At the start of the First World War, many within society welcomed the empire’s entry into the conflict with enthusiastic patriotism. Mennonites, loyal to the tsarist regime, greeted the news as law-abiding citizens, and showed their readiness to do their civic duty. On the day that war was declared, Abraham Kroeker, editor of the Mennonite newspaper Die Friedensstimme, published a patriotic proclamation: “Shall we not show the government and the Russian people that, should war develop, we will be ready to serve the interests of the Fatherland and help the needy?” Furthermore, he suggested that Mennonites should quickly start raising funds for material aid to the Red Cross, organize hospitals in the colonies, and take care of the wounded. He also believed that young volunteers could help as hospital orderlies.¹ David Epp, the editor of Der Botschafter, published a similar response in his newspaper.² This article will explore the ways Mennonites helped the war effort in imperial Russia and how their help was received by the state and the general population.

Material Assistance

Mennonites realized the need to show public support for the war effort. Prayers of loyalty to the tsar were frequently held. Mennonites also provided material support by collecting donations. By August 1914, the colonies near Aleksandrovsk (present-day Zaporizhzhia) had donated 100,000 rubles for the war effort; the districts of Halbstadt and Gnadenfeld provided 164,000 rubles, including 36,000 rubles for the Red Cross.³ In January 1915, during Tsar Nicholas II’s visit to the provinces of Tavrida and Ekaterinoslav, Mennonites from the Halbstadt and Gnadenfeld districts donated another 10,000 rubles for the war effort, sharing that they wished “to give the dear Motherland strength in the fight imposed on her.”⁴ Mennonites from Ekaterinoslav province gave the same amount.⁵In Tavrida province, a committee for the relief of sick and wounded soldiers was formed, which received funds from all national groups, including the Mennonites. Even smaller Mennonite settlements donated money. For example, the Kronsgarten (Polovitsa) settlement in the Novomoskovsk district (fifteen households, comprising ninety residents) spent approximately 10,000 rubles to establish a hospital with fifteen beds. In the village of Petrovka (Naumenko settlement), located in the Izyum district (ten households), residents donated 11,000 rubles, and founded a hospital for the wounded. They also provided sixty-seven horses and twenty cattle for the army; the villages Muntau and Waldheim had infirmaries with forty and thirty beds, respectively, and there were fifteen beds for the wounded in Orloff’s hospital.⁶

Most Mennonite communities provided support for the war effort. In an appeal to the tsar, Mennonites of the Halbstadt district wrote: “Hundreds of volunteer Mennonites from all parts of Russia have rushed to serve . . . as orderlies, thus giving themselves wholeheartedly with God for the Tsar and Fatherland, not sparing their lives.”⁷ On their own initiative, Mennonites provided linen, warm clothes, and necessary items for the wounded, and donated food. The Halbstadt volost collected over 14 tons of breadcrumbs in 1914, and the Mennonites of Halbstadt (Molochansk) donated about 5.5 tons of dried fruit. The Zagradovka colony donated more than six hundred horses to the military.⁸

Mennonites provided concrete aid to the local population whose family members had been conscripted. Over the course of the war, 237,000 men were conscripted from Ekaterinoslav province, 438,300 from Kherson province, and 212,600 from Tavrida province.⁹ Since conscription in 1914 took place in the fall, the main type of assistance was help with bringing in the harvest. Thus, at a meeting of the Mennonites in the Zagradovka colony it was decided to help harvest and grind the grain, and to give peasant families whose heads were called up as soldiers three carts of straw each.¹⁰ Similar assistance was provided by the Mennonites of Petropavlovka and Wiesenfeld in Ekaterinoslav province¹¹ and by Mennonites in the Spat settlement in Crimea.¹² The Molotschna colony provided approximately a thousand carts for the harvest. Families of soldiers were also helped with food.¹³ In addition, Mennonites provided humanitarian aid to orphaned children affected by the war. For example, Johann Thiessen allocated funds to maintain ten orphans,¹⁴ and the Mennonites of Nikolaifeld donated 1,200 rubles to maintain the orphanage.¹⁵ Mennonites also provided aid to refugees from the front-line territories. One hundred and twenty refugee children found shelter in the Martens’ house in Halbstadt (Molochansk).¹⁶

Efforts at assistance by Mennonites were repeatedly noted in the press and in letters of appreciation on behalf of the tsar, government,¹⁷ and the local zemstvo authorities.¹⁸ These examples show that in the initial period of the war, the support of Mennonites for the efforts of the Russian imperial state was sincere and systematic.

