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Dancing with Russian Mennonites: A Short History

Russian Mennonites have traditionally had a dim or mixed view of dancing. Below is a brief history.

When it comes to moral infractions, the diaries or chronicles of Mennonite ministers are our best sources. In 1797 in Tiegenhagen, West Prussia—around the time that hundreds of Mennonite families left Prussia for Russia—the respected Frisian Elder Heinrich Donner noted that he would not baptize two young people because the one played a violin at a wedding, and the sister to the bride danced to this music together with Lutherans (note 1).

New disciplinary rules were confirmed by the congregation in 1805: “No Mennonite innkeeper shall allow music in his guesthouse.” And regarding dancing: “With a first offence, the person must come before the ministerial and apologize. The second time, they will be brought before the congregation. The third time, if there is no intention to amend behaviour, he will be excluded from the congregation” (note 2).

His Flemish colleague Gerhard Wiebe was no friend of dancing either. His diary mentions congregants “bartending at ‘the Kruge’ with music and all manner of “wicked things”; leading a “immoral” lifestyle, and dancing in “the Lame Hand” pub (note 3).

When you start to play the fiddle, it's only a matter of time before you start to dance ... and that's "flirting with the devil." After the first Mennonite colony in Russia was stabilized, leadership (and power) was seized from the land scouts Höppner and Bartsch, and lodged firmly in the hands of Chortitza’s first elder David Epp—by all accounts a polarizing figure. Epp and his ministerial ordered the powerless land scout Johann Bartsch to destroy several family musical instruments including his violin, because playing instruments was seen to be flirtation with the demonic. Bartsch reportedly broke his violin in two and threw the pieces at the feet of “the guardians of the purity of faith” (note 4).

In the Molotschna Colony in the 1830s, the esteemed schoolmaster of Johann Cornies’ Agricultural Society private high school in Ohrloff—Heinrich Heese--“even encouraged the children to learn to dance,” for which the school “suffered great damage” with regards to donations and new admissions (Heese was raised Lutheran and had married into the Mennonite fold; note 5) 

Ministers’ diaries from Russia mention dancing at weddings as a perpetual problem.

“Immorality seems to have the upper hand. Adultery, unethical behaviour, dances at weddings, and annual fairs—all this seems to be the order of the day. Separation from the congregation [excommunication] is supposed to control ethical behaviour. There is no thought of repentance and conversion. Little attention is paid to spiritual life. … Why is this happening? Because we do not enforce our own regulations through church discipline.” (Note 6)

The Mennonite Colonies had a few taverns, and in the 1860s the Molotschna successfully petitioned the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Settlers to direct tavern owners to “ban playing music and dancing at taverns to avoid beatings and crimes” (note 7).

The “enthusiastic wing” of the new Mennonite Brethren movement saw a lot of "holy" dancing in church. As one Brethren leader complained, “Becker does not regard it as sin, when brothers and sisters [‘in the Lord’] dance a waltz [in a ‘worship service!’] till the sweat goes through their clothes! Brother, this foolishness is breaking my heart” (note 8).

In 1869, a Chortitza minister was angry about dance rumours implicating him!

“January 13: Isaac Friesen told me that Isaac Klassen was spreading rumours that a fiddle had been played and there had been dancing at a wedding at brother Diedrich’s place. I had supposedly defended these goings-on in a sermon. What lies!” (Note 9)

Minutes of the annual meeting of Mennonite elders in 1893 record their “deep sadness” with the moral level in the Forestry camps (Alternative Service), especially concerning after-hours music making. Elders “urgently advise” the young men to “avoid dance music altogether, which our congregations consider to be contrary to the Confession.” In 1895 elders—now clearly exasperated—requested that all donated instruments come with the proviso: “For music, with the exception of all dance music” (note 10).

In the early 1900s, youth dancing at weddings was still a recurring problem--“wedding-eve party games with ridiculous performances,” and social games with “the goal of mutual contact between the sexes.” Ministers are instructed instead to “recommend more library reading rooms, singing groups and the establishment of Christian youth groups, etc.” (note 11).

The admonitions met with only limited success, as Jacob P. Janzen observed in his diaries in the early 1900s.

“He [the minister] also asked us to conduct ourselves in such a way that the Lord Jesus could remain to the end of the celebrations. Nevertheless, in the evening some games were played.” Janzen records the same moralistic tone in two preachers at another wedding, who “spoke so seriously and sternly to the congregation that I began to feel as if I was attending a funeral. It was as if I almost expected a funeral song at the casket after the sermon.” (Note 12)

"Things were really bad with German occupation of Ukraine in 1918: they brought not only guns but also “tactless familiarity with the occupation army … and moral surrender of our youth,” including beer-drinking and dancing to the music of the military band" (note 13).

