Introduction

John G. Bergen (1898–1985) was born in Adelsheim, Yasykovo, a prosperous offspring settlement of the Chortitza colony. After spending time in Pologi, near the settlement of Schoenberg, his family moved to the newly established settlement of Schutschino (also known as Volkonskii khutor) in the province of Tambov, located southeast of Moscow.¹ He would emigrate to Canada in 1926, settling in Drake, Saskatchewan. John and his brother Cornelius, along with their descendants, became prominent members of the community, both in agriculture and in business. Some of their descendants are still active in the North Star Mennonite Church at Drake.

Schutschino is not a well-known settlement. In 1913, Chortitza colony purchased land from Prince Sergei Mikhailovitch Volkonskii in Tambov province for over a million rubles, for the settlement of landless colonists.² In the spring of 1914, fourteen Mennonite families arrived in the province. However, landless families who needed more time to put their affairs in order before making the move found themselves caught up in the First World War, as the men were drafted into medical service and were unable to receive permission to move.

The settlers who did arrive were experienced farmers. The soil was rich, and the short but intense growing season lent itself to grain production. They did well. They built a horse-powered mill and could market flour. They were located near the rail station of Pavlovka, which gave them access to markets. Tokarevka had bank agencies and commission agents. The rail, banking, and postal networks were comprehensive.³

Revolution and Civil War

Mennonites had been living in Schutschino for three years when the February Revolution occurred, resulting in the abdication of the tsar and the establishment of a provisional government. During this period, the Mennonites of Schutschino could not have failed to notice dramatic expressions of a deep change in their neighbours’ attitude toward land ownership. Though it seems to have taken a few months for the implications of the tsar’s abdication to sink in, there were incidents of trees being cut down and cattle grazing estate lands without permission.⁴ In many districts of Tambov province, buildings of landowners were dismantled for their lumber or burned down. In the autumn of 1917, Prince Volkonskii permanently vacated the area fearing for his life. A mob of soldiers in September brutally murdered Prince Vyazemsky in the province. In Kozlov (Michurinsk), twenty-four estates went up in flames over the course of three days.⁵ Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg, the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government, starting the next stage of the revolution.

As the civil war began, the Bolsheviks became desperate for food supplies and for men. They procured grain from the peasants by force and in every village they attempted to draft ten or fifteen strong, healthy men. On one occasion a group of Schutschino men were marched to a nearby Russian village and threatened with execution. On another, hidden sacks of wheat were discovered in the Mennonite mill.⁶ The bitterness of the rural people in the grain-producing areas of Tambov, Penza, Voronezh, and Saratov became so intense that armed rebellion ensued. Known as the Tambov Rebellion of 1920–1921, the peasants created their own state, with an army and their own laws.⁷ The rebel army at its height is estimated to have comprised about twenty thousand regular soldiers and twenty thousand militiamen. It successfully controlled the central grain-producing region until the summer of 1921, at which time Red Army troops could be deployed from the more or less pacified western and southern battle fronts.⁸

The Mennonites of Schutschino would have found the ever-changing demands made upon them disturbing and stressful. Like their neighbours, they concealed grain from the authorities. They needed to protect themselves from the many hungry and homeless army deserters. They had to walk the fine line between covertly sympathizing with the rebels and taking care not to antagonize whoever was in authority at the moment.

