An Introduction to the Klishkivtsi Book
Below is a sampling of the contents of the book "The History of Klishkivtsi" handwritten in 1970 by a teacher from the town. I obtained a copy of the book on a trip I made to the Ukraine with my cousin Aizic Oked Sechter in May 2010. We interviewed the principal of the town and he graciously made us a CD of the book.
The book contains approximately 258 pages and includes photos, lists of various kinds, and most importantly, descriptions of the residents.
The sample consists of about 38 pages. Why these pages and not others?
I took the book to a librarian who works at the National Library in Jerusalem and who is originally from Ukraine. She graciously went over the pages and we attempted to find references to the Jewish Community. She was fairly successful, as there are a lot of references, including persons bearing my family name of Sadovnik.
As she only could translate the document into Hebrew, I searched for a translator to translate it into English, and was successful. The manuscript is unclear and faded in certain parts, and it was an effort to get it done.
I edited the translation by changing the syntax in places where it was unclear and reversing the Russian names to meet the English usage. I left the page numbers in and indications where there were photos. I wanted to provide a picture of the town around the time my father and grandparents lived. I was handsomely rewarded.
I hope to get the whole book translated and present a copy to the National Library in Jerusalem.
Chronicle of the Klishkivtsi Village, Chernovtsy Oblast
by D.S. Karvatskii
Translated from the Ukrainian by Efim Maidanik; edited by Harriet Kasow
Selected pages.
page 91
1907
During the Russo-Japanese war in 1876, residents of Bessarabia were called up for military service in the Tsar's army. Prior to this there had been no draft. During the Russo-Japanese War many peasants were also mobilized and sent to the front in the Far East, "You will win an easy victory over the Japs," the commanding officer told them.
The war ended shamefully and the survivors began returning home. Now, however, they looked at the world that surrounded them with new eyes. They had all tasted sorrow and learned a lot and on returning home they passed on their experiences and misgivings to others, The nation was awakening from a centuries-old somnolence.
In a chronicle written in 1907, a priest named Romanchuk called all the discharged soldiers "troublemakers".The number of those troublemakers exceeded 70. If the priest himself had counted such a large number of peasants with revolutionary sentiments, one can see that it was quite a substantial force.
Early in April 1907, the workers of Zarozhany Sugar Refining Plant started a struggle against the plant owner Count Rafalovich. The workers seized the plant while peasants from surrounding villages gave them their support.
A telegram had been sent by the commander-in chief of Odessa Military District to St.Petersburg to Stolypin.
"On 7 April 1907" the commander in chief wrote, "disturbances started in Khotin uezd (district) and to suppress them I have sent two squadrons."
One squadron showed its fighting ability when sent against our grandfathers, peasants from the village of Klishkivtsi.
To support the workers from Zarozhany (illegible) and led by a former sailor Galich (illegible) village, about 400 in all, with ploughs and harrows (illegible) belonged at that time to the monastery. They divided the land into plots and began to plough. It can be seen from that large figure that peasants acted not spontaneously; they had been ready to act and only waited for an order to start, and it offers proof that agitation was carried out among peasants at that time. Women joined heir husbands who went to the fields. The participants of the revolutionary action told about cases where a head of the family was hesitant while his wife harnessed horses and went with the plough to Galich prompted by common revolutionary excitement. It is clear therefore that women were beginning to interfere actively in the revolutionary struggle.
The manager of monastery lands (llegible) reported about that action to the district authorities and asked for protection.
At that time the governor of Bessarabia was in Khotin. On his order guards from Khotin and the 5th squadron of the 23rd dragon of Voznesensk dragon regiment were sent to Klishkivtsi. They were armed with rifles and sabers (illegible); peasants had forks and spades. The battle continued (illegible) some peasants were wounded however they did not flee. (illegible) there was no disorderly retreat. 44 (illegible) including the seriously wounded were sent to the Khotin prison. The remaining peasants returned to the village beaten with dragon's sabers but not defeated. The struggle had begun but had not finished.
Page 92
The following is the report of the commanding officer of the 5th squadron. (A photocopy can be found in Khotin Museum of History and Local Lore)
Year 1907, April 12
The report of the commanding officer of the 5th squadron of the 23rd Voznesensk dragon regiment to the battalion commanding officer, relating to the suppression of the peasants' uprising, the Klishkivtsi village, Khotin district.
On 11 this April month at 2pm the squadron entrusted to me was summoned to the monastery lands, namely #1 plot that Galich had rented to the peasants of the villages, Shilivtsi and Poliana.
On 11 April the peasants of the neighboring village Klishkivtsi numbering up to 400 people went with their ploughs to the #1 plot rented to the peasants of villages Shilivtsi and Poliana; they seized 200 dessiatina and started working on the land
On the arrival at the above plot and having received instructions from the civil authorities, I gave orders to three platoons to scatter and left one platoon as a reserve; peasants numbering more than 200 were driven to one place and arrested. Five peasants that resisted the orders of lower ranked serviceman received saber wounds.
Following is the description of the tragedy that developed in our Galich when our grandfathers having returned from the Japanes front wanted to work on a little plot of land to feed their children.
Prisons, sabers, tortures-that was the reply to people who served the Tsar honestly. The trust in the Tsar was undermined once and for all, and when the question arose to whom to give their support our krai, in particular Klishkivtsi never failed in following the road showed by Bolsheviks, the Great Lenin. This wisdom we owe to our fathers and grandfathers.
P.A. Nesterovskii that visited our krai in 1909 published in 1910 a book entitled "In the North of Bessarabia." The book is very interesting and in no way revolutionary. The "Imperial Russian Geographical Society" awarded the author "Great Silver Medal." Everything the author describes is related to our village, too. Following is his description of the revolutionary events in our krai.
