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[Brinda]

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At this early stage it looks like 2006 is going to be a stellar year in Mennonite publishing history.Memoirs by two important writers have been released: Rudy Wiebe and Harry Loewen, to add tothe significant publication of two major historical works by James Urry and Abraham Friesen - hereunder review. Both are the product of many years of research and bound to be provocative, perhapseven controversial. Both blaze new trails in Mennonite historiography.

Urry's volume is historical social anthropology at its best. It is both comprehensive andnarrowly focused in that he spans the centuries from the founding of the Mennonite church in thesixteenth century to the maturation of a segment of the worldwide community in the 1980s, whileconcentrating nearly exclusively on the process and character of its politicization in the practical andtheoretical realms. Matters of faith and doctrine are only peripherally treated when they involve theoverriding concerns of politics both internal and external. The practices of piety, missions andevangelization, childrearing and socialization, pure economic and social developments are coveredonly when they relate directly to the process of politicization. He traces the intricate relationshipbetween a pacifist ethno-religious community, increasingly aware of a unique peoplehood, and thevarious forms of governing authority appropriate to the various epochs. But this historical evolutionof church-state relations is only covered for one important segment of the worldwide community,namely those who migrated from Holland to Poland-Prussia in the late 16th century and then thosefrom the Danzig region who emigrated to Catherine the Great's "New Russia" on the lower Dneprin the late 18th century. Then he moves along with several waves of immigrants from Russia toCanada, mainly Manitoba and finally Winnipeg, the city with the largest Mennonite population inthe world. Mennonite communities in the Americas and other continents who did not come by wayof the Russian sojourn are hardly mentioned. For instance, those Mennonites who stayed behind inthe Netherlands and those who remained in the Vistula Delta when a small group migrated toRussia, and those who developed an independent existence in South Germany and Switzerland alsoformed specific church — state relationships important to Urry's overall thesis, but we discover verylittle about how their forms of this politicization process developed differently from the one tracedby the author. By moving his analysis with the particular group he is interested in from Europe toRussia and then Canada, the author leaves behind some important developments in the church-staterelationship he highlights.

Thus the period of the rise and fall of fascism and the Nazi Party, especially for GermanMennonites and the so-called Volksdeutsche in occupied European countries is almost completelyignored, except for some brief mention of the fact that many Canadian Mennonites were strangelyattracted to Nazi ideology and defended the Third Reich in public forums. It is not generally knownthat there were Mennonites deeply involved in nearly every branch of the Nazi movement inGermany and several other countries and that a surprising number of young Mennonites joined theSS and regular army, frequently before formal compulsion was applied. This period arguably wasthe highpoint of Mennonite involvement in the politics of the day. Very few, however, involvedthemselves with the Marxist parties and Soviet Communism. Fuller treatment of this aspect ofMennonite peoplehood would have made for a more complete picture of politicization for the nolonger "quiet in the land." Admittedly, to fill all of these purported loopholes would most likely haverequired a book twice the size of this 440 page opus. But one should nonetheless realize that Urry'sbook is a brilliantly organized and executed analysis of a significant segment of the Mennonitecommunity involved in the game of normal political discourse and practice, not the whole in all itsparts.

As for the things the book actually does, it does very well indeed. Setting up a dramaticstructure which leads off in the introduction with a discussion of the apolitical "quiet in the land,"he ends up with a politically involved "loud in the land" in the conclusion. Then in chronologicalorder, each chapter in turn takes up the central issues of an epoch and develops in detail how theproblems emerged and how they were dealt with by both sides, the pacifist group and the powersthat be. In the initial two and a half centuries, starting in 1525, confessions and magistratesdominated the discourse, including the famous apolitical Schleitheim Articles, positing a sharpdivision between the corrupt outside world of power and the defenseless flock of the faithful.Gradually Mennonites followed other groups and composed self-defining confessions, which for themost part rejected service as magistrates, but usually emphasized obedience to rules and decreesissued by magistrates, as long as they did not deviate from the Word of God.