Soviet Power

The requisitioning of food ended in 1921 with the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP). Under NEP, food producers were encouraged to be enterprising, as were small businesses and tradespeople. The Mennonites of Schutschino could carry on farming.⁹ At the same time, large businesses were nationalized. This was felt by farmers in the dearth of manufactured items such as machinery and repair parts. The new bosses of industry faced a steep learning curve and frequently were not motivated. Nevertheless, it was possible to be hopeful about the economy. Yet for the Mennonites, other factors weighed heavily – namely, the land, their nationality, and their faith. Though they could farm the land, it was not theirs to buy and sell or to enjoy a sense of ownership. As a group, they were a tiny German-speaking speck in a huge Russian landscape, and Germany very recently had been an aggressive enemy. Finally, they were Christian, contrary to what was expected of good Bolsheviks. The Mennonites of Schutschino, like their co-religionists elsewhere in the Soviet Union, faced a painful decision as they contemplated whether there was a future for them in Tambov.¹⁰ Ultimately, a few families decided to stay in Tambov, some moved to other Mennonite colonies, and forty-three individuals decided to emigrate to Canada. John G. Bergen’s recollection of their journey, which he self-published in 1980, follows.

Our Journey

We lived in Russia in the province of Tambov, where we had moved in the spring of 1914 together with fourteen other families.¹¹ In the fall of that year war broke out. After the revolution in 1917 we lost our land plus many other things. The government urged us to organize a workers’ company and as a result of that each family received ninety acres of land, enough to make a good living. The land was given for an indefinite period of time because it was all to be divided into collective farms. Our faith was being criticized more and more. In order to get around these circumstances, eight families and a bachelor decided to try to immigrate to Canada. I was elected to arrange for all the paperwork. The first thing we had to do was to get permission to enter Canada. We were supposed to be able to get this from the RUSKAPA [Russko-Kanadsko-Amerikanskoe Passazhirskoe Agentstvo (the Russian-Canadian-American Passenger Agency)] in Moscow. Unfortunately, they did not have any of the proper forms from the Mennonite Board in Rosthern on hand.¹² We could, however, purchase them for three dollars per person over age fifteen. Then we were able to take our names off the registration list. Here we ran into our first problem. We had three young men who were of draft age. They were Abe Bergen, Cornie Janzen, and Abe Schellenberg. All those born in 1903 and 1904 were eligible for the draft. The possibility of getting them out of the country looked completely hopeless. It required the permission of the Ministry of War. I took the train to Tambov and was received in a friendly manner, and then I made my request. Without hesitation from the ministry official, I got a very quick answer: “NO.” Then I asked him what use these men would really be to them because they were all conscientious objectors; they would not serve in the army in either case.

“What,” he said, “they don’t serve?”

“No,” I said. “They are all exempt from active military service!”

“Then,” he said, “the situation is entirely different.” He asked to know if they would return if they were needed. I assured him that they would return if requested. In fact, I think I would have sworn an oath had he asked me to. To the best of my knowledge this was the only situation in all of Russia where such persons received permission to emigrate. Abe Schellenberg has often mentioned that I saved his life by these actions. The Ministry of War obviously has not needed them because they have not yet received any notice to return.

Following this we immediately were able to apply for our passes, for which we had to pay thirty dollars per person in advance. Then after a lengthy time of waiting and a good bit of discussion we received notice that we would be placed in a better classification than we had applied for and that the cost for these passes would be ten times higher, that is three hundred dollars for everybody over fifteen years of age. We had no choice but to send them this sum of money. I think there were twenty-six of us. But now the struggle was really just beginning. I cannot remember how many times I went to Tambov to try to get this all straightened out. To make matters worse, our railway connections were just terrible. We had to change trains twice, once in Gryazi, and the other time in Kozlov. What was only a distance of 75 miles as the crow flies required a whole day of travel of about 180 miles.