An undercurrent of discontent was observed in Bucovina caused by lack of land and enhanced by the violent mood of the local population. There had been no need of outside agitation which, incidentally played a great role in peasant uprisings in Bucovina (here Russian Bucovina is meant, from Nedoboivtsi to Kolenkvsi). Here the local population played the role of the agitator in relations with their neighbors.
At the fairs (markets) and other gatherings of peasants, people from Bucovina made enflaming and inciting speeches against landlords and the authorities. In Khotin they met at markets with peasants from the neighboring Podol'ska gubernia and incited them against landlords persuading them to act jointly and threatening in case they refuse to burn and ravage their property.
An accident that happened in Khotin shows the attitude to the authorities at that time. I heard it from a companion of mine.
One Monday, a day when villagers gathered in the marketplace, a reserve soldier from Bucovina who returned from the last war
Page 93
had a quarrel with a woman who sold bread. Police tried to stop the quarrel and put matters into order; the police inspector who happened to be close to the place behaved rudely. A crowd of peasants mainly form Bucovina gathered around them; peasants chased away the police inspector. Other policemen appeared headed by the district police officer, and a fight started between peasants and policemen. The latter were defeated and fled from the place together with the police inspector. The senior police officer being absent, his deputy was informed. The latter ordered the crown to disperse, but no one listened to him. The crowd began growing, people pushed policemen. Threatening calls were heard directed against the senior office and police.
The commanding officer ordered his men to take a battle stance however stones were thrown on them, and when police attempted to surround the most active mutineers the crowd armed itself with everything they could lay heir hands on and forced policemen to retreat. Seeing that a real mutiny was taking place, the deputy district police officer fled followed by all other policemen.
Pages 172-73
Nesterovskii describes our village after his coming there. His description follows.
Walking along narrow streets we reach the village of Klishkivtsi, central Bucovina village which is the most populous and lively.
Klishkivtsi is the first village not only in Bucovina but in all Khotin districts as the number of inhabitants. The latter being perhaps not less than 7000, possibly more, it could be said that in that respect it is a little "shtetl."
Towns and shtetls of the North-West krai have Jews among their population. Jews live in Klishkivtsi, their number even exceeding that of Jews elsewhere in Bucovina.
Being a central and populous village, Klishkivtsi has a hospital with regular medical personnel: a doctor and doctor's assistant, a pharmacy, a post and telegraph unit and volost (area) department. There are three schools there, a forester in charge of the monastery's forests, the district police officer and other officials reside there.
The village is divided into parts-"Galichanka, Tsiganka, Kalanariia dn Lititsia. Peasants are typical residents of Bucovina; they are in their majority tall, dandyish, with straight facial features; at the same time they are, as compared to Rrusiny from other villages of area, violent, arrogant and sometimes brazen.
A group of lads is walking along the road opposite us singing loudly. They embrace one another. They occupy all the width of the road so our coachman has to hold up his horses not to hit the crowd. Lads wear snow-white shirts going down to their knees. Slender waist of some of them has a "leibik" fit tightly, a sleeveless blouse or a "gutsuliak" ornamented with Morocco, and under the latter one can see a high leather boot or a nice woolen "kraika" (belt).
On the belt and "kraika" hangs on a strap a knife in copper-yellow casing and a tobacco-pouch "kalitka". On the head is a high gray Austrian hat or a beautiful thick felt cap, an imported Austrian product, a smuggled item.
Page 94
On the neck is a folded thin scarf (basma) falling down playfully. Legs are put in strong high boots with long heels having iron shoes or in common shoes (kamashi).
Everyone looks boldly and at the same time arrogantly. A simple careless word, addressed to a lad who had a drop too much-and our carriage and all its passengers and coachman could be overturned in a moment, and as to the lads, that would all that was seen of them.
The violent nature of the local population can be seen from a recent event.
A lad from Klishkivtsi had brought a smuggled lot of vodka from the neighboring Austria. Someone informed on him. Wodka was confiscated and he himself immediately arrest. "Korechemniki" as the gendarmes are called locally (illegible) the arrested man to transfer him to a proper place, and near the building (illegible) at that time some "klaka" (work) was carried out by villagers (illegible) for refreshments. The working lads started shouting (illegible) fled from the guards, however, he possibly was afraid to do that (illegible) walked after the guards. Then the lads decided to free the arrested villager by force. They attacked the gendarmes and having beaten (illegible) to the other. The situation being grave, that gendarme (illegible) weapon, and one of the attackers was wounded by a shot (illegible) forced them to disperse. Only that way he managed to survive.
The behavior of the Klishkivtsi inhabitants as compared to those of other villages doesn't look too severe. Large population, arrogance, having a plant as a neighbor and some other matters influenced the population adversely.
Pages 190-194
There is no doubt that in the first episode in Khotin the residents of Klishkivtsi did not remain outside. They always behaved arrogantly which had been shown many times in their fight with the Rumanian occupiers.
1909
Following is an excerpt from the material entitled "Church Chronicle". 1909. I believe that anyone who reads those Chronicles will profit from information concerning the Church in the village of Klishkivitsi. Here are the details.
(illegible) has been built in the village at the site of the old wooden (illegible) funded by foreign monasteries.
(illegible) church: two priests and two clerks.
To support that personnel 114 dessiatina 921 sagene have been allocated, more than 120 hectares in all.
Page 95
The total income for the previous year is (illegible) rubles. The figure does not include the payments made by peasants for marriages and burials. The money had been appropriated by the ministers of religious worship on the spot without any registration.
It follows, therefore, that the religious functionaries lived very luxuriously from payments for the dissemination of their religious nonsense.
The upkeep of three primary schools cost 1,810 rubles, and from that sum the religious teachers (priests) received 220 rubles. Following is the list of the population of the village of Klishkivtsi in accordance with the mentioned report.
