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.

Comments

Turning Weapons into Waffle Irons!

Turning Weapons into Waffle Irons: Heart-Shaped Waffles and a smooth talking General In 1874 with Mennonite immigration to North America in full swing, the Tsar sent General Eduard von Totleben to the colonies to talk the remaining Mennonites out of leaving ( note 1 ). He came with the now legendary offer of alternative service. Totleben made presentations in Mennonite churches and had many conversations in Mennonite homes. Decades later the women still recalled how fond Totleben was of Mennonite heart-shaped waffles. He complemented the women saying, “How beautiful are the hearts of Mennonites!,” and he joked about how “much Mennonites love waffles ( Waffeln ), but not weapons ( Waffen )” ( note 2 )! His visit resulted in an extensive reversal of opinion and the offer was welcomed officially by the Molotschna and Chortitza Colony ministerials. And upon leaving, the general was gifted with a poem by Bernhard Harder ( note 3 ) and a waffle iron ( note 4 ). Harder was an inf...

Soviet “Farmer Giesbrecht” and the German Communist Press, 1930

The 1930 booklet Bauer Giesbrecht was published by the Communist Party press in Germany —some months after most of the 3,885 Mennonite refugees at Moscow had been transported from Germany to Canada, Paraguay and Brazil ( note 1 ). In Fall 1929 Germany set aside an astonishingly large sum of money and flexed its full diplomatic muscle to extract these “German Farmers” (mostly Mennonites) who had fled the Soviet countryside for Moscow in a last ditch attempt to flee the "Soviet Paradise". About 9,000 however were forcibly turned back. Communists in Germany saw their country’s aid operation—which their crushed economy could ill afford—as a blatant propaganda attempt to embarrass Stalin with formerly wealthy ethnic German farmers and preachers willing to tell the world’s press the worst "lies." With Heinrich Kornelius Giesbrecht from the former Mennonite Barnaul Colony in Western Siberia they finally had a poster-boy to make their point: in Germany he had seen an...

Swiss and Palatinate Connections

Sometime after 1850 Andreas Plennert and his family immigrated to South Russia from the Culm Region of West Prussia. Though there was at least one Mennonite “Plehnert” who had already immigrated to Russia in 1793, it is not a very common Prussian-Russian Mennonite name. As such, however, it is easier to trace than many and offers a minority narrative and identity within the longer and broader Russian Mennonite story. The account below is adapted largely from information in Horst Penner, Die ost- und westpreußischen Mennoniten , vol. 1, though I have expanded upon his work to offer a slightly different narrative. In 1724 there was a group of Mennonites forced out of the Memel region in East Prussia for political and religious reasons and were given assistance to resettle back to West Prussia in areas populated by Mennonites. Among the 23 households that went to the Stuhm region there is one Plenert listed, namely Christian Plenert. We know that Mennonites entered the Memel region ...

Snapshots of Danzig Mennonites, late 1600s & early 1700s

A picture can be worth a thousand words. We do not have photographs, but we have a few colour paintings of life in and around Danzig in the late 1600s and early 1700s, as well as maps. We also have a limited number of "textual snapshots" of Mennonites at this time and place, which offer an instructive window into that foreign world. These snapshots of work, worship, health, education, community relationships, smaller repressions, and security can contribute to the creation of a larger collage of Mennonite life in Danzig and Polish Prussia. Snapshot 1 : In 1681 there were approximately 180 Mennonite families who lived in the “gardens” or villages outside Danzig, with 113 of those families within the jurisdiction of the city. At this time Mennonites were barred from owning houses within the walls of the city. Of these 113 family heads, we know: 43 were retailers of spirits, 24 merchants, 9 lacemakers, 7 dyers, 3 silk dyers, 3 pressers, 2 brokers, 2 treasurers, 2 waitresses, et...

Village Reports Commando Dr. Stumpp, 1942: List and Links

Each of the "Commando Dr. Stumpp" village reports written during German occupation of Ukraine 1942 contains a mountain of demographic data, names, dates, occupations, numbers of untimely deaths (revolution, famines, abductions), narratives of life in the 1930s, of repression and liberation, maps, and much more. The reports are critical for telling the story of Mennonites in the Soviet Union before 1942, albeit written with the dynamics of Nazi German rule at play. Reports for some 56 (predominantly) Mennonite villages from the historic Mennonite settlement areas of Chortitza, Sagradovka, Baratow, Schlachtin, Milorodovka, and Borosenko have survived. Unfortunately no village reports from the Molotschna area (known under occupation as “Halbstadt”) have been found. Dr. Karl Stumpp, a prolific chronicler of “Germans abroad,” became well-known to German Mennonites (Prof. Benjamin Unruh/ Dr. Walter Quiring) before the war as the director of the Research Center for Russian Germans...

