Those interested in the history of the Schönfeld area can refer to the sketch on p. 132 of the Mennonite Historical Atlas (Schroeder and Huebert). My uncle, Gerhard Toews,  published a history of Schönfeld in 1939 (Rundschau Publishing House), but it is written in German. Toews’ book was written for the occasion of a reunion of Schönfeld refugees, held in Manitoba in 1939.

Schönfeld was not Mennonite colony in the usual pattern. Other Mennonite colonies were discrete geographic units with self-government privileges. In the Russian administrative system of the time they were called Volosts (like municipalities in the Canadian system). Schönfeld consisted in a scattered collection of farms, estates and villages that were not within one continuous boundary. It was a testimony to the ingenuity and influence of the Schönfeld residents that they were able to persuade the Russian authorities to give their scattered holdings, interspersed with Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian and German Lutheran and German Catholic communities, Volost status in 1873.

By the mid 19th century the lands of Molotschna colony were fully occupied. Colonists with large families began to cast about for opportunities beyond the colony. In 1848 a number of Janzens purchased 409 hectares (1012 acres, or 375 dessiatins) northeast of the Molotschna colony and established the community of Blumenfeld. Blumenfeld would later become part of the Schönfeld Volost.*

In 1853 – 1856 Russia engaged Turkey, England, France and Piedmont in what has come to be called the Crimean War. After halting a Russian advance across the Danube into the Ottoman empire, allied forces invested part of the Crimean peninsula. Mennonite colonists were drawn into the conflict as suppliers and carters for the Russian army. A landowner and commissariat officer, Lt. Dimitri Nikonow Brasol, dealt extensively with Mennonite contractors and was, apparently, impressed by
them. Brasol suggested to a smith named Johann Fast, that he should buy his land, which lay far (by the standards of the day) to the north east. Brasol had, apparently, won his land in a card game with a landowner named Chonuk. Chonuk continued to own adjoining property. The land was mostly empty steppe, where Brasol’s and Chonuk’s serfs herded their masters’ sheep.

In 1861 Czar Alexander II abolished serfdom in Russia. Although the Russian landowners did not suffer any loss of land, many found it difficult to continue in the old manner without the sanction of serfdom to keep workers on their land. Many landowners began to sell off their land. At the same time the Mennonite colonies faced increased pressures of landless members. Some Mennonite villages bought land as daughter colonies. Some individual Mennonites dealt with the land problem by buying or leasing land outside the colonies on their own account. Among the latter was Johann Fast, the smith whom Brasol had met during the Crimean war. He and thirteen others from the Molotschna colony purchased 5,324 dessiatins (14,375 acres, or 5,803 hectares) from Brasol’s estate in 1868, at a price of 25 rubles per dessiatin. The land was bare, except for Brasol’s manor house (apparently incomplete – Brasol reserved it for his own use) a pub, a windmill, some granaries, sheep sheds and four huts. The Mennonite purchasers parcelled out the land among themselves and settled on their individual properties, rather than in a village. The area was popularly known as “Brasol” during the time Mennonites lived there.

** Within a year of the Brasol purchase, another group of Mennonites purchased land nearby, along the Solonaya River, from the nobleman Chonuk.***  In 1870 a Prussian Mennonite, Peter Epp, bought the land of a Hutterite colony which had moved to America. More land was purchased from landowners Andrejwka (Pavlograd), Gnidden (Kronberg) and Samoylenko (Schönbrunn).

The Schönfeld settlers prospered. They followed the economic pattern that had been established in the older colonies. Initially, they raised sheep, but gradually turned to grain crops. They planted trees, maintained orchards, gardens and even vineyards. Some settlers built dams on the seasonal rivers and stocked the reservoirs with fish. The settlers also built brick factories, mills and small agricultural machinery factories. One D. Schroeder ran a distillery in Silberfeld. By 1916 the value of a cultivated dessaitin of  land was 600 rubles (up from the 25 rubles paid for a dessaitin of uncultivated steppe paid to Lt. Brasol).

The area was officially surveyed in 1883. Initially, grain was transported by wagon to the Dnieper, to be shipped down to the Black Sea ports. Later a railway was built which ran north/south through the eastern part of the Schönfeld area, through the Russian city of Gulyapole. Shipping grain to the railway stations at Gaychur and Gulyapole was much more economical and made agriculture more profitable. Schöenfeld farmers tended to sell their grain to middlemen at the threshing site and were not involved in the actual shipping. Schöenfeld farmers used the latest agricultural machinery from Germany and the U.S.A., as well as Russia. Some bought automobiles (my father said that, while his family could have afforded one they did not buy an automobile as that meant hiring a chauffeur and his mother viewed chauffeurs with suspicion). One Schönfeld farmer even bought a German “Taube” airplane (for which he was to pay dearly during World War I, when ownership of such an airplane was viewed as a sign of treason).

Schooling was, at first, carried out in peoples homes. The first school was built in 1879. Eventually there were fourteen primary schools and a secondary school.

Worship, also, was initially carried out in settlers’ homes. The Schönfeld congregation elected its first pastor in 1872. The first church was built in 1883.

The prosperity of Schönfeld was its undoing when revolution and civil war engulfed Russia in 1917. Schönfeld suffered particularly because of its proximity to Gulyaipole, the home and first base of operations of the anarchist (or bandit, depending on one’s ideological inclinations) Nestor Makhno. Property and chattels were expropriated by Bolshevik authorities while random acts of robbery, torture, rape and murder by anarchists became commonplace. The area of Schönfeld fell variously into the hands of Bolsheviks, anarchists and the troops of the White armies as the battlefronts of the civil war moved north and south. Even the brief occupation of the area by Austro-Hungarian troops in 1918 offered little respite, as they were unable to control Makhno. Some Schönfeld residents formed Selbstschutz  militias to protect their homes and enjoyed some brief military successes, especially during the occupations of the area by the White armies. The last meeting of the Schönfeld council was held in August, 1919. The last church service was held Sept. 14, 1919. By 1920 almost all the surviving Mennonite residents of Schönfeld had fled south to the Molotschna colony. The area came under the control of the White army under General Wrangell, briefly, in 1920, but Wrangell had to retreat south that same year. The Schönfeld Selbstschutz militia which, by that time, had been incorporated into the White army, retreated with him and was evacuated from the Crimea to Turkey. Some Schönfeld landowner/refugees returned long enough to plant and harvest crops as late as 1922, but for all practical purposes, the Mennonite community of Schönfeld ceased to exist.

*Those recorded as being involved in the Blumenfeld purchase of 1848  were:
Peter Jacob Janzen, Jacob Johann Janzen, Abram Kornelius Janzen and Jacob Jacob Janzen.

** Those recorded as being involved in the Brasol purchase of 1868 were:
Abraham Abraham Driedger, Peter John Dueck, Kornelius Kornelius Friesen, Johann Johann Klassen, Johann Bernard Fast, Jakob Peter Heidebrecht, Abraham Dietrich Warkintin, Jakob Dietrich Warkintin, David Adam Mathies, Heinrich Peter Enns, Peter Peter Cornies, Johann Peter Enns, Claas Jakob Thiessen, Peter Gerhard Neufeld.

*** Those recorded as being involved in the Chonuk purchase of 1869 were:
Kornelius Krause, Abraham Friesen, Kornelius Siemens, Johann Enns, Johann Rogalsky, Paul Rogalsky, R. Siemens, Jakob Heidebrecht and Heinrich Fast

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