potemkin, with their superiors, ministers and others, back in Danzig and West Prussia before heading to St. Petersburg to get the signature of Tsarina Catherine, who had returned to the capital.

A survey of Potemkin’s response will not be attempted as a detailed analysis of its contents has been offered by the late Dr. David G. Rempel.³ This study will bring forward a new translation of the twenty points, as they have not previously been made easily available in English.⁴

The text of the petition comes to us from Minister David Epp’s 1888 work Die Chortitzer Mennoniten: Versuch einer Darstellung des Entwickelungsganges. Published a century after the Mennonites settled at Chortitza, the book constituted a “centennial project,” as the foreword notes.⁵ It would appear that Epp used a copy of the original, the exact location of which, if it still exists, is not available. That one would have borne the signatures of Tsarina Catherine II, Alexander Bezborodko, and Potemkin. It was forwarded to the Mennonite leaders in Danzig, with a copy no doubt retained for the imperial archives in St. Petersburg.

As historian Grigorii Pisarevskii pointed out in his study on foreign colonization in Russia published in 1909, this document was not entered into the empire’s “Complete Collection of Laws.” In contrast, the text of the Charter of Privileges given to Mennonites by Tsar Paul I in 1800, which affirmed the earlier agreement, was included. This may be the main point of difference between the 1787 document and the Privilegium of 1800, leading scholars to describe the latter as the “first” Privilegium.⁶

Perhaps the 1787 petition was seen as directly connected to Catherine’s 1763 Manifesto. This could then be interpreted to indicate that Catherine and Potemkin viewed the document as a rewording suited to a specific case of a group wishing to immigrate, and hence not a new charter that needed to be entered into the collection of laws.

The Text

The following text is based on a fusion of Dr. Elfrieda Schroeder’s English translation of the German-language version printed in the work of David Epp, and an English translation of material found in Pisarevskii’s study done by several Russian-speaking students at Mennonite Brethren Bible College, directed by the late William Schroeder of Winnipeg, and a review of the resulting combination of sources by the author of this article.

The words of the petitioners are given in regular print, and the responses of Potemkin’s office appear here in bold.

Reaffirming the Petition

Ultimately, Mennonites settled in the Khortitsa region, not near Berislav, after Potemkin deemed their original choice to be too dangerous for settlement.⁷ In 1798, nine years after they arrived in New Russia, Mennonites sent a small delegation, David Epp and Gerhard Willms, to the royal court in St. Petersburg to obtain an audience with the tsar to affirm the Privilegium. Although we do not know their motivations, perhaps their concern to have the Charter endorsed may have had to do with Paul’s penchant for reversing the enactments his mother, Catherine II.

On September 3, 1800 (some sources say September 6), they got what they wanted: a royal document, formally formatted, which restated the essential freedoms and privileges offered to the former immigrants through Hoeppner and Bartsch and indeed promised in the 1763 Manifesto. This document would be included in the empire’s “Complete Collection of Laws.”

Cognizant of changes taking place in Russia, it considerably extended some of the economic and social conditions of the agreement. It also reaffirmed Mennonites’ freedom of worship and exemption from military service, which had always been the core of what they considered as the minimal religious protections necessary for building their communities. Overall scholars have given inadequate attention to the 1787 petition of Bartsch and Hoeppner. In this author’s view, the text of the twenty-point petition demonstrates that it deserves to be recognized as the first Privilegium of Mennonites in Russia.

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The Twenty-Point Petition

An extract of privileges granted by His Highness, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Eminence Potemkin Tavrichesky, to the representatives (Deputierten) of the Danzig Mennonites and most graciously confirmed by Her Russian Imperial Majesty, as follows:

1.

That they be permitted to practice their religion according to their church statutes and customs.⁸

Granted.

2.

