Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

History Eastern

Transformation on the Southern Ukrainian Steppe

Letters and Papers of Johann Cornies, Volume II: 1836-1842

edited by Harvey L. Dyck & John R. Staples

edited and translated by Ingrid I. Epp

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Feb 2020
Category
Eastern, Personal Memoirs, History
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781487504496
    Publish Date
    Feb 2020
    List Price
    $122.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442622388
    Publish Date
    Jan 2016
    List Price
    $92.00
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781442645066
    Publish Date
    Dec 2015
    List Price
    $111.00

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Russian empire opened the grasslands of southern Ukraine to agricultural settlement. Among the immigrants who arrived were communities of Prussian Mennonites, recruited as "model colonists" to bring progressive agricultural methods to the east. The three volumes of Transformation on the Southern Ukrainian Steppe document the Tsarist Mennonite experience through the papers of Johann Cornies (1789–1848), an ambitious and energetic leader of the Mennonite colony of Molochna.

 

This volume covers the years between 1836 and 1842, beginning with the creation of the Mennonite Agricultural Society and ending with the Warkentin Affair, which pushed the Mennonite settlement to the precipice of potential religious and political disaster. Throughout this era, Johann Cornies negotiated a shifting political landscape while guiding his community through equally challenging economic times.

 

Cornies was well connected in the imperial government, and his papers offer a window not just into the world of the Molochna Mennonites, but also into the Tsarist state’s relationship with the national minorities of the frontier: Mennonites, Doukhobors, Nogai Tatars, and Jews. This selection of his letters and reports, translated into English, is an invaluable resource for scholars of all aspects of life in Tsarist Ukraine and for those interested in Mennonite history.

About the authors

Harvey L. Dyck is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Toronto. He is author of Weimar Germany and Soviet Russia, 1926-1933: A Study in Diplomatic Instability, and editor and translator of A Mennonite in Russia: The Diaries of Jacob D. Epp.

Harvey L. Dyck's profile page

John R. Staples is a professor of Russian and Soviet history at the State University of New York at Fredonia.

John R. Staples' profile page

Ingrid I. Epp is a research associate with the Russian Mennonite Studies Program, University of Toronto.

Ingrid I. Epp's profile page