With some obvious overlapping in time parameters, the next chapter deals with the mandatesissued by nearly all rulers against the Mennonite deviants and traces the slow progress towardacceptance with full rights enshrined in so-called Privilegia around 1800. The third epoch, stretchingfrom 1750 to 1874, is labeled "Revolutions and Constitutions" and focuses still on Western Europe.Mennonites were partially involved in nearly all the political currents and cross-currents of thistumultuous time, characterized by numerous revolutions and several constitutional liberal attemptsat reform and unification, especially in Central Europe. To the surprise of many, two Mennoniterepresentatives were elected to the Frankfurt Parliament of 1848, although they seemed to be movedmore by nationalism than pacifism and made no attempt to argue for exception from military serviceor avoidance of legal oaths.

Moving on to the second section of the book we arrive in Russia, familiar terrain for thosewho have read Professor Urry's earlier book on the sweeping transformation of the Mennonitecommonwealth, None But Saints (1988). Here he develops the amazing progress of power andprivilege under the benevolent tsars up to the Revolution 1905. There is no one in the field todaywho can match Urry's potent and penetrating analysis displayed in this and the following twochapters, more narrowly focused on the period between the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, entitled"Constitutionalism and Solidarity," and the devastating period of the civil war and agonizing 1920ssomewhat mildly labeled "Autonomy and Ideology." The Mennonite participation in the process ofdemocratization and revolutionary transformation is exemplified by the election of tworepresentatives to the Duma. Urry examines their performance and its effect in detail. This is theheart of the book, showing Urry in full bloom, writing the epitaph of the Russian Mennonites forour generation. It demonstrates why the best Mennonite history should be written by non-Mennonites who carry none of the usual encumbering emotional baggage generated by internaldissent and external challenges - such as Stalin's murderous collectivization.

What follows in the final section of the book on Canada is not merely an epilogue. It is theconclusion of the Russlnder's powerful effect on the Mennonite community delineated inexcruciating detail and with knowing panache. He is no stranger to Canadian history, since he hasa long-range study of a Mennonite town known as Grunthal under the microscope and knows theCanadian Mennonites and Canadian politics as well as any American or Canadian scholar. Firstdiscussing the background in Manitoba at the turn of the century (1890-1920), he zeroes in on hisfavorite historical actors, the immigrants from Russia known among the diverse Mennonite groupsof Canada as the Russlnder, whose domination of the scene is pervasive and politically potent inthe period from 1923 to 1940. The penultimate chapter deals with the ramifications of "peoplehood,"Urry's unique contribution to the elucidation of identity. His focus is on the interplay of politicalparty and "ethnicity" in Manitoba between 1927 and 1974. Finally, this analytical journey comesto rest in the Mennonite microcosm of Winnipeg, where he examines the forces of polarization inconflict with the effects of partisanship between 1921 and 1980. The process by which the quietbecame the loud in the land is perhaps best illustrated by the astonishing incident where a Mennoniteeducator, George Epp, was challenged in the courts by a fellow Mennonite candidate for beingineligible to hold a political post on account of being a minister of the gospel. Epp, a proto-typicalconservative anti-communist, was a Russlnder who came to Canada via Paraguay.

There are a few Schnheitsfehler we could mention, although they are so rare and minor thatthe overall impact of the book is hardly affected. In the European section, Urry fills out the meagersources on Mennonite political activity with excessive summaries of fairly common historical factsand their meaning. Only labored phrases suggest that Mennonites may perhaps have been affectedas well by some general political trend. Peter and Heinrich Braun, both important writers in Russiawere not brothers, but cousins. This is of some importance in the chapter's main argument. TheCanadian section frequently degenerates into a recitation of minutiae about mechanical ormethodological issues of minor importance. The treatment of revolutions, especially the RussianRevolution of 1917 and Bolshevik seizure of power, is at times rather more sympathetic thanscholarly objectivity would perhaps require, avoiding almost completely the violent and anti-democratic aspects impacting religion in general and Mennonite believers in particular. In a futureedition of this book, James Urry might want to consult John Lie's Modern Peoplehood (Harvard,2004) and Roger Smith's Stories of Peoplehood (Cambridge, 2003) to place his evolving view ofMennonite peoplehood in broader philosophical and political perspective.

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