Molotschna
Initially called Halbstadt (Half-city), Molotschna was founded in 1804 by Mennonite settlers from West Prussia and consisted of 57 villages.
After many Mennonites left or were deported during and after the last days of World War II, this area became populated largely by Ukrainians.
In 1800, Paul I of Russia enacted a Privilegium (official privileges) for Mennonites, granting them exemption from military service "for all time".
In West Prussia, King Frederick William III was making it difficult for Mennonites to acquire land, because of their refusal to serve in the military due to their pacifist religious beliefs.
The central Russian government set aside a 1,200 km2 (297,000 acres) tract of land for the settlers along the Molochna River in the Taurida Governorate.
After four Mennonites were killed by a raiding party, the imperial government banned the Tatars' spiked and weighted polearm which they frequently used on hunting expeditions.
A district superintendent headed a regional bureau that could administer corporal punishment and handle other matters affecting the villages in common.
The Mennonite colonies functioned as a democratic state, enjoying freedoms beyond those of ordinary Ukrainian peasants living in Southern Ukraine.
[4] At a time when compulsory education was unknown in Europe, the Mennonite colonies formed an elementary school in each village.
[6] In the 1870s, the population pressure was eased somewhat when a significant portion of the colony migrated to North America, with many settling in Saskatchewan, Canada.
[6][8] Through influence of the short German occupation of Ukraine in 1918, some young men of Molotschna abandoned their pacifist principles and formed a self-defense group (Selbstschutz) for protection of the villages.
Together with a neighboring Lutheran colony, some Mennonites formed twenty companies totalling 2700 infantry and 300 cavalry, which held back the forces of the Ukrainian anarchist-communist leader Nestor Makhno until March 1919.
When the Russian communist Red Army combined with Makhno, the self-defense group was forced to retreat to Halbstadt and disband.
However, in the absence of effective governmental authority and when faced with the horrific atrocities committed by anarchist partisans,[neutrality is disputed] others came to believe in the necessity of self-defense.
The Istanbul group, mainly Goshen College graduates, produced three volunteers, who at great risk entered Ukraine during the ongoing Ukrainian Civil War.
A year passed before the Soviet government gave official permission for the international Mennonites to conduct relief work among the villages of Ukraine.
Fifty Fordson tractor and plow combinations were sent to Mennonite villages to replace horses that had been stolen and confiscated during the war.