Total number of households 1,465; population 8,325; including men 4,166, and women 4,159
|
Peasants
|
7,168
|
Men
|
3,599
|
Women
|
3,569
|
|
Clergy
|
26
|
|
25
|
|
11
|
|
Military
|
5
|
|
2
|
|
3
|
|
Civil
|
9
|
|
3
|
|
6
|
|
Petty Bourgeois
|
20
|
|
8
|
|
12
|
|
Jews
|
1,086
|
|
532
|
|
554
|
|
Catholics
|
1
|
|
1
|
|
0
|
|
Lutherans
|
10
|
|
6
|
|
4
|
Jews made an eighth part of the village of Klishkivtsi population. This Chronicle has already mentioned Jews. There were about 160 families. Those 160 families possessed at least 140 shops of all kinds and drinking houses (taverns). Every owner of such a place tried to acquire as many clients as possible, and had his regular visitors; when encountering competition of the owner of another shop or drinking house he would be ready to bite his head off.
A peasant was just approaching a Jewish shtetl when little boys would follow him to see whether he "betrays" and goes to some other shop. Shop owners behaved like a jealous woman in quarrels with their unruly clients who would dare to cross the threshold of another shop
At that time a young and energetic teacher Kovalevska Afanasilia Antonivna (see photo) worked in the local school. She started organizing a cooperative where everything peasants need would be sold; it was a consumers' cooperative. Kovalevska would use any opportunity to speak at village assemblies of peasants, she picked a good group of activists and in 1909 the cooperative started working.
The real war began between the cooperative supplied by goods from Kamenets-Podol'skii cooperative, and the Jewish shtetl: gradually the cooperative was victorious and shop owners could no more raise prices in their shops beyond those in the cooperative. The establishment of the cooperative was a great educational experience for the peasant. They saw the great power that unity gives. The head of the cooperative was Pranik Stepan Kostiantinovich.Illustrations
(Photos).
1. Stamp of the people's bank 1938. 2. The teacher of the local school Kovalevska Afanasilia Antonivna.
(page 96)
Photo
The photo is dated 8.9.1934. It was the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the people's bank in the village of Klishkivtsi. The photo shows the founding members of the Association.
Front line: Karvatskii Sergii Semenovich, accountant; first row (left to right); Motuliak Antoniv, Kozak Roman Sem, Botsko Iosip, Gibai Vasil.
Second row (illegible)
Incomes of the cooperative (dividends) were divided in accordance with shares, and every shareholder was interested in increasing the cooperative's profit. The dividends were added to the share; information t that was announced annually. A shareholder could withdraw his dividends to buy goods for their value.
The cooperative played a very positive role. It existed until the beginning of WWI when all forms of trade ceased to exist. The territory changed hands with Austrians invading it and then our forces taking it back. The fate of Jews was even more tragic. Various gangs in the front-line zone attacked them like members of "The Black Hundreds" and others…the shtetl was ruined, not a single building survived; just heaps of clay remained in their place. Children of the villagers pastured pigs and cows there. The Jewish population dispersed. It all happened in the year 1915.
People that wanted to buy a plot of land or arrange a wedding party, as well as those who encountered some family trouble like loss of livestock etc, often had to borrow money. Merchants from the Jewish shtetl were willing and ready to lend money, however they charged very high interest (kamata) and the borrower was not able to pay it back for many years. People used to say about girls who grew too fast, "The girls are growing like the Jewish kamata". A.A Kovalevska started organizing along with the cooperative a people's bank that would have a certain amount of capital to help villagers who were in trouble or had some special needs. An association was created and its board elected. The head of the board was Ivan Yukhimovich Palagniuk and the board members were Roman Sem Koaza, Sergii Semenovich Karvatskii, Stepan Kost Pranik and others.
Page 97
(illegible) the bank paid (illegible) to the depositors and charged 8% to the borrowers. 2% was taken for the salary of the bank workers and to cover other needs. The sums remaining after the payment of salaries and covering office expenses were used to build the bank premises (presently the club) and construction of several bridges in the village (illegible) near Khristophor Vachina etc, preparing roads in the village and a narrow road leading from the main road (illegible) sections of which have remained until this day. The bank was open only on Sundays and holidays. Salaries were paid to the chairman, bookkeeper and cashier. Before the new building was constructed, the band and the cooperative were located in rented premises. The loan was given by a decision of the board that met once a week. The bank cashier for 12 years was Ivan Stepanovich Chaban, an extremely honest person trusted by everyone. A good proprietor could receive a loan up to 50 rubles, and others about 10-15 rubles that was at that time quite a substantial sum.
Later on, when the bank became more respectable, the Kishinev gubernia bank gave it a loan of 100,000 rubles. The transfer of such a sum was then connected with a great risk, and it was entrusted to Ivan Stepanovich Chaban and Nikifor Kost Palagniuk. The chairman and members of the checking commission received payment only for the time spent on checking. The board members were not paid. All executives in the bank and cooperative were elected. The authority in the bank and cooperative belonged to the general meeting, the sessions of which were sometimes very agitated. Working conditions were (illegible) there had been no strongbox or guard. (illegible). The cashier sometimes had to use all kind of tricks to deep the money safe.
Following is the story told by a former cashier I.S. Chaban, which he repeated on the day of his 90th birthday, 20.9.1963.
Often money was delivered from Lipkany or from banks in other towns and cities that gave money to the Klishkivtsi people bank as requested, the applications being signed by all the board members responsible for giving the loan; they guaranteed it by all their property and were therefore very careful in giving loans to peasants from their village. The borrower would put his signature on the application document along with two guarantors. The latter wrote that their client would return money or else they themselves would pay; such cases happened but only very seldom.
There were no cars at that time, so the cashier had to come from Novoselitsi on foot. Sometimes, if he came to the village outskirts when it was dark he would be afraid to go there as someone could rob him.
Ivan Stepanovich remembered well an episode that happened already under the Rumanian rule. He brought from Lipkany 100,000 lei. There had been no strongbox and he was afraid to sleep at home. So, saying not a word to his wife, he strolled to the village of Malintsi where his Godparent lived. The money was tied to his legs, 50,000 lei each. It was summer, and he said to his relative that he wanted to buy a cow in Malintsi and so decided to spend the night at his place not to oversleep and to get up before the milking.
