Perilous journey

The history of any movement is always complex. At best its dynamic can be only partially understood. This is true of the Mennonite Brethren living in the Russia of the 1860s and 1870s. Their story can only be understood in the context of the political, social and religious world in which they lived and the circumstances associated with its ongoing transformation.

The Mennonite Brethren story is one of becoming and so the laudatory and the contradictory, the good and the bad are generously mixed. The author has tried to tell both sides of the early Brethren story. He has written a narrative history which will contribute much to a better understanding of the dynamics which shaped the early Mennonite Brethren experience in Russia.