Catherine the Great’s 1763 Manifesto

“We must swarm our vast wastelands with people. I do not think that in order to achieve this it would be useful to compel our non-Christians to accept our faith--polygamy for example, is even more useful for the multiplication of the population. … "Russia does not have enough inhabitants, …but still possesses a large expanse of land, which is neither inhabited nor cultivated. … The fields that could nourish the whole nation, barely feeds one family..." – Catherine II (Note 1 ) “We perceive, among other things, that a considerable number of regions are still uncultivated which could easily and advantageously be made available for productive use of population and settlement. Most of the lands hold hidden in their depth an inexhaustible wealth of all kinds of precious ores and metals, and because they are well provided with forests, rivers and lakes, and located close to the sea for purpose of trade, they are also most convenient for the development and growth of many kinds ...

What is the Church to Say? Letter 1 (of 4) to American Mennonite Friends

Irony is used in this post to provoke and invite critical thought; the historical research on the Mennonite experience is accuarte and carefully considered. ~ANF American Mennonite leaders who supported Trump will be responding to the election results in the near future. Sometimes a template or sample conference address helps to formulate one’s own text. To that end I offer the following. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mennonites in Germany sent official greetings by telegram: “The Conference of the East and West Prussian Mennonites meeting today at Tiegenhagen in the Free City of Danzig are deeply grateful for the tremendous uprising ( Erhebung ) that God has given our people ( Volk ) through the vigor and action of [unclear], and promise our cooperation in the construction of our Fatherland, true to the Gospel motto of [our founder Menno Simons], ‘For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.’” ( Note 1 ) Hitler responded in a letter...

Easter and Molotschna's First Ethnic German Cavalry Regiment of the Waffen-SS, 1942

For the two years of German occupation, 1941-43, the Molotschna Settlement area—renamed “Halbstadt” after its largest village—was under S.S. ( Schutzstaffel ) control. During this time, new National Socialist ceremonies and liturgies were introduced to the Mennonites in Ukraine, including Easter. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler named Halbstadt with its surrounding 144 villages a district commando. SS-Storm Unit Leader ( Sturmbannführer ) Hermann Roßner was appointed the Special Command R[ussia] leader for Halbstadt. Halbstadt had Waffen-SS doctors, a Waffen-SS pharmacist team and pharmacy, hospital equipment from the medical offices of the Waffen-SS and soon a Waffen-SS cavalry self-defense regiment of some 500-plus Mennonite young men ( note 1 ). Two of my uncles became members of the cavalry unit; a later, long-time lay minister in my home congregation was in the regiment as well. SS-celebrations for “Easter” were deliberately non-religious and anti-Christian, though careful ...

Molotschna's 50th Anniversary Celebration Plans, 1854

There is no mention of this celebrative event in Hildebrand’s Chronologischer Zeittafel, no report in the newly launched Prussian church paper Mennonitische Blätter , or in the Unterhaltungsblatt for German colonists in South Russia. But plans to celebrate five decades of Mennonite settlement on the Molotschna River were well underway in 1853; detailed draft notes for the event are found in the Peter J. Braun Russian Mennonite Archive ( note 1 ). Perhaps most importantly the file includes the list of names of the first settlers in each of the first nine Molotschna villages (est. 1804). While each village had been mandated a few years earlier to write its own village history ( note 2; pics ), eight of these nine did not list their first settler families by name. The lists with the male family heads are attached below. By 1854 Molotoschna’s population had increased to about 17,000; more than half of those living in the original nine villages were landless Anwohner ( note 3 ). Celeb...

Landless Crisis: Molotschna, 1840s to 1860s

The landless crisis in the mid-1800s in the Molotschna Colony is the context for most other matters of importance to its Mennonites, 1840s to 1860s. When discussing landlessness, historian David G. Rempel has claimed that the “seemingly endemic wranglings and splits” of the Mennonite church in South Russia were only seldom or superficially related to doctrine, and “almost invariably and intimately bound up with some of the most serious social and economic issues” that afflicted one or more of the congregations in the settlement ( note 1 ). It is important from the start to recognize that these Mennonites were not citizens, but foreign colonists with obligations and privileges that governed their sojourn in New Russia. For Mennonites the privileges, e.g. of land and freedom from military conscription, were connected to the obligation of model farming. Mennonites were given one, and then later two districts of land for this purpose. Within their districts or colonies , villages w...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog