ProQuest Dissertations - The University of Arizona Campus Repository

commonalities. From 1546 to 1553. Menno Simons worked along the coast from Wismar
to Lithuania, visiting Mennonites. teaching and baptizing the youth.
Over a course of more than 200 years in the Vistula and Nogat river deltas, the
Prussian Mennonites adopted the local German dialect and "established the cultural
solidarity and folk identity (Gemeimchaftssimy which marked their group coherence
ever since" (Sawatzky 1971:3). Religious beliefs were consolidated, economic activities
shaped, and Low German was adopted as the everyday language. High German replaced
Dutch during church service and schools in this area only around the 1750s. By the end
of the 18"^ century, the Mennonites in Prussia "had developed national or ethnic
characteristics because of their isolation and life in separate communities" (Loewen and
Nolt 1996:204; Schroeder and Huebert 1996:115).
The Mennonites' industry and wealth provoked contradictory reactions from their
Prussian hosts during the 16"* century. While fellow citizens often envied Mennonite
accomplishments gained through hard work, urban councils, single Catholic Church
leaders, and other authorities welcomed and protected Mennonite groups. The reason for
this protection usually centered on the Mennonites' economic value to the host cities or
estates (Wedel 1901:66-67).
This 16"* century toleration of Mennonite groups in Prussia by its kings and nobles
eventually grew into full citizenship. They were praised for building dikes and turning
previously non-worked soil into fertile land. Various letters of protection (Schuizhrkfe)
from the Polish government during the 17"* century as well as the early 18"* century
''' Wedel (1901:92) also points out the Dutch Mennonites' acceptance of a German identity; "Hundreds of
families followed the Russian invitation and said good-bye to their old native country to which their
ancestors had moved from Holland, in which they had shed-ofT the Dutch and had become German in
language and customs", (from HG; my translation) Hunderle von Fami/kn folgien [der russischen
EinladungJ und sagten dent alien Heimallande LebewoM, wohin ihre Vorfahren aus Holland gezogcn
waren, wo sie im Laufe der Jahre das HoUandische abgeslreifl und Deutsche geworJen waren in Sprache
und Gesillung.
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