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Peter P. Janzen in 1912
My great-great-grandfather Peter Janzen [GM #499329] (Пётр Петрович Янцен) was born on October 3, 1859, presumably, in the Molotschna region, Ukraine, to a family of Peter and Anna Janzen. He had seven siblings: six sisters and one brother. The family lived in the Molotschna region until they moved to Schoental, the newly established (1880) Mennonite settlement in Crimea.
On October 13, 1883, Peter married Anna Kroeker (1). Peter and Anna had seven children: Elizabeth (b. 1885), Anna (b. 1887), Helena (b. 1890), Peter (b. 1891), my great-grandfather Jakob (b. 1893), Dietrich, and Hans (b. 1898).
The first five children were born in Schoental. Unfortunately, Dietrich’s birth date hasn’t been found out yet (maybe sometime in 1895?), the only thing known is that he was the second youngest son (2).
In the 1890s, Peter Janzen bought the land in Annovka, just a couple kilometers from Schoental, and set it up as a village estate of 20 farms, renting it at favorable rates to poorer members of the Mennonite Brethren Church of which he was a member. Moreover, Peter moved there with his whole family. His youngest son, Hans, was born there in 1898.
Peter’s older daughters married two Huebert brothers: Elizabeth married Johann in 1904, and Anna married Jakob in 1905.
At the end of the 1910s, Peter Janzen sold his estate in Annovka and bought a new land (almost 1,000 dessiatine or 10 square kilometers) called Kitay. The estate was located more to the south, closer to Simferopol (3). It became the most well-known residence in Janzens’ family history.
The Kitay estate was located on the hill, near the railway line. Mr. Janzen managed his property cleverly and wisely. He was very strongly influenced by his warm religious piety that God was with him. Many years of constant work passed cheerfully and happily.
Helena Harder’s essay on her father (the translation from German made by Maria Lotsmanova)
In 1915, soon after the First World War began, the Russian government introduced several laws concerning land tenure and land use by Austrian, Hungarian, and German colonists in the Russian empire. According to those laws, Peter Janzen was forbidden to own the Kitay estate and had to sell it to the Peasants’ Land Bank. He followed the law and sold the property in 1916 but also managed to rent the Kitay estate, so he and his family could continue living there.
On July 15, 1918, the Kitay estate was attacked by bandits. They broke into the house while the family was there and killed Peter’s son, Dietrich. Peter himself was wounded. He had returned home right in the middle of the attack and tried to stop the bandits who also stole 19,000 rubles (4). According to Helena’s memories, Peter had to flee his house soon after the attack and hide because the bandits were still after him. Somewhere around the beginning of the 1920s, the family had to leave the Kitay estate. Peter, his wife, and three other sons with their families relocated to Spat.
Peter’s wife Anna died from heart failure in 1926. Peter died for the same reason on January 29, 1930.
(1) Peter P. Janzen on Grandmaonline.org
(2) Peter Koop, Peter: A Man of Stamina and Courage (Winnipeg: Regehr’s, 1993), chapter 5.
(3) Helmut Huebert, Mennonite Estates in Imperial Russia, 2nd ed. (Winnipeg: Springfield, 2008), 101.
(4) Friedensstimme, no. 40 (1918), p. 8; no. 41 (1918), p. 6; and no. 43 (1918), p. 7.