An unexpected connection
Every now and again, I come across a reference to Kyrgyzstan in the news which takes me aback. It happened again earlier this week in a news report from the Marion County Record – a provincial newspaper from Kansas, USA.
The reference was in a short article about the singer John Denver and his local connections, (local to Marion County, that is).
As far as I could see, however, there was little connection with either K: Kansas or Kyrgyzstan.
John Denver was a popular American singer-songwriter, whose career encompassed acting, political activist, poet painter and photographer. He recorded and released around 300 songs, about 200 of which he composed himself. These included Leaving on a Jet Plane, (1966) and Take me home, Country Roads, (1971), but his classic was probably “Rocky Mountain High”, (1973), which went on to become one of the two official State Songs for Colorado.
I first came across him when he starred in his first film, the 1977 comedy film “Oh God”, which stared George Burns in the title Role. Denver played a grocery store assistant manager, Jerry Landers, (“just an average guy, married and father of two … in line for a promotion, bright, competent … a young man with a future”), whose life is turned upside down when he is chosen by Burns/God as a modern day Moses to proclaim his message to the world.
One of the posters for the film carried the tagline: “George Burns is God. John Denver doesn’t believe it either.
It was a nice, light hearted film and my introduction to both George Burns and John Denver. I can’t say that I had ever seen either of them before and, although I was aware of some of Denver’s songs, to be honest, I had no idea that who wrote or performed them. I came to see several of George Burns’ films and repeats of his TV shows, enjoying them immensely, although I never saw the two sequels in which he repeated his divine role.
Now, John Denver was born in Roswell, New Mexico, where his father was a test pilot in the Air Force. Because his father was serving in the military, the family moved often and it was difficult for him to put down roots: Arizona, Alabama, Texas, California … he also had connections with Oklahoma where his grandparents lived and he spent some time.
Denver was not his real name. He was born Henry John Deutschendorf Jr., and adopted the name Denver after the capital of his favourite State, Colorado.
He died in 1997 when his experimental light plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean off California.
So, where was the connection with either of the two K’s: Kansas or Kyrgyzstan. I was intrigued and my interest was aroused.
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It turns out that the connection with both was through his maternal grandparents, Thomas and Marie Koop.
They were members of the Mennonite Brethren Church in southern Russia, formed in 1860 as an offshoot of the Mennonite Church. They were among a group of more than a hundred families of Mennonites who, believing that the “rapture” was near, (one of their leaders claimed to be privy to the date of his return), left their home villages and migrated east to central Asia in 1880 instead of west, to America, as many others were doing at that time. They experienced much death and disease both along the way and after they finally reached their destination. The Koops, for example, settled in Kyrgyzstan where they nearly starved to death.
Eventually, they and some others became disillusioned, and some of them, (including Denver’s great-grandparents, Heinrich and Elizabeth (Janzen) Koop), decided in 1887 to follow pack up their belongings and head to America after all. They first went to Kansas first and later moved on to settle in Oklahoma.
So that established the connection … with both K’s, Kansas and Kyrgyzstan.
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Actually, the story of the Mennonites is quite an interesting story in its own right.
The Mennonites are an Anabaptist Christian community – named after a sixteenth century theologian, Menno Simons, (1496-1561) and although here they are classed as a protestant Christian community – many of the early Anabaptists rejected this division, considering themselves ”Reformists” rather than as Protestant or Catholic.
Over the course of their history, the Anabaptist community has split into smaller communities and the most famous of these are, probably, the Amish. They have also been influential in the development of many different strands of Christianity, such as the Congregational Church and the Quakers. Sometimes the split in the movement would be based on theological differences and matters of principle, but it seems that sometimes it was simply a matter of geography and/or language. One of their central tenets is a traditionally commitment to non-violence and pacifism, and as a result they are often known as one of the “Peace Churches” – and this has had a major influence on their history.
Menno Simons was a Dutch priest in the Roman Catholic Church, who felt challenged by the teachings of the Reformation, but was reluctant to renounce the church until after the death of his Anabaptist brother, (who was killed along with some of his fellow believers when they were attacked and – as committed pacifists - refused to defend themselves). Shortly after leaving the Catholic Church, Simon became one of the leaders of the Anabaptists – which resulted in his becoming a “wanted man with a price on his head”.
The Anabaptists suffered considerable persecution over the years – sometimes physical persecution, and at others as the subject of restrictive regulation, legislation and high taxation. Sometimes the Mennonites would be welcomed as an honest, hard-working peaceful community and granted concessions such as exemption from compulsory military service – but at others they were forced to “move on” in the face of official antagonism and such practical issues as compulsory military service. Usually, when they expelled from one state, they were forced to abandon everything they owned behind them.
One group of Mennonites migrated to Russia in the latter half of the eighteenth century. The Empress, Catherine the Great, had won vast stretches of land north of the Black Sea, in what is now Ukraine, following a war with the Turks. As many rulers before her had done, she invited the Mennonites of Prussia to settle and cultivate the land in the vast Russian steppes in exchange for religious freedom.
At the end of the eighteenth century some members of the community had already moved into Central Asia, (including, so it seems, some of Denver’s ancestors). The accounts of their migration that I have seen don’t say anything about eschatology and the coming “rapture” but rather claim that the original settlers were attracted to this location by the rich black soil of the Chui valley. One community was established in a small village at the foot of the Kyrgyz range, some 60km from Bishkek, in the village of Bergtal, renamed Rotfront in 1927.
They proved to be successful farmers and many also ventured into running industrial enterprises – in which they were equally successful. These farms and enterprises were taken over by the new Soviet authorities following the October Revolution and the Civil War – leading to many of the Mennonite community to emigrate to join other communities, especially in Canada and the United States, once agin, it seems, including some of Denver’s ancestors.
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Not all of them, however, left, but during the Stalinist period of the Soviet Union, religious practices were forbidden – and during the Second World War the community suffered a great deal of suspicion and discrimination. Once the war was over they were forcibly relocated to remote areas in Siberia and Kazakhstan.
When Perestroika began under Gorbachev the attitude and regulations concerning religious observance were relaxed – and the Mennonite community could once again practice their religion. When the Soviet Union broke up at the start of the 1990′s , and many of the collective farms and other State enterprises collapsed in bankruptcy, many ethnic Germans from all over the Soviet Union returned to Germany. Although many were to leave Rotfront and the majority of the local population today comprises of ethnic Kyrgyz, it remains one of the few places in Central Asia today, with a substantial German ethnic minority.
A small museum was established in the village school, with financial assistance from the German government. It displays letters and photographs with accounts of the early migration to Kyrgyzstan and typical village life.
In 1995 a film was made (“Milk and Honey from Rotfront”) depicting the life of the German residents of the village.
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For the record: you can read the Marion County Record story here.
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Bishkek