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The Russian Mennonites are an ethnically Dutch group of Mennonites who traditionally spoke Plautdietsch, and who established colonies in Russia beginning in 1789. Since the late 1800s, many of them have come to countries throughout the Western Hemisphere.In the early-to-mid 1500s, early Mennonites began to flee the present-day Netherlands (especially Friesland) and Flanders, seeking religious freedom and exemption from military service in the Vistula delta region of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (the area was actually part of Royal Prussia until 1569). They gradually replaced their Dutch and FrisianThis page covers the West Frisian language, spoken in the Netherlands. For other Frisian languages see Frisian language (disambiguation). Frisian (varyingly Frysk Frasch Fresk or Friisk is a language spoken by a small ethnic group living in the northweste languages with the Low Saxon dialect spoken in the area, blending into it elements of their native tongues. Plautdietsch is the distinct Mennonite dialect that resulted from this.
In 1772Events February 17 First partition of Poland, by Russia and Prussia, later including Austria May Watauga Association formed in East Tennessee as the first independent Anglo-American government. June 9 British vessel Gaspee is burned off of Rhode Island., most of the Mennonites' land in the Vistula area became part of PrussiaThe word Prussia ( German: Preussen (Preussen Polish: Prusy Lithuanian: Prusai Latin: Borussia has had various (often contradictory) meanings: The land of the Baltic Prussians (in what is now parts of southern Lithuania, the Kaliningrad exclave of Russia in the first of the Partitions of PolandThe Partitions of Poland (more correctly the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) happened in the 18th century and ended the existence of a Polish sovereign state. They involved Prussia, Russia and Austria dividing up the Polish lands between. Frederick William II of PrussiaFrederick William II ( September 25, 1744 November 16, 1797), king of Prussia, was known in German as Friedrich Wilhelm II . Frederick William was the son of Augustus William (the second son of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia) and of Louise Amalie of ascended the throne in 1786Events May 21 Trial of the Necklace affair ends in Paris August 8 Mont Blanc was climbed for the first time by Dr. Michael-Gabriel Paccard and Jacques Balmat. September 2 Hurricane in England Choctaw Treaty Chickasaw Treaty Robert Burns publishes Poems, C and imposed heavy fees on the Mennonites in exchange for continued military exemption.
In the same year, Catherine the Great of Russia sent a special invitation to the Mennonites, offering them land where they could have partial autonomy and military exemption. The territory was northwest of the Sea of Azov, and had just been acquired from the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War, 1768-74. Many of the Mennonites in Prussia accepted this invitation, establishing Chortitza on the Dnieper River as their first colony in 1789. The other primary colony, Molotschna , was founded in 1803.
In 1814, the Kleine Gemeinde, which would become the Evangelical Mennonite Conference, separated from the main body of the church in Molotschna. The Mennonite Brethren Churches (Brüder Gemeinde) split off in 1860.
Between 1874 and 1880, 18,000 of the approximately 45,000 Mennonites in South Russia left for North America due to increasing limitations on their special status.
