Living on Borrowed Time? The Settlement of Mennonites in Imperial Russia after 1789

Thursday, March 20, 2025 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm EDT (GMT -04:00)
Book: Mennonites in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union

Published in 2022 by the University of Toronto Press, Friesen's book offers a history of Mennonites from their initial settlement in the Russian Empire to the collapse of the USSR.

About the lecture

It is often assumed that the Mennonites who settled in Imperial Russia after the late eighteenth century were outsiders who benefited from special privileges, alienated their neighbors with their wealth, and were rightly targeted during the Bolshevik revolution. This evening's talk challenges these assumptions by arguing that Mennonites were integrated members of society from the beginning, thereby suggesting that Mennonites were not merely living on borrowed time before the revolution.

This is the first lecture in the series. Consider attending the second lecture.

Leonard Friesen

Leonard Friesen teaches in the Department of History at Wilfrid Laurier University. Last year he taught the MA course, "Russian History: Russia and the great Soviet experiment (aka Stalin and his shadow)." He received a PhD from the University of Toronto. His research focuses on Russian and Soviet history, the Russian writer Fedor Dostoevsky, and the history of Russian Mennonites.