A. That to each family shall be allocated 65 dessiatiny⁹ of arable land opposite the city of Berislav close to the Konskiye Vody River on the right side of the Perekop Road, and not including the inferior land which may be part of the 65 dessiatiny.
B. Along with the Tavan Island (of which lands have not been allocated to anyone else), located across from Berislav, along with all adjoining waters and islands surrounding it. That will provide sufficient hay for their livestock.
C. Exclusive fishing rights in the waters of the Dnieper and Konskiye Vody up to its boundaries, with the prohibition that strangers are not allowed any fishing privileges within their boundaries.
D. Since the above-described areas of land are not forested, and trees are absolutely essential for heating, they (the new settlers) humbly request that they be allowed to make use of at least half of the still existing one thousand five hundred dessiatiny of the forested area of the island of Kairo not yet allocated to others.

A. Orders will be given to make the allocation of the land official.
B. Only a part of this island can be allotted to you because a bridge is to be built over the Dnieper River there, and there are plans in place for other crown works which require a large part of that island area.
C. You have the right to use the fisheries in the waters that surround your land allotment, as stated in the law.
D. Only a small portion of this land can be allotted to them.

3.

Exemption of payment of taxes/levies for a period of ten years.

Granted.

4.

After the ten years are ended, each family shall pay a tax of fifteen kopeks per dessiatin annually, and for the duration of that time be exempt for all time (auf immer unverletzt) from quartering troops, providing military transport, and other kinds of government labour.¹⁰

This is agreed to and as soon as the ten-year exemption has ended, the crown will require fifteen kopeks for each dessiatin of land. They shall also be exempted from transporting supplies for the military, compulsory labour, and billeting (of troops), except for the time when military units must pass through, for which action the communities shall make sure that the bridges on their property (in their vicinity) shall be maintained.¹¹

5.

That any of the settlers who so desire would be permitted to open up shops and establish factories, and also, besides involvement in farming, be allowed to engage in commerce, i.e., trading without extra fees, and join arts and crafts guilds in the area in the Ekaterinoslav and Taurida regions.¹²

Granted, if activities noted are carried out according to the ordinances of pertinent cities and urban areas.

6.

In accordance with the published written royal manifesto of July 22, 1763, each Mennonite family that is in need of aid shall be loaned five hundred rubles in advance in order to establish its farming operation. Such remittances shall begin when they arrive in the city of Riga, with the sum of 100 rubles monthly. Such families will be obligated, after the end of the first ten free years, to repay such loans to the Crown, without interest, within a period of three (subsequent) years.

Granted.

7.

That the guarantee of the unwavering loyalty of the families and their descendants shall be received according to their religious customs and ceremonies.

To be granted as requested.

8.

That these families and their descendants be freed for all time (fuer ewige Zeiten) from all military obligations because the tenets of their faith forbid them entering military service.¹³

They are exempted from the obligations of military service.

9.

That after their arrival from Danzig each family shall receive all necessary materials to construct appropriate living residences according to Germanic styles. All of them shall be provided with oak timbers to construct two mills, six good grinding stones, as well as other supplies to erect two good mills, so that when they arrive they may be able, with the help of Crown labour, to construct all these buildings on their own.

Every family deciding to emigrate to New Russia shall receive 120 planks, each twelve feet long (vier Faden), and the needed number of beams for two mills, along with six stones.

10.

Requested that each family desiring to emigrate shall be provided with the necessary funds to pay for moving costs of such a journey, including living provisions along the way.

All costs for the journey (travel and sustenance) shall be covered (by the Crown).

11.

That all families which have arrived at the Russian border at Berislav be given wagons and horses, and that each person from the day they arrive at this border receive twenty-five kopeks until the end of the journey.¹⁴

Horses and wagons will be provided. Concerning finances, each person, male or female over the age of fifteen, shall receive twenty-five kopeks, and that those below that age shall receive twelve kopeks.

12.

That out of [the Crown’s] gracious heart the colonists shall be freed from repaying the monies mentioned in Article 10 and 11 and also for the lumber used to build their houses. They shall not be obligated to pay for them even after the ten years, because the Crown will benefit from the fact that the Mennonites are bringing with them excellent manufacturers and artisans so that in a short time the industrious development of their farms and other beneficial material contributions will cover all the monies expended for them.

This will depend on Her Majesty’s grace.

13.

