Purple Clematis and Yellow Pine: On Cemeteries, Irony and Difference

Although I am a historian, I am not drawn to cemeteries. I rarely visit them, either as a researcher in quest of genealogical information or a mourner visiting loved ones who have passed on. I remind myself to visit my father's grave about once a year and, when there, usually move quickly on to my nephew's stone not far away. When I travel to Canadian Mennonite communities where my grandparents are buried--Leamington, Ontario and Abbotsford, British Columbia--it never occurs to me to pay my respects there either. Ironically, then, it is two cemetery experiences during 1999 that provide the springboard for my wandering impressions on Mennonitism at the turn of the millennium (which, by the way, seems a topic far too portentous for anyone to take on). They form the basis for no conclusive statement about Mennonite identity, purpose or past foibles, but rather serve as an organizing tool for random thoughts about irony and difference. As a further qualifier, I should note that, because I am a person strongly influenced by her physical, sensual environment, the meaning I derive from these two visits may have been shaped as much by sights, smells and intuitions as they were by the presumed significance of the events. The first set of impressions were created in Ukraine, on the site of an Orthodox cemetery in the village of Nizhniaia Khoritsa, adjacent to a former Mennonite burial ground in the village of Nieder Khortitsa. The context was an international conference on Mennonites in Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union, held in the city of Zaporizhzhia, that included a number of public memorial events to mark the historic presence of Mennonites in Ukraine. The purpose of this particular ceremony was to dedicate a historical monument to mark one of the earliest sites of Mennonite settlement in the Khortitsa region--one can still find a handful of barely legible Mennonite gravestones from the early nineteenth century--and also to recall the catastrophic end to that presence in 1943. Hence, the moment also remembered the victims of Stalin oppression, especially those who endured arrest, exile, and death during several waves of repression in the 1930s. (1) Thousands of Ukrainians, Mennonites and other ethnic minorities were wrenched from their families during this time of terror, most never to be seen nor heard of again. The incomplete grief process was unbearable, especially for all those women and children who after the war migrated to Canada and Paraguay or were sent to labor camps in Siberia. They never had the opportunity to bury their husbands, fathers and brothers. This single cairn was thus profoundly symbolic of all those gravestones that were never erected. Even though I was touched by the words being spoken--in at least three languages--the tears shed, the nostalgic hymns sung and the flowers ceremoniously laid at the cairn, my eyes and thoughts wandered. It was late afternoon on an unusually warm spring evening. The steep but rolling banks of the Dnieper River were varied greens in the background, and assorted fruit trees were blossoming whites and pinks in the foreground. The cemetery itself was wildly lush and colorful with thick patches of roses, peonies and bright purple clematis that wound untamed around tall decorative grave markers. Unlike the stark and inhospitable plots I am familiar with in North America, this Ukrainian cemetery was not just a resting place for the dead, but also a social place for the living. At each grave were crude tables and benches where villagers could sit and commune with their loved ones below or share news and memories among themselves. The several hundred people gathered for this ceremony was an eclectic mix of earnest Mennonite academies and church workers--from North America, Europe, Russia and Ukraine--and local villagers. The attentive, soberly suited Mennonites stood next to kerchiefed Ukrainian babas and gaily dressed children chatting among themselves. …

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