Soviet Mennonite youth in the 1930s were without church and had had more than their share of grief in the 1930s; but what also stands out in almost each of their village reports is band music and dancing on Saturday and Sunday nights. Altonau: "Every Sunday a dance took place in the theatre auditorium. This no longer exists, since most of the band members have been abducted …" Friedensfeld, Neu Schönsee, Nikolaifeld, Schönau and Tiege--all in Sagradovka--confirm the same in their village reports: dancing every Saturday and Sunday night! (But only Sunday night in Steinfeld--also in Sagradovka; note 14)

In 1941 with German occupation, the churches opened for their first Christmas in almost a decade. The S.S. commander addressed the Christmas worshipers in Gnadenfeld. Members of the S.S. then invited the youth to the school to dance into the night. Despite years of no church, at least some young Mennonite women told the German men: “We do not like it” (note 15)!

In the last quarter of the twentieth century in Canada and the USA, attitudes were changing rapidly. In my own memory in the Niagara United Mennonite Church, sparks flew when a retired “Prussian / Uruguayan” elder danced with his granddaughter at her wedding. For Prussians this was not unusual, but the congregation’s ministerial also included a 1920s Canadian elder, one retired Russian/Paraguayan elder and a row of other ministers, each with strong opinions!

In a 1989 survey of five North American Mennonite denominations, “9 per cent of respondents said they participated in social dancing regularly, and another 24 per cent participated occasionally. These are double the percentages of a similar 1972 survey. By 1999 the percentages would have continued to increase” (note 16).

(Full disclosure: my daughter enjoyed competitive dance for many years).

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Heinrich Donner and Johann Donner, "Orlofferfelde Chronik," transcribed by Werner Janzen, 2010, p. 54. From Mennonite Library and Archives, Bethel College, Newton, KS. https://mla.bethelks.edu/Prussian%20Polish%20Mennonite%20sources/orlofferfeldechronik.html.

Note 2: Ibid., 65.

Note 3: Gerhard Wiebe, “Verzeichniß der gehaltenen Predigten samt andern vorgefallenen Merkwürdigkeiten in der Gemeine Gottes in Elbing und Ellerwald von Anno 1778 d. 1. Januar.” Transcriptions from the original by Willi Risto, http://chort.square7.ch/Buch/Risto1.pdf.

Note 4: David G. Rempel, “From Danzig to Chortitza: The First Mennonite Migration,” Preservings 20 (June 2002), 3–18; 18, https://www.plettfoundation.org/files/preservings/Preservings20.pdf. Also in Nick J. Kroeker, Erste Mennoniten Doerfer Russlands 1789–1943: Chortitza–Rosental (Vancouver, BC: Self-published, 1981), 49.

Note 5: Transformation on the Southern Ukrainian Steppe: Letters and Papers of Johann Cornies, vol. 2: 1836–1842, translated by Ingrid I. Epp; edited by Harvey L. Dyck, Ingrid I. Epp, and John R. Staples (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020), 355,  https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/100164/1/Southern_Ukrainian_Steppe_UTP_9781487538743.pdf.

Note 6: David Epp, Diaries of David Epp: 1837–1843, translated and edited by John B. Toews (Vancouver, BC: Regent College, 2000), p. 165.

Note 7: “Guardianship Committee for Foreign Settlers in South Russia,” Odessa Archives Fund 6, Inventory 5 (Part I), 189, 379, 1867. From Mennonite Heritage Centre, Winnipeg, MB. http://www.mennonitechurch.ca/programs/archives/holdings/organizations/OdessaArchivesF6.htm.

Note 8: Peter M. Friesen, The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia 1789–1910 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), 435. https://archive.org/details/TheMennoniteBrotherhoodInRussia17891910/ .

Note 9: Jacob D. Epp, A Mennonite in Russia: The Diaries of Jacob D. Epp, 1851–1880, translated and edited by Harvey L. Dyck (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013).

Note 10: Heinrich Ediger, ed., Beschlüsse der von den geistlichen und anderen Vertretern der Mennonitengemeinden Rußlands abgehaltenen Konferenzen für die Jahren 1879 bis 1913 (Berdjansk: Ediger, 1914), 53, 62, 87;  https://chortitza.org/Buch/MJ/MK1.pdf; https://chortitza.org/Buch/MJ/MK2.pdf; https://chortitza.org/Buch/MJ/MK3.pdf.

Note 11: Ediger, ed., Beschlüsse, 12 (Minutes 1884); 138 (Minutes 1910); 39 (Minutes 1890).

Note 12: Jacob P. Janzen, “Diary 1911–1919. English monthly summaries,” edited and translated by Katharina Wall Janzen. Jacob P. Janzen fonds, 1911–1946, vol. 2341, May 1912; April 1912. From Mennonite Heritage Centre, Winnipeg, MB.

Note 13: J. Janzen, “Diary 1911–1919,” August 31, 1918.

Note 14: “Village Reports Commando Dr. Stumpp.” Prepared for the German Reichsminister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, 1942. In Bundesarchiv Koblenz, BArch R6_GSK, files 620 to 633; 702 to 709. State Electronic Archive of Ukraine, https://tsdea.archives.gov.ua/deutsch/.

Note 15: Susanna Toews, Trek to Freedom: The Escape of Two Sisters from South Russia during World War II, translated by Helen Megli (Winkler, MB: Heritage Valley, 1976), 19.

Note 16: Ann Weber Becker, “Dance,” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online (1990). https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Dance.


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