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This slide presentation provides historical overview of <i>The Martyrs Mirror</i>, first published in 1660, a significant document of the Mennonite Church, and specifically it includes reproductions of 38 etchings by Dutch artist Jan Luyken, as first published in the 1685 edition. Prepared with a written script to be read, as each image was projected with a Kodak slide projector.

This collection consists of the 95 files which Dr. Rempel selected from the St. Petersburg Archive related to Mennonites which he requested to have microfilmed in 1962. The St. Petersburg (known as Leningrad at the time) Archive holds the documents of the Russian Senate (later referred to as the Duma) for the period of 1789 to 1917.

This collection is divided into 3 parts (divisions of the State Archive of the Zaporozhye Region):
-A. Tsarist-Era (9 fonds selected out of 43 that were identified as having Mennonite-related documents)
-B. Soviet-Era (16 fonds selected out of 129 that were identified as having Mennonite-related documents)
-C. Communinist Party documents (4 fonds were selected)

Before 1917, five Mennonite multi-village settlements existed within the present-day Zaporozhe region, each constituting a separate administrative volost: the Khonitsa and Molochna
mother settlements; and the Mariupol/Bergthal (1836-1871), Nikolaipole (Yazykovo), and Schoenfeld daughter settlements. Many had their own volost couns, banks, hospitals, and educational institutions. Also dispersed throughout the region were private Mennonite khutor-farmsteads and estates. In villages, towns and cities Mennonites owned factories, plants, mills, were actively involved in the trades and handicrafts, and participated in town and uezd Zemstvo councils.

Special strengths of the Tsarist era fonds, which make up about 25 percent of all Mennonite-related fonds, pertain to: the Nikolaipole volost administration; Mennonite-owned
farm implement factories in the Khortitsa volost; afforestation programs dating from the 1840s to the early 20th century (including service records of the Forstei, the alternative state afforestation service program for Mennonites); uezd statistical and land survey materials for Khorutsa volost and for Mennonite estates; and Mennonite enrollment and attendance at secondary schools in Aleksandrovsk. The Archive also holds smaller fonds on institutions ranging from courts and banks to the Maria School for the Deaf and Mute in Tiege.

The Archive's Soviet-era holdings are divided into state administrative and Communist Party fonds. These materials were housed in separate archives until the collapse of the Soviet
Union in 1991, when the Party Archive was administratively integrated into the State Archive. In general it might be said that State Archive documents, generated by Soviet administrative organs, reflect what was happening in a region, while Party Archive documents often help to explain why.

State administrative fonds are richest for the period 1919 to the summer of 1930. The Civil War, the middle years of NEP, and the period of collectivization are especially well documented. The Khonitsa raion experience (including that of Mennonites of the former Nikolaipole volost) is extraordinarily well documented at all levels-okrug, volost/raion and village selsovet.

Turning to the Communist Party level, it should be noted that four significant fonds relating to the Mennonite experience exist. Indeed, such records for Khortitsa raion in the 1920s,
at the okrug, raion and selsovet levels, appear to have survived more or less intact. The sheer volume of such materials gives evidence of the preoccupation of the Party, from the central committees in Kharkov and Moscow to the Khortitsa raion, with Mennonites, who were a difficult ethno-religious minority for the Party to deal with given their relatively great social solidarity and resistance to the social-discriminatory and anti-religious facets of sovietization. Comparatively few Party records have survived for the Molochna Mennonites during the 1920s. Party records for the 1930s, on the other hand, are quite numerous for the Molochna Mennonite settlement, but virtually nonexistent for the Khortitsa raion. But such 1930s Party records are in general far less frank and revealing than for the preceding decade, the 1920s.

[excerpts from H.L. Dyck and A.S. Tedeev guide to the holdings, pp. xv,xvi].

The St. Petersburg microfilming project grew out of the discovery of a rich collection of documents relating to Mennonites for the period 1789 to 1917 which were housed in the Russian State Historical Archives in St. Petersburg. These documents relate to the Russian Senate and later the Duma.

The Peter J. Braun Mennonite Archive collection is large and varied. It includes a selection of documents of the Halbstadt District from the period 1803-1820, the archive of the Agricultural Society [in Molotschna] since 1831, the papers of Johann Cornies (1789-1848), Moloschna Mennonite School records, records regarding the forestry service after 1880, and much more. One significant document included in this collection is a complete census of the Molotschna colony taken in 1835.

This collection consists of sermons or other writings of 166 individuals, sermons with no author given which were read numerous times by a particular branch of the Mennonite church, biographies of a number of missionaries, photographs of approximately 90 of the Mennonite ministers and some miscellaneous material.

Photos from the past (Aus der Vergangenheit)
Refugee photos (Auf der Flucht)
Photos in transit in Germany (Unser Aufenthalt in Deutschland)

23 Series of photographs

This fonds consists of research files collected by Jake Peters with the unrealized hope of writing a history of the Sommerfeld Mennonite Church. The materials are a mix of copied and original materials in German and English that detail the experiences of the Sommerfeld Mennonite Church and its leaders. Peters started as early as 1979 with the collection of materials when he conducted interviews in the villages of Sommerfeld and Neubergthal about the early history of the Sommerfeld Mennonite Church. On this trip he collected some materials which he deposted at MHC much earlier than the bulk of materials. The collection has been divided into the following twenty-two categories primarily by the compiler.
1) Bibliography research
2) Endeavors at writing Sommerfeld History
3) Sommerfelder pre history
4) Early observers of West Reserve Life
5) General leadership oriented historical file
6) Sommerfeld Church and the wars
7) Minutes and correspondence from ministers
8) Migration
9) Schisms
10) Church meetings functions, and activities
11) Statistical data
12) Ideology, theology and sermons
13) Social concerns and broader involvement
14) Local congregations and people
15) General West Reserve materials
16) Various Sommerfeld diaspora communities
17) Swift Current and Herbert area Sommerfeld Mennonite Church
18) Assorted non Sommerfelder research materials
19) Addendum
20) bulletins and correspondence
21) Early collection of materials related to the Sommerfeld church in Neubergthal and Sommerfeld
22) Photographs.

This collection consists of 6 images. Penner found these images with friends and relatives in the Plum Coulee area.

The documents show the interactions between the Canadian government and three minority religious groups -- Mennonites, Hutterites, and Doukhobors. The materials document the issues of communal landholding, special arrangements for the education of their children, exemption from military service, and modification in welfare-state matters. From these materials Janzen identified the underlying patterns in the government's responses.

Mennonites, Hutterites and Doukhobors are three minority protestant groups with origins in 16th Century Europe, that believed in separation from "the world" or general society. All three groups had a connection with Russia (former Soviet Union) and immigrated to Canada in the late 1800s-mid 1900s after securing some special privileges related to religion, education, and military exemptions from the Canadian government. These groups, sometime classified as Christian sects, settled in group settings in Western Canada, were agrarian based and believed in pacifism and non violence. Each group negotiated with the federal and provincial governments in order to practice their religion as they saw fit. The groups had some similar issues such as conscientious objection and alternative service during times of war. Other issues affected the groups differently. These included education, land settlement and use, and freedom from paying some taxes or contributing to the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). The documents included private and government correspondence, reports, articles, essays, and newspaper clippings; and, both primary and secondary documentation on all these issues. Almost all the materials are photocopies.