Page 98
The two of them slept on zavalinka (mound of earth round a hut) , and in the morning he returned home and went to the bank where he distributed all the money in accordance with the applications as approved by the bank board. The bank building where today the village club is located was built in 1933-34 with the bank requirements taken into account. The upper floor was occupied by the bank and the lower one by the cooperative that has been reconstituted. There was a hall for general meetings hat had earlier took place in the courtyard of the house accommodating the bank.
1910
That year 75 families left Klishkivtsi and settled near Kisinev in the villages Maksimvka and Buda. Having sold all their belongings they bought there more than 500 dessiatina of land and created new farms. They finally felt the smell of the land that was so lacking in Klishkivtsi. Poverty had driven them from Klishkivtsi and good fortune smiled to them "in a free life". However, deep in their soul they never forgot their Klishkivtsi . More than half a century have passed but sons and daughters of the people who left their village consider themselves people from Klishkivtsi and feel deeply hurt if someone would deny that. They very seldom come to visit their relatives. However, whenever someone comes to them they eagerly question them about their dear Klishkivtsi. Poverty chased people from Klishkivtsi to all parts of the globe where they looked for better fates. From the early years of the century and until the WWI as well as during Rumanian occupation the people left their land to look for the better fate overseas in America.
Photo
(illegible) the date-25 years since the people's bank establishment (illegible). Front row: members of the board and bank personnel.
Back row" veteran members-founders of the bank. Front row: extreme right-Volodimir Fedorovich Chaban, former village elder.
Villagers left their families, their children and their young wives and emigrated.
Page 99
Having left his young wife, Sergii Semenovich Karvatskii left for America. In faraway America, the falling earth of a mine covered the body of the man from Bucovina. No one cried for him, no one protested against horrible work condtions in the capitalist America. Semenko Vasil (illegible) burned out at the workplace because his boss did not bother to prevent accidents happening. What was it to him? There was a farm-hand from faraway Bucovina and he has gone. Another one will come. Only his unfortunate mother had not survived her grief. One grief leads to another one.
"Due to the fact that the major part of land in Bucovina belongs to private owners and foreign monasteries," wrote P.A. Nesterovskii in his book "In the North of Bessarabia" in 1910, the local peasantry felt an acute lack of land. With the gradual increase o population the demand for land increased progressively. More and more land was rented due to special techniques used by local speculators (illegible). The result was permanent dissatisfaction and complaints of villagers. Some people tried to find the solution overseas. In 1909, groups of peasants left Bucovina and other places in Northern Bessarabia for North America in search of a living.
Near the Black Sea, there were at that time rich landlords possessing large areas of land but short of workforce. Peasants from Klishkivtsi and surrounding villages would go there every year to earn their living. Having sown their small land plots villagers would assemble in groups-men, lads and small boys that could at least do something in the field. They elected a foreman and found one or two carts depending on the number of people. In general, everyone tried to acquire a horse to feet it at the place of work ( Falchi) at someone else's expense or at pastures. The villagers proceeded to the Bessarabia steppes. They would take with them such implements as scythes and rakes.
Long chains of peasants in carts covered by sack cloths "vans" moved down along Bessarabia. At stopovers, they would kindle fires and cook hominy and eat it with brynza cheese which they bought from peasants passing by or with (illegible) finely-cut garlic with water added and continued their travel. The stream of carts becomes increasingly shorter, peasants disperse. (Just as described in the novel of O. Gonchar (illegible).
Peasants worked day and night to earn more money so as to be able to give food to their family until next summer. It was seasonal work and one had to work hard during the season. Back at home the wife together with small children would harvest what had been sown on a small plot of land.
Page 100
(illegible) all land was then sown with corn. On a tiny plot of land grew corn and along with it (illegible) were sown beans and cucumbers as well as watermelons and beetroots. All kinds of vegetables were crammed there. Having harvested grain at one landlord's place villagers hurried to another place trying to get work on as large plot as possible. Clad in white patched-up shirts, barefooted, with cracked legs and skin on their soles was so thick that one could not cut it with a knife and lice-infested but happy that they were returning home with earnings, sheep wool to make sardaks and presents for the wife and children. The tired villagers are returning home. The wife would not let her man even cross the threshold without first boiling water and bathing her money earner in a tub, washing his head, combing him and killing all lice found on him. Incidentally, at that time only women washed heads of men. The wife would heat water and add there ash, pour water in a cauldron, the man would stand there (illegible) the woman would bend over him and wash (illegible).
The value of a man in the village was estimated in accordance with his work. Girls would not consider as a possible suitor the lad who had never gone to Falchi. One hears stories of people who participated in Falchi (and I have heard a lot) and can only wonder how much and how hard men can work. From sunset and until dark choppers would mow and than all night
They would bind in sheaves what they chopped during the day. And it went like that day in day out. Someone who was suspected of being lazy is lost for good. Next year no one would take him in his team and his tricks become a matter for discussion at all evening meetings and gatherings.
1918
That year peasants of the Klishkivtsi village assembled in a large community. In Vornichy (illegible) 500 dessiatina of land. The landlord left that plot (illegible) decided to sell the land to the villagers of Klishkivtsi (illegible) to whom they later paid money. They bought that land in spite of the fact that the plot was located at a distance of 25 km from Klishkivtsi. Now almost all villagers were connected with Vornichany.
Page 101
When the sun just started to rise carts with workers or choppers are already moving towards Vornichany. (illegible). It was hard work (illegible).