Our passes had to be processed through the Tambov foreign office. They, however, could not do this on their own. They had to get approval from the Moscow emigration office, and this is what took so much time. Finally I went to Moscow. Here I first went to the Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization [sic] (CMBoC), where I met C. F. Klassen for the first time.¹³ Here is where I was expecting to receive help. Unfortunately, he was unable to help me, which left me with very little desire to go on. He told me they had tried several times to get into the Moscow emigration office but they never had managed to get in. He did, however, encourage me to try and then to report how I made out. I went to the office in Kitay-gorod, in a very large building. When I arrived, I noticed armed soldiers standing guard, asking questions of all who wanted to enter. I also noticed that very few got into the building. I heard that they were asking for a password, which I, of course, also did not know. And it was clear to me that I, too, would never be able to get into the building. I decided to try to walk around to see if I could find another entrance. I walked around the building, and before I knew it, I was standing in front of an open door. And so I walked straight in as though it were my own home. Once inside I asked someone where I could find the emigration office. He gave me the directions, and I walked to the door. The sign on the door confirmed that I was in the right place. After a short prayer for God’s guidance, I walked in. There was a lady at the desk, and I asked her if she was Ekaterina Ivanovna, the person I needed to see. She said she was and asked me what I wanted to see her about. I explained our situation to her. She seemed very surprised, but started searching through the papers, and right at the bottom of the pile she found them. She apologized and said they were having a meeting in the evening and that she would bring our request to the attention of the rest, and if there were no objections they should be able to process them right away and make sure there would be no further problems. Happily, I returned to the CMBoC and told C. F. Klassen the whole story.¹⁴ He was very surprised at my rather unorthodox approach and wanted to know what I intended to do next. I said, first I wanted to eat, then sleep, and that tomorrow morning I would return to the emigration office to see what they had decided. He said that is exactly what he was about to suggest that I do as well.

The next morning I returned. The route now was familiar to me. I was received in a friendly manner by Ekaterina. She told me how smoothly and without any opposition it had been approved. She had already prepared the passes and they were ready to be sent out in the next mailing. I asked her if she could not entrust me with them, but she said there was no way she could do that, but that I did not have to worry because they would be in Tambov shortly. They did not arrive with me on my train but did arrive on the next. The very next day I received all the passes except my wife’s. This was delayed because she had to enter our daughter Katie, who was born after we had begun working on the papers. Actually, she would have been a Canadian, but because of all the delays she ended up being born in Russia.

I had to go back to Tambov to get the passport for my wife and daughter. We had decided that after he had entered her name the emigration officer would bring me the passport personally. We arranged to meet at the circus. This we did and he himself put the passport into my breast pocket. Then we went to a restaurant and had a very good supper of roast duck. After this I went with him several blocks and down a dark street. I gave him an additional twenty dollars and then we parted company.¹⁵ I went to get my suitcase and left for the station to return home.

Two days later we had our auction sale. In the middle of the sale a policeman came and wanted to talk to me. I was the auctioneer, so we stopped the sale for a short time and I went to speak to him. He took a handwritten telephone message out of his pocket and tried to read it to me. Because of the poor handwriting he could not read it very well and so I read it. It said that he was supposed to arrest me and take me to the GPU,¹⁶ and that I was to bring my passport along. I recognized immediately what kind of a difficult situation I was in. But because he could not read it, I was able to change the wording from passport to a term which had to do with religion. This was very clear to him. I told him that he did not have to come with me, but that I would require a copy of the message. He wrote it as I dictated it to him. None of the people around were aware of what our discussion was about. The next day I again set out for Tambov and went directly to the GPU. The first thing he asked me for was my passport. I acted innocent and said that I had not been requested to bring it. He immediately went to get a copy of the message he had sent the police. I also had my copy, which I gave him. He said there must have been some misunderstanding but that we could work things out this way too.