Service by Mennonites

After the abolition of the colonist status for Mennonites and other groups formerly under the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Colonists and the introduction of universal military service, former colonists were conscripted into the imperial Russian military. Military service violated the religious tenets of the Mennonite faith, which contributed to the migration of some Mennonites to Canada and the United States. To reverse the situation, the tsarist regime introduced alternative military service under the regulations of May 25, 1882. Under this system, service was performed in forest and road teams, whose functions included guarding, planting, and clearing state forests, procuring firewood, and repairing and building roads and structures. By the beginning of the First World War, 1,204 Mennonites were serving in eight forestry teams. The Mennonite community paid the cost of maintenance of those conscripted into alternative service: a barracks fee of 50 kopecks from each male Mennonite from fourteen to sixty years old and a tax of 1.8 rubles based on each 1,000 rubles of property value were established.¹⁹

After the outbreak of the war, the leaders of Chortitza and Molotschna colonies met on July 22, 1914 (Old Style), and agreed on a common course of action, including the immediate organization of a hospital with one hundred beds in Ekaterinoslav. In response, many Mennonites already serving in the forestry camps decided to become volunteer medics, considering this service to be equivalent to the hard and dangerous work of soldiers. By mid-August, approximately four hundred young Mennonites had already shown their readiness, and fifty-four volunteers travelled to Moscow for training, to be followed by assignments to mobile hospitals. At almost the same time, a large group left for Simferopol. Not only men but also women volunteered to serve as nurses in military hospitals. The first volunteers were nurses from Muntau hospital. They served in the Tavricheskii hospital in the city of Simferopol.²⁰

On July 29, D. I. Klassen, the Mennonite congregational forest service commissioner for the Russian empire, received a telegram instructing him to report to the director of the Forest Department. At this meeting a few days later, it was decided to summon Mennonite congregational representatives, consisting of elders G. Plett, I. Klassen, and preacher D. Epp, to Petrograd (St. Petersburg) to discuss the question of Mennonite reserve service during the war. During the meeting held the next day, it was decided that the Mennonite reservists should be called up as medical orderlies, forest guards, and for forestry work. On August 7, at a meeting in the Molotschna colony, a majority agreed with the proposal to have young men serve as medical orderlies, and the willingness of Mennonite men to volunteer for medical service was commended.²¹

The Chortitza colony and most other communities approved of Mennonite service as medical orderlies. This was reported to Petrograd and as early as August 13, 1914, the Council of Ministers decided to enlist those called up from the reserve for service, including for medical service, into the active army.²² On September 2, the first drafted Mennonites arrived at the recruiting station in Ekaterinoslav. During that month, the state mobilized 2,651 Mennonite men from the European part of the empire and 551 from Siberia. By the end of the year, 1,585 men were attached to medical units. In Ekaterinoslav they were trained for several weeks for their future duties in the Red Cross hospital. By January 1, 1915, 2,116 Mennonites were serving as orderlies, which included volunteers.²³ These orderlies were to be supported by the military in the units and institutions to which they were sent. The state assigned the rest of the conscripts to the Forest Department.

In 1914, the cost of the maintenance of servicemen financed by the Mennonite community amounted to 476,773 rubles. The overall expenditure caused by the conscription of reservists was 172,205 rubles. In 1915, the tax on the property of members of the community for the maintenance of conscripts to forestry teams was increased to 2 rubles for each 1,000 rubles of property value. The community budgeted 537,500 rubles.²⁴ In reality, the upkeep cost for 1915 amounted to 872,453 rubles, including 525,277 rubles for food, 291,055 rubles for clothing, and 58,120 rubles for travel expenses. The budget for 1916 was 1,173,005 rubles. The total number of Mennonites in service by the end of 1915 was 10,821.²⁵

The All-Russian Zemstvo Union (VZS), the All-Russian Union of Cities (VSG), the Red Cross, and the United Council of the Nobility managed medical institutions during the war. The wounded from the western front, for the most part, were sent to hospitals in Moscow, Petrograd, and Kiev (Kyiv). Ekaterinoslav was also a medical support centre, with twelve VZS hospitals and infirmaries, five VSG hospitals and infirmaries, two Red Cross hospitals, and two hospitals of the Ekaterinoslav nobility, as well as the 102nd and 129th combined distribution hospitals.²⁶ As of January 1, 1915, ninety-six Mennonites served as hospital attendants in Ekaterinoslav hospitals and infirmaries.²⁷ In Ekaterinoslav, a mobile hospital with some Mennonite staff was also organized and sent to the front in Galicia.²⁸

