In 1848, Eugen Kaspar von Hahn, chairman of the Guardianship Committee that oversaw the Mennonite and other settlements of foreign origin in South Russia, ordered the settlements to prepare a history (called Gemeindeberichte) of each village. The mayor (schultz) and other officials of Lichtfelde prepared the history for their village, which had been founded in 1821. Since my 3-greats-grandfather Gerhard Abraham Fast #62896 (b. ABT 1788) was one of the original settlers, I will examine the report in detail to see what we can learn about the history of the village and his life. But we will start with some background to the village.
(An online reprint of all the village histories can be found at the Odessa3 collection).
The Molotschna Mennonite Colony, of which Lichtfelde was a part, was founded in 1803 by Mennonite immigrants from West Prussia. Because the Prussian government had restricted their rights to own and inherit land as long as they remained non-resistant and refused to serve in the Prussian army, many of them immigrated to the south Russian steppe. They founded nineteen villages there in the years 1803-1806. But then the immigration slowed dramatically as Prussia eased the restrictions on land ownership and as the Napoleonic Wars made international migration more difficult, and only one new village was founded in the next thirteen years.
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| 1821 Map of Europe, showing migration from West Prussia to south Russia. Source: Lavoisne's 1821 map of Europe. |
The Prussian government had relaxed restrictions on Mennonites' purchasing royal land during the Napoleonic Wars to raise money, but after winning the war in 1815 they had reinstated the restrictions. Moreover, patriotism surged in Prussia in the years after the victory, so Mennonites were under increased pressure to serve in the military. So beginning in 1818, Mennonite migration from Prussia to Russia surged again. and another twenty villages were founded over the next five years. One of these was Lichtfelde. [Mark Jantzen, Mennonite German Soldiers: Nations, Religion, and Family in the Prussian East, 1772-1880 (Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame UP, 2010) 94-95.]
We will begin a detailed analysis of the Lichtfelde report in the next blog post.
(h/t Bob Buller and his Buller Time blog, where he has analyzed several village histories.)
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