Now too much for us: German and Mennonite transnationalisms, 1874-1944

This is a comparative analysis of two German-speaking Mennonite colonies. One group of 1,800 migrants voluntarily left Russia for Canada in the 1870s and departed Canada for Paraguay’s Gran Chaco in the 1920s to preserve their communal autonomy. Another group of 1,500 Mennonites remained in Russia until 1929, when Stalinist persecution forced them to flee as individual refugees through Germany to the Gran Chaco. Here, the colonies negotiated separate relationships with the Paraguayan government and crafted different responses to German Nazis and American Mennonites who desired global German or Mennonite unity. Comparing the groups’ collective narratives—as voluntary migrants and refugees—reveals problems faced by individuals who do not fit into prescribed national or religious molds.

This work engages global forces—such as nationalism and displacement—and universal conditions affecting mobile groups—including how they negotiate group identifications and perpetuate local cultures. It begins from the premise that group identifications are not immutable and objective. Rather, they are embedded in mythologies that are articulated as contingent, subjective narratives. This approach shapes three arguments: First, governments and aid agencies benefit from the existence of migrants and refugees by advancing mythologies that include or exclude them. Second, faith-based diasporas are tenacious carriers of national cultural features—such as languages and folkways—but they maintain these features for their own ethnoreligious purposes and not at the behest of a nation-state. Third, faith-based diasporas draw on national and religious myths to interpret new environments, but their communities formulate divergent narratives about their roles in these settings—on a spectrum from faithful nomads to exiled victims.