In January 1915, because of an appeal to the Mobilization Department by General P. S. Savich, who reported that Mennonite orderlies were conducting anti-war propaganda at the Heir Tsarevich Hospital in Ekaterinoslav, the assignment of Mennonites as orderlies was temporarily suspended (until April). This case coincided with a campaign of spy mania directed at German speakers within the empire, which resulted in the mass eviction of Germans from the front-line territories. Concerned about this report, the military decided not to send Mennonites to the front; instead, a portion of the 1915 conscripts were sent into forestry service. But the demand for Mennonite medics, who proved to be professional and charitable workers, continued because they performed difficult work, which included carrying, nursing, feeding, and dressing the wounded and sick (often infectious). The writer D. Furmanov, who served with Mennonites in a medical train, noted their dedication and endurance. As he wrote, “they had to take care of the wounded without sleep, during the whole trip . . . which often lasted four to five days.”²⁹ The dedication of Mennonite medics to their duties and to the empire was confirmed by N. A. Sudakova, the doctor from sanitary train no. 189, which was captured by the Germans in 1915. She testified that “our Mennonite medics were offered by the Germans to supervise the work of Russian POWs, which they refused with indignation.” Prince S. E. Trubetskoi also noted the high reliability of Mennonite medics.³⁰

To meet the needs of the medical department, in early April 1915, more Mennonites were called up for service. In response, 1,000 men were called as orderlies (700 from the Ekaterinoslav province and 300 from the Ufa, Orenburg and Samara provinces) and sent to the medical institutions of Moscow, Novgorod, Ekaterinoslav, Kherson, and Simferopol. Eight hundred men were called for forestry work: 100 to the Kursk province, 200 to Kazan, 300 to Perm, 100 to Kiev, 50 to Smolensk, and 50 to Kharkov (Kharkiv). By May 1, 1915, 3,093 Mennonite men served as orderlies (including 581 volunteers), 2,784 in forestry service, and 261 in road works. In addition, 1,500 men were drafted from the reserves, and about 600 were enlisted as part of the 1916 draft. ³¹

In August 1915, 769 Mennonites were mobilized, mainly from Kherson, Ekaterinoslav, and Tavrida provinces, as well as from the Samara district. Taking into account those who were already at the collection point in Ekaterinoslav, 1,093 people were sent to the Red Cross, the Transcaucasian Zemstvo Union, and the Moscow and Simferopol infirmaries. The twelve sanitary trains run by the All-Russian Union of Cities, as of August 1, included 81 men, some of whom were Mennonites.³² The VZS had 50 trains under its control; Mennonites served as orderlies in 48 of them. In the so-called “nobility” trains, there were 668 orderlies, of whom 312 were Mennonites. By this point these trains had made 814 trips to evacuate the wounded.³³ The remaining twenty-seven VZS sanitary trains, consisting of thirty to forty freight cars for troop movement (teplushkas), were serviced chiefly by Mennonite orderlies (one orderly for each teplushka).³⁴ As of August 1, 1915, a total of about 1,500 Mennonites served on the sanitary trains.

Mennonites also served in mobile field hospitals and mobile medical detachments (dressing and feeding stations). On the front lines, field hospitals provided emergency medical and surgical aid to the wounded. One orderly attended to each hospital ward. During periods of intensive fighting, each ward could have forty to fifty wounded.³⁵ The personnel of the sanitary units were responsible for providing first aid at the front line, bandaging, and evacuating the wounded from the battlefield to the nearest infirmary or hospital, as well as organizing feeding stations, baths, laundries, disinfection and inoculation stations, and other life-supporting infrastructure in the rear close to the front.

During the war the VZS formed thirty such detachments.³⁶ Paramedics serving in units and medics on trains often found themselves in combat conditions. A man serving in train no. 217 described one of the trips: “Our train moved slightly forward to a destroyed railway box. Dozens of wounded people, bandaged in some way, were lying on the dusty grass near it. We immediately began loading the wounded into the wagons. The train was already full, but not all the wounded were loaded in. We put them in the aisles and in the vestibules. The whole train was already groaning with a slow, discordant moan. The fighting was evidently getting closer, but we did not see it. I only caught glimpses of the broken glass in the window of the carriage, then I heard the whipping of stray bullets on the rails. One of our orderlies was wounded in the shoulder, another was knocked off his feet by the hot air from a shell blast. But this went past our consciousness. Everyone was absorbed in one thought: ‘Hurry up and load the wounded! Hurry!’ A sweaty officer galloped to the train and called out to Pokrovskii (the train manager). The officer’s epaulettes were covered with such a thick layer of dust that you couldn’t even see the stars.

“‘Hurry up!’ The officer shouted in a broken voice. ‘Get your train the hell out of here! It’ll be too late in a quarter of an hour. You’ve got double traction! Now!’

“‘We can still take the wounded on the rooftops!’ shouted back Pokrovskii.

“‘Take them on the move!’ shouted the officer, spurring his horse, and galloping to the locomotive. The train started at once. Some of the wounded managed to cling to the railings and the orderlies dragged them onto the platform. It was only now that I noticed that it was already dusk – the fire of the bursts became clearer, and the dust on the horizon turned an ominous crimson colour.

