P. M. Friesen’s history of the Mennonites in Russia

Peter Martin Friesen’s Die Alt-Evangelische Mennonitische Brüderschaft in Russland (1789–1910) was published by Raduga in Halbstadt in 1911. Its title places the Mennonite brotherhood in Russia within the wider history of Mennonites. The Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies describes twenty-five years of work behind the volume and emphasizes its extensive collection of historical documents.

Friesen wrote as a participant in the life he studied. He had taught at the Halbstadt Zentralschule, served as a Mennonite Brethren minister, and written the church’s 1902 confession of faith. He also sought cooperation between Mennonites and Mennonite Brethren. These commitments help readers understand the standpoint of the historian while distinguishing the documents he preserved from his own interpretation of them.

The surviving archival collection includes part of a handwritten historical manuscript dated 1897 and a 1912 brochure collecting reviews of the published book. An English translation followed in 1978 as The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia (1789–1910). These identifiable editions establish the publication history. The earlier transcription of the exhibit’s small marker as 1915 is retained as a source-reading discrepancy, rather than used to invent an otherwise unverified 1915 edition.