Then he asked me very directly if I knew Nikolai Ubanobir. I said that if he meant the chairman of the foreign embassy [sic], then yes, I knew him. He confirmed that was the man he meant. Then he asked me how much money I had given him, and I said none. Then he said he would like to read something to me. He read how they had followed me and had been spying on me. How we had met at the circus, and how he had put the passport into my pocket, where we had eaten supper and even what we had eaten, and how I had given him [the officer] some money, but that they did not know how much I had given him. I immediately saw that it would not help to lie. So I told him the truth. I also told him that the money I had given him was not meant as a bribe but simply as a small gift for his trouble and that I had not felt that it was illegal for me to give this to him. We had a long discussion and parted as friends. I did have to sign a paper that I would not leave the country without permission, because this matter would have to come to court, where the final decision would be made. I realized I had my notebook with a record of my dealings. He tore them out of my book and put them into his file. They had already arrested the chairman of the foreign embassy. I went home in a very depressed state. One station before ours, I got off the train and went to the stationmaster and ordered a boxcar to take us to Moscow two days later. After this I went home. No one knew anything about all my troubles except my wife Mary and my parents. I told them everything and that I had ordered a boxcar in Mordovo for the day after next. I told them we could not take the chance of leaving from our hometown because the police knew us all.

Some of our people were rather unhappy that we had to drive thirty miles¹⁷ with horses, but I could not tell them the reason for this. On September 13 we left our homes. On this trip we had our first accident. A wagon loaded with suitcases upset into a deep ditch filled with water. The driver, Hermann Isaak, could not swim, and we were thankful to God that all were saved.¹⁸

We still left that very same day for Moscow, six hundred kilometres away. We arrived there the next day and stayed at a big hotel. The next morning I, with a companion, went to the RUSKAPA to notify them of our arrival and to speak with the doctor. He offered that if we would pay for the taxi, he would come with us to the hotel and examine us. We gladly accepted this offer and took him to our hotel immediately. On the way he asked me how many sick people we had. I told him that none of us were sick. He commented that we were the first group without any sick people. After he had examined us, he asked me where we had come from. I said we were from Tambov. He said had he known this, he would not even have had to come, because Tambov had no trachoma. We actually wanted to stay one day longer in Moscow, but the RUSKAPA insisted that we take the train immediately since one was ready to leave.

The RUSKAPA owed us some money. Though they had paid our tickets from Moscow to Gretna, we had come to Moscow on our own. They told us that we could get our refund in Riga or in England. When I inquired about this, they asked if they could put it all under my name. To this I agreed. They simply sent along a statement of refund because they had no cash. We left and came to the border station at Sebezh. Here we were lightly inspected and so we passed through the “Iron Curtain”¹⁹ and entered Latvia. The train stopped, the engineers changed, and we went on. There is no way of describing our joy.

Then some of the older men came to me and said, “John, now tell us what the trouble was about.” I told them, and they said they had felt there was something wrong, but they did not know what it was. They also said I had done the right thing to keep it from them. Yes, God brought us safely out of Russia. Otherwise I, for one, would likely never have seen Canada, and I praise him for it. Later I was told that the RUSKAPA received word from Tambov that they were to stop me. They sent a telegram, but luckily for me it was too late. We were already over the border. After a few days another group came and was searched for me. They kept one of the passengers in Sebezh a whole week. When we arrived in Riga we met cousins from Orenburg, some of whom we never had met. It was here in Riga that I tried to get the money back that they owed us. They checked their accounts and found ours to be correct. They did not have any money here either but assured us we would be getting it in England.

After a three-day layover we, together with the Orenburger group, left in the ship Baltara for England. In London we boarded a train and went to Southampton, where we were housed in Atlantic Park. These were special quarters for immigrants. I think there were approximately four hundred of us there. We were immediately examined by a doctor and all declared healthy. Our passports were stamped. After this I again inquired about the money. Our accounts agreed and I was told they would call me when they had the funds ready. That same evening they called out my name and asked me to come to the office and bring my passport along. They took my passport and told me that I could not go any further because of the skin problem on my hands, but that this would take only a few days to cure, and then I could follow the rest. These few days stretched to 130 days, 122 of which I spent flat in bed. I could not even sit up to shave.²⁰

The others left the very next day on the train for Liverpool and from there they took the boat [the Montrose] to Canada, landing in Quebec. From there they went west into an unknown future. The Isaak family stayed in Manitoba, I think in Blumenort. The others all went to Saskatchewan, where they knew nobody, but came to Drake and were given a very friendly reception. The Depression years were difficult, and many left to seek their fortune elsewhere. Only two of the original families making up our group stayed in Drake: Cornie Bergen’s and ours.