“Then the bullets began popping against the walls of the cars, but it only lasted a few minutes. The train was moving at breakneck speed. When it finally slowed down, we realized that we were out of the ‘sack.’”³⁷

In the summer of 1915, six Mennonites (four from the Berdyansk team and two from the Velikoanadol’sk team) expressed their desire to serve in the active army. In August their petition was granted.³⁸ At the same time, the Forest Department, which received about 1,700 conscripts in the spring, also needed more men, since many employees (foresters and labourers) had been drafted into the active army. The Main Administration of Land Management and Agriculture (GUZZ) raised the issue of additional conscription for Mennonite second-class militiamen. In August, the Main Administration of the General Staff and the Ministry of Internal Affairs coordinated this issue. Following this, GUZZ proposed to send second-class militiamen (physically disabled) to the forestry teams as well. The corresponding decree was signed on September 14. At the same time, the military, having a shortage of sanitary personnel, began to apply for 500 second-class Mennonite militiamen.

Mennonites also served in other capacities. Jakob Dick, a Mennonite from a village in Crimea, was appointed deputy manager of the Red Cross nursing department.³⁹ At the same time, Hermann Abramovich Bergmann was appointed head of the wounded transport department of the VZS.⁴⁰ Johann (Ivan) Yakovlevich Esau, working under Prince M. P. Urusov in the Red Cross, headed a unit consisting of Mennonites that dealt with organization and supply. The unit, unlike the Russian intendant structures, worked quickly, without theft.⁴¹ Esau was appointed by the order of Urusov as the commissioner for the conversion of three cargo steamships into floating hospitals. The steamships transported the wounded along the Dnieper to Ekaterinoslav.⁴² Mennonite medics also served on Red Cross hospital ships: the Portugal (torpedoed and sunk), the Thyssen, and others.⁴³

Over the course of the war, approximately 12,300 Mennonites were drafted or served as volunteers; about 7,000 were in the sanitary units. Mennonite casualties during the war amounted to about a hundred men.

Anti-German Legislation

After the declaration of hostilities between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and imperial Russia in 1914, the situation of the German and Mennonite population in southern Ukraine changed markedly. On September 7, Ekaterinoslav Governor V. A. Kolobov signed a decree, making it illegal to use the German language in public. Violation of the decree was punished by arrest for three months or a fine of up to three thousand rubles.⁴⁴ The governor of Tavrida province signed a similar decree on September 2.⁴⁵ On October 24, the Odessa Military District General, M. I. Ebelov, approved these restrictions, banning groups of more than five people from speaking German, even in church sermons. (This ban was in effect for only two months and was cancelled from Petrograd on January 24, 1915).⁴⁶ Based on these orders, all German-language newspapers were closed, including Der Botschafter and Die Friedensstimme.

Another discriminatory law was passed on February 2, 1915, allowing the state to expropriate land owned by ethnic Austrians, Germans, or Hungarians in a 100- to 150-verst zone along the borders and around strategic locations. It was logical from a security standpoint, as France and Germany enacted the same type of laws in the front-line contact zone with the enemy. But in imperial Russia, the law also provided for a belt of 100 versts along the perimeter of the Black and Azov seashores, where contact with the enemy was practically impossible, especially along the shores of the inner Azov Sea, near a concentration of Mennonite settlements. Moscow professor K. E. Lindeman concluded that the inclusion of this coastal belt in the law was intended to reduce and further limit the land holdings of Mennonites and Germans. According to the law, within sixteen months of the publication of lists of landowners, all land purchased by the subsidiary colonies, as well as purchased titled land, would be subjected to expropriation. Only households where one of the family members served in the army were not subject to the law.⁴⁷

Mennonite Industrial Production

When it entered the First World War, the Russian empire was unprepared for a prolonged military campaign. The costs for the state were enormous, as it had to restructure the economy at the expense of the production of consumer goods. The state reoriented metallurgical and machine-building plants, including those owned by the Mennonites, to the production of military equipment and armaments. These factories received money and supplies from the Ministry of War to fulfill government orders. The orders from the defense factories were divided into two categories: the production of equipment for grain elevators and farming machinery for companies working to supply the army, and the production of armaments.