1912
From January of that year one parish primary school started working in the village. It was reported in "Church Chronicle" that there were 41 pupils in school that year. It was Solomontsi school. The expenses have been also (illegible) covered by foreign monasteries and zemstvo. At that time villagers started sending to school girls along with boys. Lalovecha Vasil Stepanovich was the teacher and headmaster of the school. He was the son of a villager from Klishkivtsi who due to his abilities and persistence has become (illegible). At that time children of peasants Georgil Chornobrov (?) Semen Stepanovich Banar (?), Dmitro Vas. Galichanskii, Kachen (?) Dem'ianovich worked as teachers, the latter worked as a teacher in Moscow and his family is living there.
In accordance with the above-mentioned "Chronicle", in the year 1912 the village included 1,435 households with population of 8,293 including 4,117 men and 4,176 women.
1914-1917
During WWI (illegible) was all over our krai. Currency depreciated and prices of commercial goods and commodities increased fast. Capitalists, landlords and kulaks (rich peasants) became richer and peasants and working masses in general were doomed to hunger and poverty. People in Klishkivtsi as well as all over Bucovina encountered great losses and destruction. It was a front-line zone. Austrian soldiers were located in Shilivtsi, in Minsk forest, and in Poliana and on the other side the trenches were located in Dibrova, Malinsk common pasture.
Klishkivtsi and surrounding villages were literally crowded with all kinds of military and horsemen. Soldiers were placed in houses and horses tied to trees. Having nothing to eat horses gnawed at tree bark. All gardens suffered and later dried up.
An important role in spreading revolutionary ideas over Khotin area as well as Klishkivtsi was played by soldiers of the 7th Russian Army whose units were quartered in our territory. They participated in uprisings together with the workers from villages and towns and cities to establish the Soviet power. Workers of our village as well as the Khotin area in general together with fighting soldiers accepted happily the news about the February revolution in Russia.
Illustration
The participant of the Khotin uprising, fighter of the 1st Bessarabia regiment, Grigorash Kindrat Ivanovich. The photo is dated 1969, 50th anniversary of the Khotin uprising.
Page 102
(illegible) created Soviets of Army men's deputies. Soldiers' committees were created in all military units. Our revolutionaries had people hey could learn from. Ever increasing revolutionary events at the front line merged with revolutionary fight of popular masses in the front-line Khotin area. Working masses of the area struggled for peach, land and the power of the Soviet (illegible). Friendly relations were developing between the area workers and soldiers, the sides have changed representatives, organized joint meetings and gatherings in Khotin, Klishkivtsi, and other villages. On 24 November 1917 (illegible) of soldiers of the 165th division took place (illegible). A resolution was approved unanimously aimed to stop the war immediately.
("Radians'ka Bucovina" (illegible).
Bolsheviks were explaining the policy of the Communist Party and mobilizing masses to fight for the victory of the Socialist revolution. People from Klishkivtsi comprised a tiny but active part, a drop in that all-nation movement.
On 15 October 1917 a district congress of Soviets took part in Khotin. Workers, soldiers and peasants from the Khotin district expressed their will to establish the power of the Soviets. At that congress of course, representatives of Klishkivtsi were present. One of them was Rotar Musii Vasil'evech, the deputy chairman of the Klishkivtsi volost revolutionary committee. Early in 1917, Voloshin Semen Tikhonovich from Zaporozhany was the head of the Klishkivtsi volost. At that time bread was collected in villages for the defense fund. Having collected bread Voloshin had sold it; for that he was arrested by representatives of the revolutionary committee. However, due to the chaos at the time he managed to escape and survive. In summer 1917, election of the head of the revolutionary committee took place in Klishkivtsi volost. Representatives from eight villages participated elected by (illegible) 17 people in all. They elected as the head of the revolutionary committee of Klishkivtsi volost, Tomin Dementi Vasil'evech who was then the secretary of the revolutionary committee of Vladichna (see photo)
Rotar Musii Vasil'evech from Klishkivtsi was elected the deputy chairman. A representative of the district revolutionary committee from Khotin was present at the election. Tomin D.V. occupied his position until the coming of Rumanians in 1918. The revolutionary committee helped families of fighting soldiers. The former police officer left leaving no traces and police dispersed. Muzika Mykola Seepanovich was at that time the secretary of the revolutionary committee. Bolsheviks occupied more and more positions in peasants committees in Klishkivtsi and surrounding villages; the great role in that process played joint meetings of peasants and soldiers of the 7th army.
(Photo)
The first chairman of the volost revolutionary committee in Klishkivtsi Tomin Dementii Vasil'vech from the village of Vladichna. 6.1, 1966 (article by V. Andrusiak)
1918
Under the influence of the great October socialist revolution the workers of Bucovina intensified their struggle for social and national liberation. On 21-22 January 1918 Congress of peasants of the Khotin district took place. The delegate from Klishkivtsi at that Congress and at the 1st Congress of peasants was the deputy chairman of the district revolutionary committee Rotar Musii Vasil'evech. He was a strong-willed comrade dedicated to revolution; later in the period of Rumanian persecution he was forced to leave Klishkivtsi for Northern Bessarabia. Delegates of that congress unanimously recognize the Soviet power and expressed distrust to the counter-revolutionary Moldavian "Sfatul Tarei". On 23rd January the Bolshevik revolutionary meeting of the 7th army located at time in the territory of Khotin district approved the following resolution: "The Central Rada (Council) should be considered a counter-revolutionary organization and struggle against it should be intensified".
The district revolutionary committee of the Klishkivtsi district had carried out all such decisions. On 28 January the Khotin district land committee accepted a decree about land and approved the order of the implementation of Lenin's land decree in the district territory. The head of the land committee of the Klishkivtsi district was Zaplitnyi (I quote from documents: unfortunately I was not able to find his name and patronymic).
Following is the text of the statement of the Klishkivtsi district land committee of the Khotin area to the Land Department concerning the refusal of peasants to make payments for the land renting, dated 31 May 1918.
"On the instruction of the Land department from 12 May No. (illegible) and 14 May no. 1046 the district land committee hereby informs (illegible).,
Photo
Volodmir Illich Bureveskii, participant of the Khotin apprising, personal pensioner. Photo dated 1969 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Khotin uprising.
