In Defense of Privilege

Abraham Friesen

The transition from being a severely persecuted religious minority in the Reformation era to becoming a privileged ethnic minority in the 19th-century Russian empire makes the Dutch-Polish-Russian Mennonite story a very intriguing one. Yet the privileges granted these Mennonites by Russia in 1800─permanent exemption from military service, freedom of religion, self-government, and control of their own schools─came under attack by imperial authorities with the government's decision to implement russification policies in the 1860s. This book documents how the Mennonites fought back, resisting the government's attempt to assimilate and to restrict their religious freedoms.

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