The Lepp and Wallmann Company produced three-inch shells, six-inch bombs, hydraulic presses for crimping three-inch grenades, hydraulic pumps for six-inch bombs, two-wheel wagons (about 530), 1884-model military wagons (700), and launchers (360). The factory of Jacob A. Koop produced two types of military wagons and shell casings in addition to agricultural equipment. In November 1916, the two plants merged into Lepp, Wallmann and Koop, which signed several contracts with the Main Artillery Directorate and the Ekaterinoslav Military Industrial Committee to produce shells. The Hildebrandt and Priess factory produced shells and wagons, and A. A. Unger’s factory manufactured wheels for two-wheel wagons and furniture for hospitals.⁴⁸ Neufeld’s factory in Sofievo produced hand grenades,⁴⁹ the Gorokhov and Jansen factory produced three-inch shrapnel and ignition cups for grenades, the G. D. Neufeld factory produced six-inch primers, and Bernhard and Anna Thyssen’s mechanical and iron foundry in the Velikoknyazheskoe colony (Wohldemfuerst) near Stavropol produced marine and anti-personnel mine shells and hand grenades, produced shell grenades and cartridges, and repaired rifles.⁵⁰ Factories producing flour and cereals for defense needs included J. Neufeld and Company in Waldheim, Thyssen and Company in Simferopol, Klassen in Kiziyar, G. Schroeder and Klassen in Molochansk, Franz and Schroeder in Neu Halbstadt (Novomolochansk), the six modernized mills of Niebuhr and Company, Dik’s mill in Feodosia district, and the partnership of I. I. Dik and P. Mantler in the village of Nelgovka.⁵¹

Many of the factories that continued to produce non-military goods had to downsize or stop operations, such as the Niebuhr brothers’ mechanical plant in Olgenfeld, the Koop and Company mechanical engine factory in Nikolayev, the Penner starch factory in Muntau, the Dicks’ pearl barley mill in Halbstadt, the Rempel mill in the New York colony, the Neufeld brewery, and others. It should be noted that during the war all Mennonite enterprises were in danger of being forcibly sold, since most were on land likely to be expropriated. The machine factory of J. J. Niebuhr in Olgenfeld, for instance, was expropriated.⁵²

The Aleksandrovsk city council was especially insistent on the issue of expropriation. In addition to the land and factories in Shonviz, it acquired the Alexandrobat sanatorium and demanded the purchase of the territories of Einlage (Kichkas), Rosenthal (Kantserovka), and Nieder-Chortitza. On August 19, 1916, the Ministry of Trade and Industry succeeded in stopping the expropriation of lands on which industrial facilities were located.

Under Surveillance

Even before the war, the post office and the police monitored Mennonites’ international correspondence.⁵³ During the war, censors selectively checked domestic correspondence. With the beginning of the war, the idea of German espionage was persistently instilled in the minds of the public. Spy mania intensified after the defeats of the Russian army at the end of 1914. Taking advantage of growing anti-German sentiments, peasants wishing to settle personal scores for past offenses began to submit denunciations to the police against Germans and Mennonites. According to these complaints, Germans were not reliable, and they were accused of making anti-patriotic statements. After a hearing, most accused were released,⁵⁴ although some were referred to the courts on charges of anti-government statements.⁵⁵ A few cases were brought to trial. The Ministry of Internal Affairs, which monitored the political reliability of Mennonites, had to admit that statements “of sympathy for Germany’s military successes were very rare.”⁵⁶ Nevertheless, searches for anything illegal and seizures of firearms from Mennonites were common.

The political police also paid close attention to Mennonites helping the war effort. As mentioned previously, in January 1915 the orderlies at the Heir Tsarevich Hospital in Ekaterinoslav were accused of anti-war propaganda among the wounded (by reading and interpreting the Bible). As punishment, some were transferred to the forestry service in the Perm region.⁵⁷ In August 1915, the Ekaterinoslav zemstvo hospital was searched and the correspondence of all Mennonite orderlies was confiscated based on a denunciation. They were also accused of reading the Bible to wounded soldiers, and of having conversations in German with captive Czechs. A search of the orderly K. K. Peters’ belongings resulted in the discovery of his wife’s letters, in which she described how the denunciation of Ukrainian peasants in 1914–1915 led to searches and interrogations of residents of neighbouring Mennonite farms.⁵⁸ Based on the contents of the letters, Peters was accused of espionage, he was placed under surveillance until the end of 1915, and all his relatives were searched. His fellow orderly, D. P. Reimer, confessed at the inquiry that he read the Bible in Russian to the soldiers. Lieutenant Colonel S. I. Volsky, who conducted the inquiry, concluded that both the orderlies and the villagers were reliable, but G. L. Terentyev, head of the Ekaterinoslav police department, ordered monitoring to continue, in order to please his superiors.⁵⁹

The Orthodox Church considered pacifism to be an “export from Germany” and engaged in a struggle against German influence in the empire. As a result of joint efforts with the political police, a secret police circular (no. 167126) was drafted and sent out to the police departments for implementation, stating that “the false teachings of Stundo Baptists, which have appeared in Western Europe and spread in Russia . . . are so strongly influenced by Germany that these sects are a breeding ground for Germanism in Russia.” In this regard, it was ordered to establish strict surveillance of Baptists and Adventists.⁶⁰ The document did not mention the Mennonites, but on its basis, investigative actions were carried out against the teacher Heinrich Friesen and brothers G. Iu. and Y. Iu. Heinrichs from the village of Korneivka, Ekaterinoslav district, who assisted Baptists and helped them financially.⁶¹ At the end of 1916 and the beginning of 1917, the police intended to deport several community leaders, including G. A. Braun from Rueckenau, and J. J. Friesen from the village of Tiege.⁶² For the most part, however, the Mennonites during the war did not give the authorities any reason to persecute the community on the charge of sympathizing with Germany.

