Remembering Our Mennonite Heritage

Traces the origins of the Anabaptist-Mennonite movement and the migration of persecuted Anabaptist believers to Polish-Prussia in the 16th Century. 250 years later, over one-half of these Prussian Mennonites responded to the invitation of the Russian Tsars to settle in southern Russia (in what is now Ukraine) in the years from 1789 to 1836; and in central Russia from 1853-1870. Here, Mennonites established prosperous agricultural villages with their own administrative and educational system, their own hospitals, welfare and insurance programs. The "golden years" of this Mennonite Commonwealth came to an end with the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.