Page 104
It can be seen that our people never considered themselves Rumanian subjects. They knew that the Rumanian occupation was a temporary phenomenon and used every opportunity to harass the interventionists.
On 18 February 1918 the 5th peasants Congress of the Khotin area took place where a resolution was accepted unanimously about the establishment of the Soviet power in the Khotin area. His congress passed a resolution about the implementation of Lenin's land decree. 119,800 dessiatina of lands and hay-making lands confiscated from landlords, monasteries and shareholding associations were transferred to Khotin peasants. On 28 February 1918, the Austrian –German interventionists having concentrated in Chernovtsy large military units started their onslaught. Capturing Novoselitsy and Khotin they occupied the Soviet areas of Bucovina. He revolutionary committee of the Klishkivtsi district continued functioning ignoring the Austrian occupation. On 23 October 1918, an uprising started in Khotin against the Austrian-German interventionists. That day a meeting took place in Khotin where a decision was approved not to recognize the hetman's appointed elder. An Austrian general was present at the meeting chaired by the Klishkivtsi resident Sergii Semenovich Karvatskii. The meeting decreed that Khotin district should be united with Russia because the Khotin area was considered an integral part of Russia. On 24 October 1918, the Austrian-Hungarian units left the Khotin district. On 8 November 1918, Rumanian royal units invaded Bucovina by the agreement and with the help of Entente imperialists. On 11 November they captured Khotin. He same day they entered Chernovtsy. At that time the preparations started in the Khotin area for the armed uprising against the occupiers. Late in December almost everywhere uprising committees were created headed by participants of revolutionary movements and soldiers that had just returned from battle. A popular uprising was in the making.
("Radians'ka Bucovina", 4.1 1917, article by Liapunov, oblast archive)
All events that were happening in the Khotin district Bucovina are very closely tied to the history of our village and the events that happened later in 1919. Soon representatives of the new power appeared in Klishkivtsi. The first thing they did there was robbing the population. Whatever they saw they immediately grabbed showing no conscience or pity.
Page 105
Soldiers in bast sandals riding donkeys darted about going from one house to another and plundered everything. The population would not put up with this appearance of Rumanian soldiers. The people just could not tolerate them while Rumanians retaliated and robbed them. Rumanians covered their donkeys and horses they stole from the villagers with our nicest blankets. They would take multi-colored silk straps ("kods") from them and tie them to the tails of their donkeys or horses and rode like that along the village. So great was the hatred of the Rumanian occupiers that whenever a villager would meet one of them not a single person, man or child would smile to them. Every thing and even the air was full of hatred. It would appear that Rumanians were doing everything to inflame that hatred.
The gendarme precinct was situated in the building of Sherepera Maxim next to the building of Bartita (?) Safronia Mikh. And the gendarme unit that commanded the operation of all posts from Kolenkivtsi to Zaporozhany was in the building of Lavorskii Pilip where a kindergarten is situated now. Every day several dozens people were brought to the post and the precinct and beaten for any fault or even on the slightest suspicion. One could only wonder how the Rumanians managed to do that. They behaved like professional torturers. When the terror was at its top, in Khotin and the villages of the Khotin district underground revolutionary committee were created. The preparation for the uprising started. The revolutionary committee in Klishkivtsi was headed by Semen Vas. Palagniuk and Kost'Vasil'evech Chaban At that time there was a lot of weapons and ammunition in the village left from the time when the front line crossed it and after the disarming of Austrian soldiers that left our district during the war. An order was issued to hide weapons and ammunition and keep them ready for a fight, and an active group was created including former commanding officers and capable organizers: Mikhailo Chornobrov, Volodmir Khripa, Mitrofan Mimka, Omel'ian Virsa, Lakiv Chenkivskii, Petro Chaban and others. The village was divided into sectors to which individual activists were attached with certain mission. 2.6 howitzers were hidden with 50 shells for them. Messengers were appointed to establish contact with units from other villages. The headquarters of the uprising was established on the premises of the former post office where there was a telephone for communication The last meeting of the activists (about 50 men) was carried out a week before the uprising at the Jewish cemetery and instructions issued concerning the pre-arranged signal for the uprising due to begin very soon. The meeting was headed by Semen Vas Palagniuk and Sergii Sem Karvatskii. One of the participants of that meeting, Avram lakovich Chornobrov is still alive. Mitrofan Mimka and Korni Leont Prisiazhniuk were appointed headquarter commanders. All reliable people in the village knew that the uprising will start very soon and only the Rumanians did not see anything and carried out their dirty deeds. Klishkivtsi volost was reorganized into a "plasa" (similar to volost). Tim Iv Banar was appointed the chairman of the plasa. There was also a secretary Levitskii, a translator Revenko (Moldavian) for Orgel (?).
Page 106
A "primar" (elder) was appointed for the village, lv. Kost Nesturiuk. because he knew the Moldavian language. He was appointed an elder; however he always stood before the people and was respected by them. While in his position (illegible) from the Rumanian disaster especially in the period (illegible). Rumanians often needed carts for transportation, so they would send the elder to get carts and a gendarme accompanied him. Nesteriuk usually would go up the hill and shout in a strong voice so everyone in the village would hear "carts for the transport unit (illegible"). The Rumanian would think that this was the proper way to give an order, while the villagers who had horses would hide them in sheds, in gardens and other places. Then the elder with the gendarme would come to the courtyard and find no horses that had been hidden. The same thing happened in other courtyards. The gendarme and the elder would come empty handed to their place. Sometimes villagers were taken to the gendarme headquarters. Then the elder would immediately appear and talk to the officials so long that the detained would be released home; they always gave him a good beating because on one would leave that place without a beating whether he was guilty or innocent.