Conclusion

The tsarist regime, after inviting the Mennonites into the empire, maintained a comfortable environment for the community’s development for over one hundred years. In turn, the community considered its members full citizens, and in difficult times for the Fatherland, voluntarily helped compatriots suffering from hunger, injury, and disease. Throughout the First World War, the community showed patriotism and endeavoured to serve with faith and conscience in the sanitary units, considering this service as equivalent to the hard and dangerous work of soldiers. In response, the state, wishing to rally the public against the enemy and to divert its attention from failures at the front, sacrificed some of its citizens, accusing the German-speakers within the empire of unreliability, sabotage, and complicity with the enemy. Against the backdrop of the anti-German campaign, a series of discriminatory laws was passed, restricting the culture of these ethnic groups and, most importantly, threatening the economic stability of the community. An exception was made for military families. With more than 12,000 Mennonites serving in the military (primarily in non-combatant positions), few were affected by the expropriation laws; however, the fear that this clause might be revoked hung over the community throughout the war. The Mennonites were saved by two circumstances: the economic needs of the state under the enormous strain of war, and the events of the Revolution of 1917. As a result, the material losses of the Mennonites did not exceed the national average. The mass expropriation of their property only began after the fall of the Provisional Government, during the civil war.

Olena Khodchenko is a candidate of historical sciences and associate professor under the World History Chair at Oles Honchar Dnipro National University, Dnipro, Ukraine.