After 122 days they brought me hospital clothes and told me to put them on and walk around. After a few days of exercising they brought me my own clothes and took me back to Atlantic Park. The next day I got my passport and then went to the seaport. I apparently was healthy and did not need any doctor to check me. I again went to inquire about the money and I was told that there was none left – I had used it all up to pay for my doctor and hospital bills. However, the condition of my hands had not changed. Anyway, I left England and arrived in Canada at the beginning of March 1927.

There were several other families that had just arrived in Canada and so we went together to Winnipeg. From there we were all sent to our designated places. I, of course, wanted to go to Winkler because my wife was living in Reinland with her parents. I was told that I could not go to Winkler because they were not accepting any more immigrants there. So I was given a ticket to Gretna. I had no idea how far apart these two places were. Another gentleman came by, and I asked him if they gave separation papers there. He looked at me bewildered, and I told him that my wife was in Reinland but they were not accepting any more immigrants there, so I had little choice left but to get a divorce from my wife. They all had a good laugh and told me that I should excuse the ticket agent because he was not aware of my circumstances. So he took back my ticket to Gretna and gave me one to Winkler. I met this gentleman years later. He looked at me and asked if I was not the man who because of his stupidity wanted to get a divorce. We both had a good laugh about it again.

Certainly we all have had many difficult days. We all are very happy they are behind us. We have also had many good days and for these as well we are thankful.

Our parents, of course, are all gone into eternity. How much we would like at times to spend a few hours with them. We could recount and discuss our past and tell them how good God has been to us these last years here in Canada. Of our group of forty-three²¹ that left Russia, to the best of my knowledge twelve have already passed on.

Christian greetings to all who read this document.

Katherine Bartel (1926–2013) emigrated to Canada as an infant with her parents, John G. and Maria (Buhler) Bergen. She lived all her life in Drake, Saskatchewan. Ernie G. Dyck is the son of immigrants from the Molotschna colony who settled in southwestern Manitoba. He is retired from a career as a United Church minister and lives in Peterborough, Ontario.

