Chortitza Colony - Settlement

Settlement

Mennonite settlers, 228 families in all, set out for Russia in the winter of 1787, arriving in Dubrovna (today in Belarus) in fall of 1788, where they over-wintered. Early in 1789 they traveled down the Dnieper River to the settlement site, on the banks of the Dnieper, near present-day Kherson. Their original destination was now a battlefield because of renewed Russo-Turkish hostilities, necessitating an alternate location. They received land at a new site on Khortytsia, a small tributary of the Dnieper, near Alexandrovsk (present-day Zaporizhia).

The pioneering years were extremely difficult. The more prosperous brought their possession by wagon while the others sent them by barge. When the barges arrived they found that the containers had been ransacked and valuables removed or ruined by rain. Similarly, building material sent down-river was stolen before it arrived. Many of the settlers were city laborers with no knowledge of farming, and the farmers among them found the dry steppes unsuitable to their former farming methods.

Internal friction among the settlers, rooted in a long standing division separating Frisian and Flemish branches of the church, was compounded by the lack of any pastoral leadership. Church leaders were traditionally selected from lay members of the congregation and were expected to serve for life as unpaid pastors. Because pastors were expected to support themselves, they were usually chosen from among those who were prosperous enough to do so. Because only the poorest were allowed to leave Prussia, there were no pastors among the settlers.

Initially families built temporary shelters such as sod dugouts and tents while a few tried to live in their wagons. Höppner and Bartsch were able to build substantial homes. Land was divided among the families and each lived on their own land. In response to the lawlessness of the region they found that it was more practical to group themselves together in villages of fifteen to thirty families.

As their difficulties mounted, the settlers accused Höppner and Bartsch of keeping government money intended for colony use. Both men were excommunicated from the Flemish church and the authorities were convinced to arrest Höppner. Bartsch confessed his wrongdoing and was reinstated into his congregation. Höppner was soon released from prison, moved to Alexandrovsk and joined the Frisian group. In 1889 a monument commemorating the colony's centennial was placed on Höppner's grave. It has since been moved to Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach, Manitoba.

Initially eight villages were organized with Chortitza as the governmental center. They included Chortitza (Khortitsa), Einlage (Kichkas), Insel Chortitza (Ostrov Khortitsa), Kronsweide (Vladimirovka), Neuenburg (Malashevka), Neuendorf (Shirokoye), Rosental (Kanzerovka), and Schönhorst (Vodianaya). Another 180 families arrived in 1797-1798 to found Kronsgarten (Polovitsa) and Schönwiese (Shenvitse). The latter was the sole village established on the east bank of the Dnieper. Nieder Chortitza (Nizhniaia Khortitsa) and Burwalde (Baburka) were founded in 1803, Kronstal (Dolinsk) in 1809, Osterwick (Pavlovka) in 1812, Schöneberg (Smolianaya) in 1816, and Blumengart (Kapustianka) and Rosengart (Novoslobodka) in 1824.

When the next wave of Mennonite settlers came to Russia In 1803, they over-wintered in Chortitza Colony before moving on to form the Molotschna settlement. The money spent by the new group during their stay in turn helped the Chortitza settlement.