1. A. Kroeker, “Europaeischer Krieg,” Friedensstimme, Juli 19, 1914, 4. ↩︎
2. D. H. Epp, “In ernster Stunde,” Der Botschafter, Juli 22, 1914, 1. ↩︎
3. Pridneprovskii krai, sent. 12, 1914, 5; DAOO f.89, op.1, d.3573, l.11, “Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del, Kantseliariia Gubernatora Tavricheskoi gubernii. 17 dekabr’ 1914”; DAOO f.89, op.1, d.3573, l.1,” Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del, Kantseliariia Gubernatora Tavricheskoi gubernii 20 avg. 1914g.” ↩︎
4. Derzhavnii arkhiv Odes’koi oblasti (DAOO) f.89, op. 1, d.3580, l.7, “Iuzhnaia vedomost’ 1915 g.” ↩︎
5. Ves’ Ekaterinoslav: spravochnaia kniga (Ekaterinoslav: Izd. L. I. Satanovskago, 1915), 11–12. ↩︎
6. Pridneprovskii krai, 19 sent., 1914, 4; K. E Lindeman, Prekrashchenie zemlevladeniia i zemlepol’zovaniia poselian-sobstvennikov. Ukazy 2 fevralia i 13 dekabria 1915 g. i ikh vliianie na ekonomicheskoe sostoianie Iuzhnoi Rossii (Moskva, 1917), 239; I. A. Zadereichuk, “Blagotvoritel’naia deiatel’nost’ nemtsev Kryma v period voennykh deistvii Rossiiskoi imperii vo vtoroi polovine XIX – nachale XX vv,” Voprosy germanskoi istorii: sb. nauchn. tr., otv. red. S. I. Bobyleva, (Dnipro, 2015), 48. ↩︎
7. DAOO f.89, op.1, d.3575, l.24–25, “Doklad upolnomochennogo s”ezdu predstavitelei mennonitskikh obshchin ot 1 maia 1915 g.”; DAOO f.89, op.1, d.3573, l.1 ↩︎
8. Friedensstimme, Nov. 5, 1914; Friedensstimme, Okt. 15, 1914; Friedensstimme, Sept. 6, 1914. ↩︎
9. Russkoe slovo, okt. 2, 1915. ↩︎
10. Friedensstimme, Aug. 23, 1914; Friedensstimme, Sept. 6, 1914. ↩︎
11. Friedensstimme, Okt. 8, 1914. ↩︎
12. K. E. Lindeman, Zakony 2-go fevralia 1915 g. (ob ogranichenii nemetskogo zemlevladeniia v Rossii) i ikh vliianie na ekonomicheskoe sostoianie Iuzhnoi Rossii. Kriticheskii razbor (Moskva, 1915), 238. ↩︎
13. Friedensstimme, Okt. 11, 1914; Friedensstimme, Aug. 23, 1914; Friedensstimme, Okt. 8, 1914. ↩︎
14. Pridneprovskii krai, no.5533, 1915. ↩︎
15. S.D. Bondar, Sekta Mennonitov v Rossii (Petrograd, 1916), 207; Iu. V. Beresten’, O. L. Levin “Pro pidgotovku menonits’kimi gromadami Pivdnia Roiis’koi imperii gumanistichnikh program ta proektiv na pochatku Pershoi svitovoi viini (serpen’ 1914 – sichen’ 1915),” Visnik Dnipropetrovs’kogo universitetu (Seriia: Istoriia ta arkheologiia, 2012), 98. ↩︎
16. B. D. Mikhailov, Gorod v stepi (Zaporozh’e, 2002). ↩︎
17. DAOO f.89, op.1, d.3573, l.11, “Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del. Kantseliariia Gubernatora Tavricheskoi gubernii (20 avgusta 1914 g).” ↩︎
18. Friedensstimme, Aug. 26, 1914, 5. ↩︎
19. DAOO, f.89, op.1, d.3575, l.19. “Prilozhenie. Izvlechenie iz postanovlenii godichnykh s”ezdov upolnomochennykh mennonitskikh obshchin i volostnykh i sel’skikh obshchestv i kopiia prigovorov Gal’bshtadtskogo, Khortitskogo i Gnadenfel’dskogo volostnykh skhodov, sostavlennoe v 1880 g. i na osnove kotorogo sostoial soglasno obshchego s pravitel’stvom. ↩︎
20. Friedensstimme, Aug. 26, 1914. ↩︎
21. DAOO f.89, op.1, d.3569, l.2. ↩︎
22. “Reshenie Soveta Ministrov ob ispol’zovanii prizvannykh v armiiu mennonitov v utverzhdennoe Nikolaem II 1914 g,” no 239 (1914): 3379. ↩︎
23. S. G. Nelipovich, “Voennoe vedomstvo i mennonity Rossii v Pervoi mirovoi voine (1914 – 1918gg.),” Etnicheskie nemtsy Rossii: istoricheskii fenomen «naroda v puti». Materialy XII mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii. (Moskva, 2009), 89. ↩︎
24. DAOO f.89, op.1, d.3575, l.11 ob., “Smeta upolnomochennogo mennonitskikh obshchin na 1915 g.” ↩︎
25. K. E. Lindeman, Prekrashchenie zemlevladeniia i zemlepol’zovaniia poselian-sobstvennikov, 345. ↩︎
26. Ves’ Ekaterinoslav: spravochnaia kniga (Ekaterinoslav: Izd. L. I. Satanovskago, 1915), 300. ↩︎
27. “Organizatsiia gospitalei,” Vrachebno-sanitarnaia khronika Ekaterinoslavskoi gubernii, no. I – X, (ianvar’ – oktiabr’ 1916): 261, 332. ↩︎
28. Denezhnyi otchet gubernskogo komiteta podvizhnogo gospitalia ot naseleniia Ekaterinoslavskoi gubernii za 1916 (1917), 18. ↩︎
29. D. Furmanov, Dnevnik 1914–1916 (Izd. Moskovskii rabochii, 1930). ↩︎
30. S. E., Trubetskoi, Minuvshee (Moskva, 1991), 340. ↩︎