1919
Having prepared everything to start the armed uprising people only waited for a signal from Khotin. Everyone would look around and make a reconnaissance at his own expense, check his arms and ammunition. In addition to gendarmes a battalion of Rumanian soldiers was quartered in the village. Rumanians started understanding a little of our language because it was their third month among the population.
Here is a typical scene. Zakhar Fedorovich Bobik enters a house where Rumanian soldiers live and sees a Rumanian eating.
What are you eating, Rumanian? — Zakhar Federovich asks
Eating — the Rumanian answers.
Eat, eat — says Bobik — for soon you will have no time to eat.
The Rumanian ignored his words.
Later, after the uprising was suppressed,
the words were remembered and Bobik had to pay for them.
On the night of 23 January 1919 the long-awaited shots were heard. Messengers appointed earlier – Kostol'skill'a , Kolteniuk il'ia, Matuliak - immediately rode on their horses and informed unit leaders and commanding officers. All people rose to strike at Rumanians. The Klishkivtsi unit had more than 400 men. The rebels attacked the gendarme headquarters and unit and the houses where Rumanians were quartered. Every group leader had his personal mission that he carried out faultlessly. Zakhar-Fed Bobik and Il'ya Ivanovich Zorkan with their units attacked the soldiers of the Rumanian battalion quartered in houses. To support the attackers a unit from Tsiganka headed by Iakiv Domnitsin. hurried. The Rumanians shot at their attackers demonstrating ferocious resistance; some of them were in their underwear. The invaders hurriedly retreated from the village where death and revenge for the harm they have done was waiting for them behind every bush. Volodimir Lukich Khripa with his unit came running to neutralize the gendarme unit. There he found what Kornii Leont Prisazhniuk and iakiv Pantel Chenkivskii managed to do with their units. The gendarme headquarters and unit, that hornet's nest where so many people had suffered, were neutralized. The Rumanians lost 16 men and the remnants left the village for Novoselitsy. Mitrofan Panteleevich Mimka took his place in the headquarters. Junior commanding officers were appointed commanders, the fighters checked their outfits, weapons and ammunition. Mikita Fedorovich Kravets accepted extra weapons and ammunition and gave them on the spot to people who came unarmed. (photo). Sergii Semenovich Karvatskii, a member of the district committee.
Page 107
A notification was received that Rumanians in Shirvtsi (illegible) a unit of Klishkivtsi people was sent headed by Semenko Vas. Buriaka Kost'Dem. And Ivan Virsta (illegible) was pushed back behind Kerstentsi. The detachments of Rumanians retreating from Khotin stopped (illegible) sugar refinery. It was necessary not to let them come to their senses (illegible) people from Klishkivtsi headed by Denis iakovich Tkach moved to Zarozhani. A fierce battle started (illegible) were pushed back behind Kerstentsi.
The 4th platoon of the Klishkivtsi people headed by Dmitro Medvediuk was sent to Grozintsi where the Rumanians had retreated and to some extent the Moldavian population resisted forcefully. That company bore the brunt of retreating from Grozintsi; the Klishkivtsi people had to fight regular units armed to the teeth by Entente and were forced to retreat to join the units of Kost' Vas. Chaban who directly defended our village. Some survivors of those events are still alive: Avram Chornobrov, Mikhailo Grigorovich Glavatchuk, Fedir Kostomskii (illegible) live in our village. The Rumanians started attacking the village of Nedoboivgtsa; a company of Klishkivtsi villagers was sent there to help. That company was headed by Sem.Vas Palagniuk who was killed there together with Timofi Grig Romaniuk and others. Defeated by the Rumanians they did not return to Klishkivtsi but retreated across the Dnestr. It could be seen from the events described that the Klishkivtsi people immediately took part in all heavy military actions and not only defended their sector of the front but also succeeded in helping their neighbors east and west of them.
A front was created south of the village against the Rumanians who organized defense along the Dinivts, Rangag (illegible, Sankivtsi and later started an offensive on a wide front. The defense was headed by former ensign Zviagintsev from Khotin. Women baked bread and cooked meals and teenagers delivered all food to the front line for the fighters on sleds. Along with food, they brought ammunition. Intensive machine-gun fire met the Rumanians; Volodmir Lukich Kripa and Vasil Sokolov ', Russians by nationality, manned machine guns. Those people fighting far from their motherland Russia defended also the interests of the Russian regime.
The headquarters of the Klishkivtsi unit operated in an orderly way. It was headed by (illegible) Timofi Evanovich Banar who was an elder under the Rumanian power and was also at the headquarters. He signed call- the volost instructing them to report to their new places to fight the Rumanians The position of the clerk in the headquarters was given to Andrii Pakhomocich Kushnir from Zaporozh'e who was then a teenager. Kushnir relates that when the Rumanians captured Klishkivtsi there were no more uprising participants in the headquarters. Banar ran to the headquarters with a sack, grabbed all the papers and said that he knew what to do with them. He sent Kusnir back home and disappeared. It is interesting that after the uprising Banar who did not retreat with the participants of the uprising was again appointed the elder. He was not persecuted and his belongings were not touched. Therefore it can be guessed that his possessing the lists of the rebels might have betrayed all the activists whose families were cruelly persecuted and whose belongings burned by the Rumanians to save his hide.
Page 108
Trenches were dug along the whole southern part of the village and fortifications erected. On Ivankov Hill guards were placed (illegible. In Solontsi on the windmill and in the school attic machine guns were placed (illegible). There was an uninterrupted line of fighters that defended their positions. The Rumanian reconnaissance on horseback moved all the time between Dynivtsi and Sankivs. The insurgents sent their own mounted reconnaissance units. For six days and six nights a fierce battle ensued, however the forces were unequal. The Rumanians all the time received reinforcements; however they did not manage to capture Klishkivtsi from the south where they carried out attacks with marching guns, cannons and cavalry.
Here is one of the episodes.
