The rise of communism a century ago in Ukraine greatly diminished the Mennonite presence there. On Feb. 19, the city council of Zaporozhye took a step to reverse what previous governments erased by changing five street names to honor Mennonites.

Most of the names remember families who were part of the Chortitza and Molotschna Mennonite colonies now incorporated into the southeastern Ukrainian city.

Chortitza was the first Mennonite settlement in what was then Russia, founded in 1789 by Low German-speakers of Dutch descent from Prussia. Molotsch­na followed in 1804.

Due to conflict and upheaval from the late 19th century to the last days of World War II, virtually all Mennonites either emigrated or were deported from the area, which became populated largely by Ukrainians.

“They were killed, exiled or fled. A land that once supported thousands of Mennonites was cleared of these and other German-speaking people,” said Conrad Stoesz, archivist at the Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies in Winnipeg, Man. “Mennonite homes, factories, churches, even tombstones, were repurposed.

“The result was that not only the people were gone, but so was much of the evidence of their presence. The Mennonite existence in southern Ukraine was erased from the landscape and grew dimmer each passing year, existing only in living memories.”

Victor Penner of Zaporozhye, a Mennonite history enthusiast, said by email that Ukraine is a nation of individualists who never wanted communism or collective farms, and especially in the west there has been resistance to Russian intrusion.

In spite of this, Ukraine preserved many of the ubiquitous monuments to communist leaders such as Lenin after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As an influx of Russians — especially in eastern Ukraine — increased sympathies for Russian history in some regions, communist names remained for towns, streets, schools, libraries, parks, theaters and other venues.

“We were talking about it a lot all those 25 years of independence, but we renamed only a few,” Penner said. “To do this legally, the Ukrainian Parliament issued a special law.”

After several unsuccessful attempts beginning in 2002, in May Parliament passed a decommunization law: “The Law on Conviction of the Communist and National-Socialist (Nazi) Totalitarian Regimes in Ukraine and Prohibition of Propaganda of their Symbols.”

Ukrayinska Pravda reported that implementation will result in new names for 22 cities and 44 villages, almost entirely in the East. It officially renamed the “Great Patriotic War” as the Second World War. A few months later the nation’s interior ministry stripped communist parties of the right to participate in elections.

“This law demanded that local communities are to change those names and demolish, or move, monuments in six months,” Penner said. “If they fail, the Parliament would do this in three months. The deadline is March.”

For Zaporozhye, that meant multiple discussions and archival research before a commission offered the town council a choice of one to three names for each street or other item to be renamed.

The council accepted five Mennonite street names honoring prominent families and rejected two. The streets are mostly clustered in the area where the Chortitza Colony once existed.

Fadeev Street became Mennonite Street. Lezhenko Street is Schoenwiese Street. Schadenko Street is Nieburs’ Street. Komintern Street is Rosenthal Street.

Dybenko Street now bears the name Gerhard Rempel Street. Rempel was born in Chortitza Colony in 1885 and helped design the first tractor produced in Ukraine. He engineered other significant agricultural developments before being accused and convicted of spying for Germany and plotting an independent Ukraine on Christmas 1937 and being executed the next day in Odessa.

Two proposed street names — Thiessen and Lepp streets — were rejected.

“None of the so-called national minorities — no other German religious group — has five streets named after them in Zaporo­zhye,” Penner said. “I feel very proud of it.”

Stoesz agreed that it was significant for local authorities to commemorate the Mennonite presence.

“It speaks to the historical importance of the Mennonite experience, but also the positive relationship of the Mennonite aid offered through agencies such as the Mennonite Centre in Molochansk, Ukraine,” Stoesz said. “The naming of a place is a significant marker in the Ukrainian-Mennonite relationship that will be a signpost for the local population to not forget their former neighbors.”