31. DAOO f.89, op.1, d.3575. l.24–25, “Doklad upolnomochennogo s”ezdu predstavitelei menonitskikh obshchin ot 1 maia 1915 g.” ↩︎
32. I. S. Nazin I.S. Sanitarnaia sluzhba russkoi armii v voine 1914–1917 gg. (Kuibyshev: Kuibyshevskaia voenno-meditsinskaia akademiia Krasnoi Armii, 1942), 464. ↩︎
33. Nazin, Sanitarnaia sluzhba russkoi armii v voine 1914–1917 gg., 111. ↩︎
34. Arthur Kroeger, Hard Passage: A Mennonite Family’s Long Journey from Russia to Canada (Edmonton: University of Alberta, 2007), 269. ↩︎
35. A. L. Tolstaia, Doch’ Moskva, 2001), 572. ↩︎
36. T. I. Polner, Zhiznennyi put’ kniazia Georgiia Evgen’evicha L’vova: lichnost’, vzgliady, usloviia deiatel’nosti (Moskva, 2001), 201–464. ↩︎
37. G. K. Paustovskii, Povest’ o zhizni Moskva, 2007). ↩︎
38. S. G. Nelipovich, “Voennoe vedomstvo i mennonity Rossii v Pervoi mirovoi voine (1914–1918 gg.),” Etnicheskie nemtsy Rossii: istoricheskii fenomen “naroda v puti”: materialy XII mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii. Pod red. A. A. Germana (Moskva, 2009), 85–103. ↩︎
39. Iokhannes Rainer (Johannes Reimer), Evangelizatsiia pered litsom smerti. Iakov Dik i Russkaia palatochnaia missiia (2002), 162, http://krotov.info/libr_min/17_r/ay/mer_1.htm. ↩︎
40. Ia Shtakh, Ocherki iz istorii i sovremennoi zhizni iuzhnorusskikh kolonistov (Moskva, 1916). ↩︎
41. N. Chaban, “O gorodskom golove i ego bulave,” Zaria goroda, no. 36 (2009): 5. ↩︎
42. Pridneprovskii krai, iiulia 1, 1915, 5. ↩︎
43. A. F. Meiendorf, “Portiugal’” (istoriia gibeli gospital’nogo sudna, atakovannogo nemetskoi podvodnoi lodkoi 17 marta 1916 g) (Odessa, 1916). ↩︎
44. Beresten’ i Levin, 112. ↩︎
45. G. Fast, In den Steppen Sibiriens (Rosthern, SK: 1956), 170. ↩︎
46. Derzhavnii arkiv Zaporiz’koi oblasti (DAZO) f.32, op.1, d.326, l. 63. ↩︎
47. K. E. Lindeman, Prekrashchenie zemlevladeniia i zemlepol’zovaniia poselian-sobstvennikov, 13, 32. ↩︎
48. N. V. Venger, Menonitskoe predprinimatel’stvo v usloviiakh modernizatsii Iuga Rossii: mezhdu kongregatsie, klanom i rossiiskim obshchestvom (1789–1920) (Dnepropetrovsk, 2009), 438, 441; N. V Venger, “Osnovnye etapy razvitiia menonitskoi promyshlennosti Iuga Ukrainy v 1860–1920 gg. (na primere Aleksandrovskogo uezda Ekaterinoslavskoi gubernii),” Nemtsy Rossii v kontekste otechestvennoi istorii: obshchie problemy i regional’nye osobennosti (Moskva, Gotika, 1999). ↩︎
49. O. M. Ignatusha, “Zaporiz’kii krai v roki Pershoi svitovoi viini,” Sums’ka starovina, no. 28–29 (2009). ↩︎
50. Mekhanicheskii i chugunoliteinii zavod Bernkharda Kornelievicha i Anny Iakovlevny Tissen v kolonii Velikokniazheskoe, http://www.tissen-familienchronik.net/bernh_tiss.htm#werk. ↩︎
51. N. V. Venger, Menonitskoe predprinimatel’stvo v usloviiakh modernizatsii Iuga Rossii, 438, 439. ↩︎
52. N. V. Venger, Menonitskoe predprinimatel’stvo v usloviiakh modernizatsii Iuga Rossii, 437–441. ↩︎
53. Ekaterinoslavskaia zemskaia gazeta, sent. 10, 1916, 3. ↩︎
54. Tsentral’nii derzhavnii istorichnii arkhiv Ukraini, m. Kyiv (TsDIAK) f.313, op.2, sprava 3206, ark. 50; sprava 3250, ark. 117; sprava 3035, ark. 55; sprava 3207, ark. 35; sprava 3330, ark. 54. The names of those released: P. I. Fast, I. Hamm, I. D. Feher, E. A. Braun, and others. ↩︎
55. TsDIAK f.313, op.2, sprava 3187, ark. 18; sprava 3254, ark. 364; sprava 3197, ark. 18; sprava 3001, ark 104. Some cases were referred to the court system: F. A. Warkentin, I. I. Wiens, I. F. Kremer, I. I. Penner, and others. ↩︎
56. Ekaterinoslavskaia zemskaia gazeta, sent. 10, 1916, 3. ↩︎
57. S. G. Nelipovich, “Voennoe vedomstvo i mennonity Rossii v Pervoi mirovoi voine (1914 – 1918gg.),” Etnicheskie nemtsy Rossii: istoricheskii fenomen «naroda v puti». Materialy XII mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii (Moskva, 2009), 88. ↩︎
58. TsDIAK f.313, op.2, sprava 3235, ark. 2–5, ark. 62–104. ↩︎
59. TsDIAK f.313, op. 2, sprava 3235, ark. 117, 117 ob. ↩︎
60. Evangelisticheskoe dvizhenie v Rossiiskoi imperii (1850–1917): Ekaterinoslavskaia guberniia (sb. dok. i mater.), sost. i red. O. V. Beznosova. (Shtaikhagen: Samencom, 2006), 320. ↩︎
61. Ibid., 203. ↩︎
62. GARF f.102(oo), op.1915, d.167, ch. 75, l. 15–16. ↩︎