Until the construction of their own houses, the settlers shall be allowed to occupy the vacant quarantine buildings situated on the other side of the Konskiye Vody River, they shall be given tents and barracks for their construction workers, and the rest of the Mennonite emigrants shall be given accommodation within the city of Berislav.

For a specified length of time, they will be given tents and other accommodations, with the tents to be returned at the end of that time.

14.

That all the Mennonites shall be given ten kopeks each from the day they arrive in Berislav until the time of their first harvest, with the condition that these sums will be returned interest-free over a period of three years after the ten years are over.

Agreed to.

15.

Requested that orders be sent immediately to Berislav and Taurida that no wood shall be cut and no cattle be pastured (by locals or others) on the land of prospective Mennonite settlement so that they will have enough hay for their own cattle.

These orders will be sent.

16.

That Mennonite families who may decide to settle in Russia and come after the new immigrants may enjoy the same above-mentioned rights and advantages and that they may be allowed to settle in beautiful and fruitful areas as the present settlers in such places as Staryi Krym (Old Crimea), Feodosia, and Bakhchisarai,¹⁵ or settle in other areas which they might desire which have not been taken up yet, on the condition that they need not make pledges of monies to be repaid to the government, but be allowed to settle this among themselves.

When representatives of such families arrive, they will be treated just like the others who came before them.

17.

Request that it be decided most graciously to send Mr. von Trappe to them (the Mennonites) again with relevant needed instructions, the one who persuaded and made them willing to emigrate to Russia and who is familiar with all the related circumstances, and who is the person who can remove all the obstacles that they will face when leaving Danzig. He is the one who provided for their necessities so it is requested that according to the instructions he was given, he may again become their director and curator so that he can help them with their resettlement and make sure that they remain protected and their welfare assured.

This request will be forwarded.¹⁶

18.

Requested that upon arrival in Berislav they will have the services of a surveyor who speaks German and who is capable of dividing not only the whole possession but (also specify) each individual’s tract of land.

Agreed to.

19.

Since Taurida is a long distance from their homeland, preventing them from taking along different kinds of seed for sowing, it is requested that they be given various kinds of seed for planting, with an obligation to return an equal quantity when they are able.

Agreed to.

20.

Last of all they (the Mennonites) ask that upon their arrival in Berislav, strict orders be given to give protection to persons and their goods to prevent theft, robbery, and all forms of injury, until the families are well-established.

Such orders will be given.

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The former is a true translation that contains the privileges set down in the original. I attest to this by means of my own signature.

