Köppental (Mennonite)

Names:

Keppenthal

Kirovo

Koeppental (Mennonite)

Surki

Кеппенталь

Кирово

Сурки

History:

Köppental was founded by Mennonite colonists from West Prussia in 1855. It was named in honor of academician Peter Ivanovich Köppen. Lutherans also settled in the colony.

Köppental was one of a group of Mennonite Colonies known as the Am Trakt Settlement. In 1881, some of the settlers joined Pastor Claus Epp Jr. and his group and moved to Turkestan.

During the 1914-1916 anti-German renaming period, Köppental was given the name Surki which means marmots.

Today, what remains of Köppental is known as Kirovo.

Church:

A church building was constructed in the colony in 1866.

Pastors & Priests:

The congregation in Köppental was lead by the following elders:

Johann Wall (1853-1858)
David Hamm (1858-1884)
Johannes Quiring (1884-1912)

Notable Individuals:

Surnames:

Hamm (Hahnsau / Köppental)

Wall

Population:

Year	Households	Population
Year	Households	Total	Male	Female
1857	27	117	61	56
1859		54
1865		101
1889		153
1897	36	211	103	98
1905		182
1910	75	311	151	160
1912		270
1920	81*	422
1922		304
1926**	93	396	180	216
1931		763***

*Of which 75 households were German.
**Of whom 386 (175 male & 211 female) were German living in 87 households.
***Of whom 693 were German.

External Links:

- Köppental (Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online)
- Keppental (wolgadeutsche.net) - in Russian

Sources:

- Diesendorf, V.F. Die Deutschen Russlands : Siedlungen und Siedlungsgebiete : Lexicon. Moscow, 2006.
- Dietz, Jacob E. History of the Volga German Colonists (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2005): 402.
- Dyck, Johannes J. Am Trakt: A Mennonite Settlement in the Central Volga Region. Winnipeg, MB: CMBC Publications, 1995.
- Klaus, A.A. Our Colonies. Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1869 (Appendix II, p.16).
- Koch, Fred C. The Volga Germans: In Russia and the Americas, from 1763 to the Present (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977): 312.
- Krahn, Cornelius and Victor Wiebe. "Köppental (Am Trakt Settlement, Samara Oblast, Russia)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. [Online].
- List of the Populated Places of the Samara Province (Samara, Russia, 1910): 333-334.
- Preliminary Totals of the All-Union Population Census of 1926 for the Volga German ASSR (Pokrovsk, Russia, 1927): pp.28-83.
- Schroeder, William and Helmut Huebert. Mennonite Historical Atlas (Winnipeg, MB: Springfield Publishers, 1996): 133.