Johannes Henricus Laurentius Reuter

[Sources:
Hervormd in Sint-Petersburg 1717-1927, blz. 149.

De Hollande Hervormde Kerk in Sint-Petersburg 1713-1927, deel III, blz.279.
]

Source: Jan Willem Veluwenkamp, DUTCH MERCHANTS IN ST PETERSBURG IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, in: TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek , 1995, vol. 16. 30, p 235 - 339

The fading of the Dutch minority.
The Dutch Reformed parish had no pastor of its own from 1749 to 1770. The pastor of the French parish was hired to administer baptism and supper, but many members went over to the united French-German church or to the Lutheran church. The parish dwindled to only 23 members in December 1770. But as soon as a new pastor had arrived from Holland in 1770, the parish began to grow again. By April, 1772, it had increased to 26 male and 8 female members, and by April, 1774, to 40 male and 17 female members. The development of the parish is reflected in the number of births. In the period 1718-1724 119 Dutch babies were born, an average of 17 annually. In the period 1725-1743, this figure was 284, or 15 on average annually, in the period 1745-1748 33, or 8 on average. In the period 1770-1774 ten Dutch babies were born, an average of only two annually. (*66) Of course, the decrease of the number of the births parallels the dwindling of the parish, but at the same time the birth rate decreased, too. Using the rather global figures given above, it appears that from 1725 to 1743, the birth rate was about 1 baby for each 13 members; about 1748, this rate was down to 1 for 22, and in the early 1770s it recovered slightly to 1 for 20. This development could, theoretically, be explained in several ways. Most likely, the parish aged in the first decades of its existance, while the recovery of the number of parish members after 1770 was due to the influx of young married couples.

The decrease of the parish was attended by a reduction of the mastery of the Dutch language among the parish members. The first two pastors, Grube and Kramer, had apparently both preached in Dutch; when they were appointed, there was no mentioning of the use of other languages. But by the time Kramer had died, in 1744, the parish had a number of French members, many of whom did not understand Dutch. For that reason, the church council sought a successor for Kramer who would be able to speek French. In 1745, however, it hired the Reverend Johan Frederik Carp, who probably preached only in Dutch, too. The appointment proved a mixed blessing, for, soon, trouble arose between Carp and the church council, which ended with Carp's departure or dismissal. The use of German, besides French, had increased among parish members, too, by the end of the 1740's. In the period 1749-1770, when the parish had no pastor, many members who understood better German than Dutch, went over to the united French-German church or to the Lutheran church. In 1764, there was talk of unification the Dutch and French parishes. But in 1769 the church council decided to call a new pastor of its own. Initially, the council stressed that the pastor had to be able to preach in Dutch as well as in French, but as that requirement proved hard to fulfil, it allowed the alternative of a command of Dutch and German. At the end the council contented itself with a pastor who only spoke Dutch, the childless widower Jacob Gargon, who up to then had served the parish of 's Gravenpolder in the Dutch province of Zeeland, and who was hired through the agency of the Directors of the Muscovy Trade in Amsterdam in August, 1770. The fact that Gargon only spoke Dutch caused some trouble, as the Dutch language was seldom used in St Petersburg, and it was not taught to the children. Some members had trouble understanding Gargon's sermons, as they had not heard a Dutch sermon for so many years. There seem to have been several Germans among the members in 1772, and even if perhaps 48 of the 57 members were of Dutch descent in 1774, many of these had lost the command of the Dutch language. As all the Dutch in St Petersburg understood German, there would have been no reason to call a pastor who could preach also in Dutch, apart from the wish to serve the Dutch ship masters and mates during the summer and to retain the right to have a Dutch church in St Petersburg. Thus, when, in 1774, the Reverend Gargon decided to return to the Netherlands 25 of 31 - male - parish members who cast their votes chose to call a new pastor who would be able to preach both in Dutch and German. The other six prefered a pastor who would only preach in Dutch. Gargon left St Petersburg in 1775, and his successor, the Reverend Johannes Henricus Laurentius Reuter, who met the requirements of the parish, took up his post in 1777.67
Its seems logical that the loss of the Dutch language was connected with the closing down of the parish school. The school existed only from 1720 to 1736. In the first three years, it had three schoolmasters in a row: Jacobus van der Schaaff, who had been hired for the parish in 1719 in Amsterdam and arrived in St Petersburg with his son in 1720, Leendert Janson Hermanides, and Abraham Maas. Maas stayed on until September 1723. The next schoolmaster, Hendrik Kok, was only hired, in Amsterdam, in 1727. He remained in service until 1736, when the school burnt down. After that, the parish gave up its school and never took it up again. The school had an average of about 7 pupils a year.68
The decrease of the parish and the loss of the Dutch language indicate that the Dutchmen in St Petersburg lost or, rather, changed their identity. The decrease of the parish seems to have come about as many members went over to the united French-German church or to the Lutheran church. Perhaps, they did so because the parish had no pastor of its own from 1749 to 1770. But then, they did not call a new pastor. Apparently, they felt no reason to maintain the Dutch Reformed parish. They were loosing command of the Dutch language. They felt at home in the German-speaking Baltic community of the metropolis into which St Petersburg evolved very rapidly.69 Even if they will not have begun to "feel" German, they clearly did not feel very Dutch anymore. It is true, Johannes Brouwer, one of the St Petersburger Dutchmen involved in the re-establishing of the Dutch Reformed parish in 1769, called himself "a genuine Dutchmen by descent, from parent to grandparent", and stressed
that he could not but maintain "as long as I live, the best and most advantageous position for our Dutch nation and Reformed religion." But then, the Dutch nation and Reformed religion in St Petersburg certainly needed that in those years.
The dwindling and the fading of the Dutch community must have been at least partly an effect of the decline of the Dutch trade. In the seventeenth century, the Dutch had dominated the international trade. They had had the leading position in the West European trade with Russia, and they had been the largest single group within the foreign merchant community in Russia. By the middle of the eighteenth century, this commercial primacy was completely lost. The Dutch trade stagnated and, even if it did not decline absolutely, it dropped far behind the rapidly developing international trade of England and Hamburg. In St Petersburg, the English and North German merchants far outstripped their Dutch competitors. The influx of businessmen from Holland must have ceased or, at least, strongly decreased. Of the Dutch merchants of St Petersburg, several abandoned their position in Russia and went to Holland. Jan Lups was one of them, and his son-in-law, Lodewijk Hovy, followed suit by 1749. From that year to 1780, Hovy was one of the Directors of the Muscovy Trade in Amsterdam. Josua van Ouderkerk performed the same function during almost exactly the same period, from 1749 to 1781.70 He had lived in St Petersburg and had been a member of the parish there, and had left in 1734.71 As these men left and few newcomers arrived, the commercial ties with Holland of the Dutch who remained in St Petersburg became weaker. Thus, in 1769, the Dutch St Peterburger, Johannes Brouwer, wrote in a letter in Dutch to the Directors of the Muscovy Trade, that the best and finest Dutch commissions were in foreign hands.72 Among the 23 parish members that remained in 1770, there were four merchants and as many of their assistants. The merchants
belonged probably to the mere three or four families which were able to contribute financially to the parish, the other members being impe-cunious.73 All this points at a decrease of the number of Dutch merchants in St Petersburg. In the period before 1750, some 48 individual Dutch merchants may have lived and worked in St Petersburg; their number fell markedly in the decades that followed.
The re-establishment of the parish in 1769 and the subsequent increase of the number of parish members I have noted above runs counter to the notion of a dwindling and fading of the old Dutch community. The revival seems to have been connected with the arrival of tradesmen from the Dutch village of Vriezenveen, gaining momentum in the 1760s. Several of these Vriezenveners were involved in the re-establishment of the parish. The newcomers were of peasant descent, purchasers and small scale exporters of linen from their home region, Twente, in the eastern part of the Netherlands. At least initially, the established Dutch St Petersburgers did not regard them as equals. There were, indeed, distinctive social and cultural differences between both groups. This is illustrated by the fact that there were five Vriezenveners among the six parish members who opposed the calling of a bilingual pastor in 1774 and preferred one who would preach in Dutch alone: Claas Kruys, Jan and Johannes Engberts, Jan Hartog, Gerrit Smelt. They had their wives and families in Holland, and were not permanent residents of St Petersburg, but travelled there annually to do business.74 Thus, the arrival of the Vriezenveners certainly blew new life into the Dutch community. Their stature, however, was very much different from that of the grand Dutch international merchants of the time of Peter the Great. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the great days of the Netherlands as a trading nation were over. And the Dutch merchant community of St Petersburg, as far as it had ever been great, had lost its glamour, too.

