Memories of migration
It’s been almost 100 years since 1923, when thousands of Mennonites from the Soviet Union began migrating to Canada. A train tour commemorating their journey will wind across Canada in the summer of 2023 to mark the anniversary. Ingrid Moehlmann, the event’s initiator, remembers her father’s final wish that started it all. “On his deathbed,…
Russian connection comes full circle
Two members of Black Creek United Mennonite Church in British Columbia have found a common heritage that goes back 234 years to the Russian Empire. In the late 18th century, Empress Catherine the Great of Russia conquered land she called “New Russia”—now Ukraine—and invited Europeans, including Mennonite farmers from Prussia, to settle the southern plains.…
From power to pathos
Peter M. and Susanna Friesen. “The story of Mennonites in Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union and the Soviet successor states is relatively short, beginning only in 1789. Despite this brief history, our memories of Mennonite life in this region are etched with deeply contradictory images. “On the one hand, we remember a resplendent culture marked…