Danzig, March 3, 1788

S. de Sokolovsky,
Russian Royal Officer, Imperial Assessor and Accredited Chargé d’Affaires

Seal of the Empire¹⁷

1. On the planning and route of this delegate expedition see Lawrence Klippenstein, “Four Letters to Susanna from Johann Bartsch, a Danzig Mennonite Land Scout, 1786–87,” The Polish Review 54, no. 1 (2009): 31–59. See also Peter Hildebrand, From Danzig to Russia: The First Emigration of Mennonites from the Danzig Region to Southern Russia, trans. Walter E. Toews and Adolf Ens (Winnipeg: CMBC Publications and Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2000), for an account of the move by an eyewitness. The investigation of the lands available is referred to but only very briefly discussed in this account. See 6ff. An updated map of the places visited by the travelers appears in Heritage Review 44, no. 4 (Dec. 2014): 47 (back cover). ↩︎
2. A useful quite recent recital of these events is in George K. Epp, Geschichte der Mennoniten in Russland, vol. 1, Deutsche Taeufer in Russland (Lage: Logos Verlag, 1997), 56–58. See also David Epp, Die Chortitzer Mennoniten: Versuch einer Darstellung des Entwickelungsganges derselben (Russland: Rosenthal bei Chortitz, 1888), 1–23. The main outlines of the tour experiences of the Tsarina are sketched in Simon Sebag Montefiore, Potemkin: Catherine the Great’s Imperial Partner (New York: Vintage Books, 2005) 352ff. ↩︎
3. David G. Rempel, “The Mennonite Commonwealth in Russia: A Sketch of its Founding and Endurance, 1789–1919,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 47 (Oct. 1973): 259–304 and 48 (Jan. 1974): 5–54. The petition and Potemkin’s responses are in MQR 47:279–286. ↩︎
4. We owe many thanks to Dr. Elfrieda Schroeder of Winnipeg, Manitoba, for providing this draft of the text, which Rempel located in Russian versions in several sources of his research and also possibly in its first publication in German in D. Epp, Die Chortitzer Mennoniten, 16–23. Preliminary translations of the full text of the petition into English are found also in studies of the immigration by several Russian scholars. See Grigorii Pisarevskii, Istorii inostrannoi kolonizatsii v Rossii v XVIII v. (Moskva: Petchatnia A. I. Snegirevyl, 1909), 299ff, and a copy of Jacob Rempel’s unpublished English script of a work by S. D. Bondar, Sekta mennonitov v Rossii (Petrograd: Tipo V. D. Smirnova, 1916), in the author’s files. A more recent translation from the original Russian into German is found in G. Epp, Geschichte der Mennoniten in Russland, vol. 1, 223–225. The date given here for receiving the answer to the delegates’ petition is given as July 4, 1787, by one or two scholars (including Pisarevskii), but here we follow the dating of most scholars dealing with this subject. The delay in obtaining Potemkin’s response to the Mennonite petition disconcerted the delegates very considerably, even to the point of asking permission to go back to Danzig to see their families and then return to complete the inspection trip and negotiations in a second trip. Fortunately, it did not come to that. ↩︎
5. D. Epp, Die Chortitzer Mennoniten, i–ii. Direct references to the Epp volume come from the 1888 Chortitza edition. For further background notes see Rempel, “The Mennonite Commonwealth,” and Klippenstein, “Four Letters to Susanna.” ↩︎
6. A more thorough study of the Privilegium issue by James Urry is in “A History of the Mennonites’ Russian Privilegium: 1800–1919,” Journal of Mennonite Studies 37 (2019): 325–352. See an email on this dated December 26, 2015, in the author’s file. In Russian the Complete Collection of Laws is usually referred to as PSZ, abbreviating Polnoe Sobranie Zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii. Extract would here refer simply to the wording of the text. ↩︎
7. A popularized treatment of the Mennonites’ first years in New Russia is in N. J. Kroeker, First Mennonite Villages in Russia, 1789–1943: Khortitsa–Rosenthal (Vancouver: by the author, 1981), with a more academic study in James Urry, None but Saints: The Transformation of Mennonite Life in Russia 1789–1889 (Winnipeg: Hyperion Press, 1989), 50ff. Urry’s work also includes in Appendix I an English translation of what many scholars have come to call “the first Privilegium,” given by Paul I to the Mennonites in 1800. The Russian version of that document is found in PSZ XXVI, No. 19,546, and cited in Rempel, “The Mennonite Commonwealth in Russia,” MQR 47:302-304. See again Urry’s recent article, “A History of the Mennonites’ Russian Privilegium,” 325ff. ↩︎
8. The position of this item in the first petition contrasts noticeably with the inconspicuous place where this privilege was stated, among various offers unrelated to religion, as No. VI (1) in the 1763 Catherinian manifesto invitation to foreigners. It is extended to cover the right to offer an oath before the courts as a simple affirmation and is the first item in Paul’s Privilegium of 1800. Roger D. Bartlett, Human Capital: The Settlement of Foreigners in Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 238, and Urry, None but Saints, 282. Other facets related to freedom of religious expression are mentioned in Articles 7 and 8 and will be discussed there. Rempel, “The Mennonite Commonwealth in Russia,” 47:283. ↩︎
