Village News

In 2019 our assistant curator Jenna Klassen had just completed her master’s dissertation on the Russländer collection at Mennonite Heritage Village (MHV). MHV had never fully exhibited this part of the Mennonite story, so we thought it was time. It became an award-winning exhibit. Four years later it remains such a significant story. This year (2023) is the centenary of the mass migration of the ‘Russian Mennonites’ from Russia to Canada and so we decided to bring back the exhibit for an encore.

There are, however, some differences in the set-up of the exhibit and new artefacts have also been added. For most exhibits we cannot display all the artefacts, hence the curator’s job to curate. One of the most intriguing artefacts is a guitar smashed by the Bolsheviks. It is unplayable and beyond restoration. What were those Mennonites thinking when they brought it with them in their limited luggage space to Canada? Did they think it was going to be repaired and that would be part of their healing? Did they want to remember the pain and tragedy of that season and remind us future generations to mark our days well? To walk humbly with our God?

On the other side of the gallery is a Brandes piano originally crafted in Germany. The story goes that Elisabeth Dyck had seen her father’s body left for dead by the Bolsheviks in their barn in Russia. In the hope of relieving her trauma her brother Henry bought her a piano within a few years of their arrival to Canada. This artefact tells us of dreams and hopes of a new life, of starting over and finding your song again. Elisabeth would later become a successful professor.

I encourage you to take time to visit and make new connections with The Russländer Exhibit. It took tremendous effort for these artefacts to get to where they are today, here at MHV.