When Singing becomes Urgent: Survival and Salvation through Music

Singing: survival and salvation

1) Language change, 1767, Danzig: Flemish Elder Hans van Steen published A Spiritual Hymnal for General Edification, designed also for private and family settings to “awaken devotion and edification,” and in particular for the youth—that they may “not use it out of mere habit, but rather for the true uplifting of the heart” (note 1).

2) Revivalism, 1850s. The influence of Eduard Wüst--revivalist minister installed by nearby separatist Evangelical Brethren--on the Mennonites was “boundless,” according to State Councillor E. H. Busch. “Satan is not entitled to present his own as the most joyful.” His people “sing, jump, leap (hüpfen) and dance,” while the Christian appears “cheerless and stooped over. … Why, when one opens a song book, are hymns about the cross and affliction chosen almost instinctively instead of songs of praise and thanksgiving? Isn’t the devil also having his fun in all of this?” Mennonite Brethren historian P.M. Friesen called him the “Second Menno” (note 2).

3) Renewal, 1860: Heinrich Franz’s Choralbuch (mit Ziphern) was published in its first edition of 5,000 copies. With the Choralbuch, four-part harmony was introduced, starting in the schools, “for the beauty, purity and correctness” as well as “uniformity” of singing across congregations. Besides offering 163 melodies for songs in the hymnal, the Choralbuch also introduced another 112 songs for church, school and home. For Franz, singing participates in God’s own work of “training for the kingdom of heaven.” Four decades later P. M. Friesen wrote that Franz’s “Chorale-book in ciphers has transformed the spiritual singing of Russian Mennonites (…) and even dominates it today” (note 3).

4) Famine, 1922: The Pordenau Mennonite Church choir conductor J. Thiessen gave an impromptu New Year’s speech on the significance of choral singing in times like these (revolution; famine): “Our choirs should represent the sensible, religious and moral foundation of our community. They should be vocal consciences of our society. Music should keep us from doing evil, should judge evildoing, and inspire the love of the good and the beautiful” (note 4).

5) Early Soviet era, 1925: The Chortitza Mennonite Church with some 3000 to 3500 members and adherents agreed on a strategy to survive Bolshevism: more frequent gathering, teaching, singing and more consistent church discipline, including the ban for those who marry outside the faith: “The Brotherhood agrees that in order to elevate the ethical and moral condition of our congregation, it is of great importance that … congregational singing be enhanced by the choirs, for which our adolescent youth should be engaged” (note 5).

6) Early Soviet era, 1926: Despite close Soviet government observation and concerns about Mennonite activities, officials sanctioned a two-day gathering in Rudnerweide for choir conductors in 1925, followed by a very large, six-day choral workshop and festival in the Lichtenau (Molotschna) Mennonite Church in January 1926, with seventy-seven choral conductors. Congregational youth choirs were flourishing—“proof that the love of singing has not been lost to a large part of our youth not even in the difficult time that lies behind us” (note 6; pic).

7) Early Stalin era, 1929: “Many Mennonites desire to emigrate at any cost. … Two new ordinances threatening the very existence of the Mennonites have touched off this new wave of emigration ... . First, church choirs … which are a strong means of attraction for the Mennonite church, are to be abolished. Second, Mennonite preachers will be forbidden to preach outside their own congregations” (note 7).

8) Famine and Collectivization, 1934: A youth choir in Pordenau was still allowed—indeed ordered by the village Chairman Harder, under the direction of Gerhard Riesen. However, the choir “was not permitted to sing religious songs, only folk songs ... .” But by and large, “attempts by the Bolsheviks to start new choirs failed because there was no interest” (note 8).

9) Repression, Stalin, 1935: “Our brother stood quietly some distance because for him it was risky to be with us. ... We stood close to mother’s coffin and sang in barely audible tones her favourite song.” Albert Dahl’s father (Marienthal)--a choir conductor--was later falsely accused of leading hymns at a funeral (note 9).

10) Nazi German occupation, 1941: In Paulsheim, Molotschna, Nellie Bräul Epp (my mother’s cousin) remembered worship in homes led by women, and a choir for teenage girls; she had never been in a choir—it was all so new (note 10).

11) Nazi-Annexed Poland, 1944: S.S. Storm Leader Karl Götz’s Volksdeutsche teachers college was relocated to Lutbrandau, and he was followed by a larger number of Mennonite students: “We were told that it was alright to believe in God, but Jesus was rejected because he was a Jew. … While we did not go to church we were allowed to pray and to read our Bibles, and on Sundays we Mennonite girls would sing hymns in our rooms”—something not allowed under Stalin (note 11).

