This document is an extensive list of estates, their owners and their "value" for tax purposes, divided by volost. The assessment related to monetary support that the Mennonite colonies contributed to the state forestry service provided by their men. The data for the Molochna [Molotschna] volost is far more detailed than that for Khortitza [Chortitza]. The list is located on pages 11-3 in a report entited Jahresbericht des Bevollmaechtigten der Mennonitengemeinden in Russland in Sachen der Unterhaltung der Forstkommandos im Jahre 1908.
James Urry originally discovered this item in the C.E. Krehbiel Collection at Mennonite Library and Archives, Bethel College, Newton, Kansas and deposited copies in the archives in Winnipeg. A full copy of the 72-page report is located at the Mennonite Heritage Centre (MHC) in Winnipeg in Volume 4046:2. A copy of just the list of estate owners was deposited by David Sudermann of Northfield, Minnesota, and can be found in the Schmidt-Dick-Sudermann collection, volume 4368:14 at the Mennonite Heritage Centre (Winnipeg)."
Alf Redekopp
I. Bericht der Halbstaedter Wolostverwaltung
a) Ueber Seelenzahl und Landbesitz in den Dorfsgemeinden der Halbstaedter Wolost.
b) Ueber die Gutsbesitzer, die laut Revision zue den Dorfsgemeinder der Halbstaeder Wolost gehoeren.
c) Ueber die Molotschnaer Doerfer in Orenburg.
d) Ueber das Vermoegen der Geschaeftsleute.
II. Bericht der Gnadenfelder Wolostverwaltung
a) Ueber Seelenzahl und Landbesitz in den Dorfsgemeinden.
b) Ueber die Gutsbesitzer, die laut Revision zu den Dorfsgemeinden der Gnadenfelder Wolost gehoeren.
c) Ueber das Vermoegen der Geschaeftsleute.
III. Bericht der Chortitzer Wolostverwaltung.
a) Ueber Seelenzahl und Landbesitz der Dorfsgemeinden.
b) Ueber die Gutsbesitzer, die laut Revision zue den Dorfsgemeinden der Chortitzer Wolost gehoeren.
c) Ueber das Vermoegen der Handel- und Gewerbetreibenden
IV. Bericht der Nikolaipoler Wolostverwaltung
a) Ueber Seelenzahl und Landbesitz.
b) Ueber das Vermoegen der Handel- und Gewerbetreibenden.
V. Bericht der Krasnopoler Wolostverwaltung
Die Krasnopoler Wolostverwaltung hat im Jahre 1908 keine Listen vorgestellt.
VI. Bericht der Orloffer Wolostverwaltung
a) Ueber Seelenzahl und Landbesitz.
b) Ueber das Vermoegen der Handel- und Gewerbetreibenden.
VII. Bericht der Malyschiner Wolostverwaltung
a) Ueber Zahl der Seelen und Landbesitz.
b) Ueber das Vermoegen der Handel- und Gewerbetreibenden.
VIII. Bericht der Alexandertaler Wolostverwaltung
a) Ueber Zahl der Seelen und Landbesitz.
b) Ueber das Vermoegen der Handel- und Gewerbetreibenden.
IX. Bericht der Wolostverwaltung Welikokjnashesk
a) Ueber Zahl der Seelen und Landbesitz.
b) Ueber das Vermoegen der Handel- und Gewerbetreibenden.
X. Bericht des Bevollmaechtigten der Samarischen Doerfer
a) Ueber Zahl der Seelen und Landbesitz.
b) Ueber das Vermoegen der Handel- und Gewerbetreibenden.
XI. Die Schoenwieser Dorfsverwaltung
Hat fuer 1908 keine Liste vorgestellt
XII. Von dem Bevollmaechtigten der Gutsbesitzer im Ufimschen
Ist keine Liste eingekommen
XIII. Verzeichnis der in Sibirien wohnenden Mennoniten, welche dort Land erworben haben.
From 1880 - 1917 Mennonites in Russia were permitted by special legislation to fulfill their military service obligations by working in forestry care camps under civilian administration. A total of nine main, and four or five auxiliary camps, plus a mobile phyloxera unit in the Crimean peninusula were established for this purpose.
The first two camps, Veliko Anadol and Azov, were opened in the Ekaterinoslav Province north of Mariupol on the Azov Sea, not far from the Bergthal settlement to admit the first Mennonite recruits of 1880. The next two camps, Ratzyn and Vladimirov, began operating in the Kherson Province, near the Sagradovka settlement, during the following year. Then followed two more in 1883, Alt and Neu Berdiansk, in the Taurida Province, just south of Altonau, in the Molotschna settlement in the vicinity of Melitopol. The phyloxera unit began not much later.
After the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), two more camps were opened at Ananiev (also called Sherebkovo) and Snamenka (also known as Chernoleskoi or Schwarzwald). Both were located northeast of Odessa on the Black Sea. Early in 1914, the first year of WWI, still another camp was set up at Issyl kul, a rail station on the Transsiberian Railway, halfway between Omsk and Petropavlovsk, in the midst of a number of Mennonite settlements founded along the railway after 1899.
During the four decades of their operation, the total number of alternative servicemen in the camps rose from 123 in the first two camps to somewhat over 1200 in all the dozen or so sites managed by the Mennonites by 1914. David Claassen and Henry B. Janz successively chaired IKSUMO (Executive Committee of the Representative Assembly of the Mennonite Churches for the Upkeep of the Forest Units) that directed the forestry service program in its final years prior to the October Revolution.
About 7000 Mennonite men, ranging in ages up to the early forties, served in the forestry camps during World War I. The majority of them were stationed in sites that were added to the original pre-war locations designated for alternative service. By the summer of 1918 all these servicemen had been demobilized and the camps permanently shut down.
Lenin's decrees of October 1918 and January 1919, continued to make alternative service an option for Mennonites, but all service sites were now run by the state. Some assignments to forest work, particularly in Siberia, continued to be made right up to the time when alternative forms of service ended altogether in 1936.
Sources: Lawrence Klippenstein, " Forsteidienst ( Forestry Service)", Mennonite Encyclopedia (Scottdale, PA and Waterloo, ON: Herald Press, 1990), Volume V, 308, and Lawrence Klippenstein and Jacob Dick, Mennonite Alternative Service in Russia: The Story of Abram Dueck and His Colleagues 1911 - 1917 (Kitchener, ON: Pandora Press, 2002), 1 - 40.
For further reading:
Friesen, Rudy P with Edith Elisabeth Friesen. Building on the Past: Mennonite Architecture, Landscape and Settlements in Russia/Ukraine (Winnipeg, Canada: Raduga Publications, 2004), 649 - 662.
Guenther, W, Heidebrecht, D.P. , Peters, G.J., compilers and editors. Our Guys: Alternative Service for Mennonites in Russia under the Romanovs . trans from the German by Dr Peter H. Friesen: (Kenora, ON: by the translator, n.d.).
Klippenstein, Lawrence, "Mennonite Pacifism and State Service in Russia: A Case Study in Church-State Relations 1789 - 1936", unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1984. Discussions of financing the forestry camps are found in Chapters V and VI.
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