# Russian Mennonites: upheaval, relief, and new homes

1880–1930 · Overview

The Mennonite migrations of 1874 did not empty the communities in the Russian Empire. The photographed history describes many Mennonites remaining in the Ukrainian colonies, where some landowners and industrialists prospered between 1880 and 1917. Those settlements formed the homes, congregations, and livelihoods whose future was overturned during the revolutionary years.

Between 1917 and 1919, the movement of Red and White armies through the colony regions brought destruction, pillage, and death. The timeline connects the particular vulnerability of Mennonites with their German language and the relative wealth of some communities. This political history enters the church account through what happened to families and congregations. Famine in the aftermath made the need for food and outside help still more urgent.

Mennonite communities sent four representatives to North America to seek help. Several relief committees gathered aid, and the need to coordinate their work helped bring Mennonite Central Committee into being in 1920. Clayton Kratz was among the early workers who accompanied that response. The delegates also explored places of settlement in Canada; the photographed account describes about 20,000 Mennonites arriving between 1923 and 1930, joining communities established by an earlier migration. Relief and resettlement became connected ways for churches to bear one another’s burdens.



- [Supplied timeline photograph IMG_9366, captions B, F, I, J](https://github.com/trueChristian/history.truechristian.church/blob/main/sources/church-history/photos/IMG_9366.jpg)

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Page: https://history.truechristian.church/en/events/russian-mennonite-upheaval-and-relief/

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