1. GRanDMA (the Genealogical Registry and Database of Mennonite Ancestry), #378206, #350542. ↩︎
2. James Urry, “The Cost of Community: The Funding and Economic Management of the Russian Mennonite Commonwealth Before 1914,” Journal of Mennonite Studies 10 (1992): 26. ↩︎
3. Sofya A. Salomatina and Vladislav Y. Ivakin, “Harvest, Railway Transportation and Banking Services to the Agriculture in the Central Black Earth Region of the Russian Empire in the Late 19th Century,” Russian Journal of Economics 7, no. 2 (2021): 130–31. The map at p. 127 is especially helpful in depicting the context in which these settlers found themselves. For other fairly detailed maps of the time see Erik C. Landis, Bandits and Partisans: The Antonov Movement in the Russian Civil War (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008). ↩︎
4. Prince Volkonskii, who was still living nearby, recalled a number of such incidents. See L. A. Owen, “The Russian Agrarian Revolution of 1917: II,” The Slavonic and East European Review 12, no. 35 (1934): 374. My thanks to James Urry for drawing my attention to this essay. ↩︎
5. Owen, 380. ↩︎
6. Cornelius C . Janzen, “An Address at the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Arrival in Canada” (Drake, SK, 1976), trans. Ernie G. Dyck, in Reminiscences of Maria Isaak and Cornelius C. Janzen and Family, ed. Tina Dyck and Ernie Dyck, rev. ed. (self-pub., 1993; revised, 2000; reformatted, 2022), 24. ↩︎
7. Pyotr Fydorovich Aleshkin, “Krest’ianskoe dvizhenie v Tambovskoi gubernii v 1920—1921 godakh: istoki, osnovnye etapy, formy sotsial’ no-politicheskogo protsessa” (The peasant movement in the Tambov province in 1920–1921: origins, main stages, forms of socio-political protest) (Candidate diss., Moscow University for the Humanities, 2004). ↩︎
8. Wikipedia, s.v. “Tambov Rebellion.” ↩︎
9. Dyck and Dyck, Reminiscences, 2. ↩︎
10. Janzen, “Address at the 50th Anniversary,” 24. ↩︎
11. “In the spring of the year 1914 we moved to Tambov province. The Old Colony [Khortitsa] had bought land in this province, a huge plain, but because of the war it was without inhabitants. Only fourteen families settled here and of these some later returned home. Here we spent our childhood and youth. The first years we had no teachers. So, when I should have been in the third year, I had missed two years of schooling. Thus, my whole schooling consisted only of five years, but the last three years we had very good teachers.” Janzen, “Address at the 50th Anniversary,” 23. ↩︎
12. The Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization, headquartered in Rosthern, Saskatchewan. ↩︎
13. He means the Allrussischer Mennonitischer Landwirtschaftlicher Verein (All-Russian Mennonite Agricultural Union), which had an office in Moscow. ↩︎
14. Once again, he means the Allrussischer Mennonitischer Landwirtschaftlicher Verein. ↩︎
15. It is unclear if Bergen means rubles instead of dollars. ↩︎
16. The OGPU was the secret police of the Soviet Union from 1923 to 1934. It was preceded in Soviet Russia by the GPU (1922–23). ↩︎
17. Bergen probably meant 30 kilometres, not miles. According to Janzen (“Address at the 50th Anniversary,” 25), the countryside was rough, with many waterways and steep, deep ravines. Freighting all the luggage and passengers would place demands on the horses that make 30 kilometres seem more likely. Google Maps shows the distance by today’s highway as 32.4 km. ↩︎
18. According to Maria Janzen, daughter of Hermann, he was wearing a heavy sheepskin coat, the lining of which held the family’s paper money. The waterlogged money had to be dried out. In the winter of 1993 Maria’s daughters found rolls of this money safe and sound in Maria’s home. Their food supply of biscuits (reesche Tweebak) also got soaked and was ruined. ↩︎
19. This was the term used later, during the Cold War, for the USSR’s policy of preventing its citizens from leaving the country. Actually, Bergen’s group was among the last to benefit from Lenin’s very lenient policy toward emigration. ↩︎
20. It appears that Bergen had typhus. With typhus a rash shows about four days after onset. The incubation period is seven to fourteen days. Typhus is caused by bacteria spread by lice, mites, or fleas, such as Bergen might have encountered in Moscow and Tambov hotels or in a train coach. He had been under great stress for many weeks and so perhaps was vulnerable. ↩︎
21. Hermann F. Isaak (b. 1880) and Katharina Bückert (1881), and 6 dependants, settled in Campden, ON. Kornelius F. Janzen (1864), 5 dependants, Winnipegosis, MB. Abram K. Janzen (1893) and Helena Dyck (1896), 2 dependants, Winnipegosis. George G. Bergen (1870) and Katharina (1872), 2 dependants, Winnipegosis. Abram J. Schellenberg (1903), Kelowna, BC. Johann D. Penner (1885) and Aganetha Janzen (1891), 7 dependants, Virgil, ON. John G. Bergen (1898) and Maria Buhler (1897), 1 dependant, Drake, SK. Isaak Gerhard Bergen (1901) and Helene Bückert (1903), 1 dependant, Winnipegosis. Kornelius Gerhard Bergen (1899) and Helena Janzen (1900), 3 dependants, Drake. All of their CMBoC registration cards give their last place of residence as Schutschino and place of departure as Mordovo. Some of the Mennonites of Schutschino decided against emigration; some left the settlement before 1926. ↩︎