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Geistreiches Gesangbuch, zur öffentlichen und besondern Erbauung der Mennonitischen Gemeine in und vor der Stadt Danzig (Marienwerder, West Preußen, 1780), 4, http://pbc.gda.pl/dlibra/doccontent?id=8000.

Note 2: On Wüst, see previous post: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MennoniteGenealogyHistory/posts/6044927492207904/. Cf. E. H. Busch, Ergänzungen der Materialien zur Geschichte und Statistik des Kirchen- und Schulwesens der Ev.-Luth. Gemeinden in Russland, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg: Gustav Haessel, 1867), 261, https://chortitza.org/pdf/nfast3.pdf. On Wüst, cf. Mennonite Brethren publisher Abraham Kröker, Pfarrer Eduard Wüst: Der große Erweckungsprediger in den deutschen Kolonien Südrußlands (Spat, Crimea: Self-published, ca. 1903), https://chortitza.org/Pis/Kroeker.pdf. Eduard Wüst, Drei Weihnachts-Predigten gehalten in der Berdianischen Brüder-Gemeinde am Asowischen Meer in der Weihnachts-Zeit [1851] (Reval: Lindfors, 1853), https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/252_61_W967d/; Peter M. Friesen, The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia 1789–1910 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), 199; 211f., https://archive.org/details/TheMennoniteBrotherhoodInRussia17891910/page/n165/mode/2up.

Note 3: H. Franz (1880), “Vorwort,” Choralbuch zunächst zum Gebrauch in den mennonitischen Schulen Südrusslands, 2nd edition (Leipzig, 1880), https://imslp.org/wiki/Choralbuch_zun%C3%A4chst_zum_Gebrauch_in_den_mennonitischen_Schulen_S%C3%BCdrusslands_(Franz%2C_Heinrich); P. Friesen, Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia, 712. See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/02/when-singing-becomes-urgent-survival.html.

Note 4: January 12, 1922, cited in Diary of Anna Baerg, 1916–1924, translated and edited by Gerald Peters (Winnipeg, MB: CMBC, 1985), 79.

Note 5: “Protokoll der allgemeinen Bruderschaft der Chortitzer Mennoniten Gemeinde, January 2, 1925.” David G. Rempel Papers. Box 1, File 16. From Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.

Note 6: “Die Dirigentenversammlung in Lichtenau,” Unser Blatt 1, no. 5 (February 1926): 96f. https://chortitza.org/ZUB.htm; for picture, cf. Gerhard Lohrenz, ed., Damit es nicht vergessen werde (Winnipeg, MB: CMBC, 1974), 157. Cf. also "Gottesdienstlicher Gesang und Sängerchöre,” Unser Blatt 1, no. 1 (October 1925): 13; also “Die Bedeutung des Gesanges,” Unser Blatt I, no. 6 (March 1926): 135, and many others, https://chortitza.org/ZUB.htm.

Note 7: Der Auslanddeutsche 12, no. 12 (1929), 410, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/?file=vpetk324.pdf.

Note 8: Peter Letkemann, “From Songs of Praise to Songs of Mourning: Choral Singing, 1915–1950,” in Road to Freedom: Mennonites Escape the Land of Suffering, edited by Harry Loewen, 247–253 (Kitchener, ON: Pandora, 2000), 252; “Chortitza Dorfbericht,” sec. VII (d) “Gesangchöre, 7b (4), in Stumpp, “Village Reports Commando Dr. Stumpp,” Prepared for the German Reichsminister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, 1942, https://tsdea.archives.gov.ua/deutsch/gallery.php?tt=R_6_622+Gebiet%3A+Zwischen%0D%0ARayon%3A+Chortizza%0D%0AKreisgebiet%3A+Saporoshje%0D%0AGenerelbezirk%3A+Dnjepropertrowsk+Dorf%3A+Chortitza%0D%0Arussisch+%E2%80%93+Chortitza+&p=R_6_622%5C%D1%821_01-188%0D%0A#lg=1&slide=15.

Note 9: In Lost Generation and other Stories, edited by Gerhard Lohrenz (Steinbach, MB: Self-published, 1982), 133; and Albert Dahl, interview with the author (ANF), July 26, 2017.

Note 10: Nellie Bräul Epp, interview with the author (ANF), 2017.

Note 11: Katie Friesen, Into the Unknown (Steinbach, MB: Self-published, 1986), 80f.

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History of the Russian Mennonites

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