We continue our ethnographic expeditions to the villages of Bohuslav region, or Bohuslavshchyna. Today, the “Portal Through the Centuries: Bohuslav Carols” project team spent the whole day from morning until sunset in the picturesque Kydanivka village. We had a chance to talk to six residents of this village who shared their memories with us.
They told us stories about how they celebrated Christmas, how they used to go carolling, especially with children, and how they enjoyed all the treats they were given. Liuba Soloviyivna, who hosted us first, reflects: ‘When we were kids, we used to run around with a sack. Sometimes someone would get some poppy seed cakes. So we went there two or three times. And they told us: ‘You’ve already been here.’ And we responded: ‘Well, we want some more!’ And they would give two cakes to the new carollers, and we would get one because we had already been there.’
Today we also listened to carols that used to be popular in Bohuslavshchyna. We heard new versions of familiar carols. We also sang a carol once again, a part of which we have already shared with you. “Oh, yesterday, in the evening Malanka was herding two drakes…” – this song was obviously viral in the region during the Christmas holidays, we have heard it in many villages, although in slightly different versions.
However, in addition to materials about Christmas, traditional songs (today people mentioned that there were much fewer shchedrivkas, if compared to carols), the celebration of Koliada, kutia, we heard many memories and stories about the severe famine and soviet repressions.
Nina from Kydanivka shared some of her memories with us. She told us about how her grandfather was about to be sent to Solovki simply because he had a mill. To stay alive and at home, he persuaded his fellow villagers to set fire to the mill at night. Crying, she told a story about four children who, when they were hungry, were looking for even a crumb of food even in the garbage and begged their grandmother for food, saying: ‘Grandma, you used to give us food, why don’t you give it to us now?’ And there was no food to give. Nothing at all. All four of them died. Now, remembering, she says that she should have listened to her grandmother more carefully and asked her more questions.
‘He was in moscow, my grandfather Varion, and there they fed pigs with rolls, we had a famine in 1933, and there they fed pigs with bread rolls. They wrote to him telling him what was happening here, and Varion didn’t believe it – he came over for a visit and found a terrible famine here. They twisted his father’s stomach with a noose because he did not want to go to the soviet authorities, to the collective farm. They twisted him around and around, holding him in water up to their knees, and that’s where the grandfather, his father, died,’ Nina shares her painful memories.
The woman also recalled that there were traitors among locals: ‘People were being ratted out. There were such snoopers, they would peek into every corner to see if you had any grain or beans, and they would take everything, every last gram of it.’ She also recalled her grandfather’s prophetic words: ‘My grandfather was lying on his bed, so old and weak. He said: ‘Stepan, you will see – the communists will be driven away, and the church will be restored’. It was three months before he died. And he said, ‘Dad, the Communists may be chased away, but the church will not be restored, it’s over’. And my grandfather said: ‘Oh, son, you’ll see. Soon, soon it will happen.’ And he did not live only three months to see it, he died in 1991.’
Today we also heard a funny story about the celebration of Malanka, when that fun almost turned into ‘15 days in jail’ for taking down the gates of people who did not let the generous people greet them on the holiday, Marusia recalled with a laugh. We also took a lot of precious photos, tried on old shirts and received valuable exhibits – an apron and a rushnyk.
We express our gratitude to Mykola Pavlichenko for his assistance in organising the expedition.