9. A dessiatin was the equivalent of 2.7 North American acres, hence designating for each family 175.5 acres. Berislav was also known at the time as Kisi-Kermen (perhaps renamed by Vice-Regent Potemkin). It had been the site of a Turkish fortress earlier, and thus served as an important post for defending an approach to the Crimea, a fact well appreciated by Potemkin, and no doubt related to his decision later on to reverse his promise of making this general area available for settlement by the Mennonites emigrating from Prussia. See G. Epp, Geschichte der Mennoniten in Russland, vol. 1, 69. See also the maps in William Schroeder and Helmut Huerbert, Mennonite Historical Atlas (Winnipeg: Springfield Publishers, 1996), 13,15. The Perekop Road coming from the north led directly to the Crimean peninsula. ↩︎
10. See Lawrence Klippenstein, Peace and War: Mennonite Conscientious Objectors in Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union before WWII and other COs in Eastern Europe (Winnipeg: by the author, 2016), 33–54. ↩︎
11. Since many creeks and small rivers flowed through or near Mennonite villages in the main settlements the maintenance of bridges could run up war involvement costs considerably. Just where these troop movements would transverse villages and towns might not be known before fighting began. See the Schroeder and Huebert map cited above for sketches of road systems in the various communities. There is no specific reference to the maintenance of roads in the petition’s points, but that may have been assumed and would in any case be happening more carefully for periods of peace as well as in war times. ↩︎
12. The boundaries for the permitted commercial activities in the fifth article may seem somewhat vague, and indeed are interpreted by one scholar to include all of New Russia and Crimea. Rempel, “The Mennonite Commonwealth,” MQR 47:284. The area thus defined would greatly expand in due time to essentially include all of Tsarist Russia. Many of the new Mennonite settler family heads did not in fact have an actual farming background advantageous for making a living in their new south Russian setting. ↩︎
13. This exemption promise was a linchpin for the total contract as far as the Russian Mennonites were concerned. It was reaffirmed in the Privilegium of Paul I in 1800, and by Alexander I and his brother Nicholas I. The Crimean War brought about a review of this agreement but it was not altered until 1874 when universal military conscription was decreed in Russia by Alexander II and arrangements for a new alternative service regimen came into being. This new agreement lasted until 1917. Details of how this new phase of Mennonite service to the state was initiated and maintained are presented in Lawrence Klippenstein, “Mennonite Pacifism and State Service: A Case Study in Church-State Relations 1789–1936” (PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 1984), 85–117. The manner in which the Soviets continued to offer an alternative service option in a revised form is also discussed. The Russian immigration manifesto of 1763 included this statement regarding the issue of military service: “Foreigners who have settled themselves in Russia, as long as they remain in the Empire, shall not be appointed to any military or civil duty against their will except land duties and even that after the prescribed years of respite be expired; but if anyone should desire of his own accord to enter into our military service and list himself for a soldier, such a one upon his appointment into the regiment shall receive a reward of thirty rubles above the usual salary.” Note the translation published in Bartlett, Human Capital, Appendix I, Point vi, 240. Catherine’s 1785 immigration manifesto included the same promise of exemption from military service. See an abbreviation of this document in David G. Rempel, A Mennonite Family in Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union, 1789–1923 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2002), 263. ↩︎
14. A Turkish force of around seventy-five thousand men still remained under arms about seventy miles from Berislav at the time of the Mennonite delegation’s negotiations with Potemkin. The Mennonites were apparently unaware of this or might have staked their claim for land somewhere more distant from the battle zone – the results of the Turkish-Russian wars in this region were still very fluid. New clashes broke out again in 1787. See G. Epp, Geschichte der Mennoniten in Russland, vol. 1, 68–69, 88, and Montefiori, Potemkin, 358ff. ↩︎
15. Crimea had been under Turkish control until a few years prior to the visit of Catherine. Bakhchisarai once served as the capital city of the Crimean peninsula. Montefiori, Potemkin, 372–73, 378. ↩︎
16. It appears that although Trappe was appointed as director of the Mennonite colonies, the renowned “caller of colonists” never did formally take up his post, He may, however, have continued in the course of the immigration to give guidance and counsel to Mennonite leaders. See Urry, None but Saints, 68–69. ↩︎
17. Useful details of the story are found in David G. Rempel, “From Danzig to Russia: The First Mennonite Migration,” Mennonite Life 24 (Jan. 1969): 8–28. ↩︎