Footnotes
66[B.Kruys], De Nederlandsche Hervormde Gemeente te St Petersburg. 1900?, p. 48, 60, 64-66; N.C.Kist ed., 'Historisch berigt aangaande de Hollandse gereformeerde kerken in Rusland', 1852, pp. 57-58, 60, 65.
67[B.Kruys], De Nederlandsche Hervormde Gemeente te St Petersburg, 1900?, pp. 4-10, 18-24, 38-42, 48-50, 54, 58, 60, 64-66, 68-70, 74-76, 78-80; N.C.Kist ed., 'Historisch berigt aangaande de Hollandse gereformeerde kerken in Rusland', 1852, p. 4, 60-65.
68[B.Kruys], De Nederlandsche Hervormde Gemeente te St Petersburg, 1900?, pp. 10-14, 20, 30, 32-34, 36.
69D.G.Harmsen, Vriezenveners in Rusland, 1966, p. 38.
70I.H. van Eeghen, Inventarissen van de archieven van de Directie van de Mos-kovische Handel, 1961, p. 12.
71[B.Kruys,] De Nederlandsche Hervormde Gemeente te St Petersburg, 1900?, p. 34; GAAPA 6/104, letters of 20-1-1769 and 11-5-1769 from Johannes Brouwer in St Petersburg to Josua van Ouderkerk in Amsterdam.
72GAAPA 6/104, letter of 3-2-1769 from Johannes Brouwer in St Petersburg to the Directors of the Muscovy
73[B.Kruys], De Nederlandsche Hervormde Gemeente te St Petersburg, 1900?, pp. 54-56, 60; N.C.Kist ed., 'Historisch berigt aangaande de Hollandse gerefor-meerde kerken in Rusland', 1852, p. 65; GAAPA 6/104, letter of 11-5-1769 from Johannes Brouwer in St Petersburg to Josua van Ouderkerk in Amsterdam.
74R.J.Mulder, 'Vriezenveen en St Petersburg', 1969; D.G.Harmsen, Vriezenveners in Rusland, 1966, pp. 37-42; [B.Kruys], De Nederlandsche Hervormde Gemeente te St Petersburg, 1900?, pp. 52-54, 70, 72.