A telephone message was received at the headquarters that a passenger car came to Grozyntsi with messengers from Western countries. An order was issued to bring them to the headquarters. Two insurgents searched the car got inside and brought the truce envoys as they called themselves to Klishkivtsi. At that time Musil Federovich Kraves' and Maksim Midhailovich Iakovenko came to the headquarters with some missions of their own. The envoys announced at the headquarters that one of them was French and the other English and that they were not able to speak Russian. They used body language and some internationally known words. In the meantime they conversed between themselves. M.M. Iakovenko who had earlier lived in America doing seasonal work and knew English talked to them in that language. It turned out (illegible) did not understand his words. A suspicion arose that those messengers were spies; they were arrested and placed in the cellar of Iavofrskii's house where the guard was situated. They stayed there until the Rumanians came and freed them. They survived because the retreat began and there e to bring them to court. Malyntsi at the western side and the Zaporazhany at the eastern side being captured Chaban to avoid the encirclement led his unit in full order to the north of the Village and then to Rukshintsi to join the rebels in Khotin where they fought bravely before retreating across the Dnestr. After the retreat across the Dnestr, the Klishkivtsi villagers together with the rebels from other villages tried to join the Red Army units to continue the struggle. During the fighting as Khrip Vol. Lukich related (illegible) came and helped to organize the defense the former (illegible) national hero the Moldavian people Barbuts (illegible) Bessarabian regiment. Other survivors of the uprising (illegible).
Numerous Klishkivtsi people, for example Grigorash and others immediately joined the Bessarabian regiment. The uprising was defeated however the war did not end. The rebels fought bravely at all fronts of the civil war; they understood that the victory of the Soviet regime would mean the freedom for all working people and the liberation of our territory from our oppressors.
Photo dated 1969, on the 50th anniversary of the uprising (illegible).
Page 109
The Rumanians entered the village and true to their old principles and inborn greed, again started robbing the population. This time however they were joined Moldavians in civilian clothes. They had on their forearms signs of distinction, white (illegible). They were Moldavians from the Old Kingdom (illegible) and our Bessarabians and Moldavians. They (illegible) mounted or on their feet and grabbed everything (illegible): cows, sheep, pigs, anything and everything. A Rumanian would come to the house courtyard and ask "Bolshevik"? No, a woman or child would reply they are gone, and they made a sign to the East. The Rumanian would not believe and go straight to the house. There he would proceed to the chest (where the belongings were stored). The Rumanians already knew that all the most valuable belongs were in the chest. Repeating all the time his question about "Bolshevik" the Rumanian would take everything that was in the chest for himself that he (illegible) and the rest was taken by his companions in civil clothes. Sometimes one or two soldiers would come to the house while the people in civil clothes would grab everything that was located in or around the house. They were like locusts. Most of all they liked sheep and lambs.
There is a famous saying "It is a small flock that has not a black sheep". In our village there were also traitors. One of them was Maksim Bots'ko who has learned about the beginning of the uprising warned the unit commander and hid him at his place in the willow thicket where the person stayed till the return of the Rumanians. Some traitors started betraying the uprising commanders. (illegible). They also betrayed the priest Mykola Polianski. Contribution was imposed on the village: 150,000 lei, a lot of stock and bread.
Houses of the leaders of the uprising were robbed and burned with all that was left. Rumanians would stay everyplace waiting till all had been burned out (illegible). It was absolutely forbidden (illegible) to give shelter to the families of those whose houses were burned down. What was left of the trees the Rumanians took to their kitchen. At all sites of fires one could see the same picture: a woman sitting blue from a beating and a group of children with her. They were doing something children were looking for something sometimes they found some objects and showed them to their mother, however, the woman could not see anything or listen to anyone, and her eyes were already tearless. A person who had seen such eyes once would never forget them. Children would not cry anymore, they were just miserable. None of them would speak, no one would voice compassion to them, and only in the evening they would disperse to find some place to sleep in houses of kind people, and in the morning they would again come to the same place where their house was: if Rumanians knew about that they would beat them and on one wants to be beaten. And the time is January
Photo
The participant of the Khotin uprising, the fighter of the Kotovskii brigade, participant of the Great Patriotic war, the founder and the head of the Karl Marx collective farm Kost' Romanovich Gorodenskii (illegible)
Page 119
1933
The last land distribution in Klishkivtsi took place in 1933. Here is Dibrova. Until now the place was in general use. All villagers had the right to pasture their sheep or cows without any restriction. But Dibrova land did not allow anything to row. The spring began, land turned green and later grass burned down; until the autumn one could not see anything growing there. Only flowers "dog's milk" (dog excrement) blossomed all around. In 1933 at the village meeting it was decided to divide the Dibrova per all men who had served in the army and were considered to be of legal age. The area "per hat" was 11 prazhinas (0.20 ha). 10 prazhinas (llegible) land and one of stony land. Thus a great number of narrow strips were created. For two years Dibrova gave crops because earlier it was not tilled (fallow land) but later on no tillage produced any crop. To get something from that land it was necessary to put a lot of fertilizers and humus but not every peasant was able to bring humus, especially in large amounts.
Page 120
In January 1933 at the premises of the former gymnasium a 2-year agricultural school was opened. The aim was to prepare qualified land owners capable of running their own business in a more organized way and more efficiently using all reserves available. The school was financed by the Khotin district agricultural department. It accepted mainly graduates from the former gymnasium who had successfully graduated from (illegible) classes of a school providing general education. The school director was Ilarion Chornobai, son of a peasant from Zarozhany; he was an engineer, a very good specialist in agriculture and had published works. The teachers were Ivan Keptia and Vas.Grig Koval'. The school had a good curriculum and was practical especially in gardening. The school existed until 1939. The number of boys was from 50-60. It had a station of artificial insemination. There were pedigree bulls, horses and hogs there. The students of the agricultural school were obligated to take stock of their fathers' income and expenses. The economic year started on March 1. From that day on until February 28 the following year every student made entries in a registration book issued especially for that purpose; periodically be brought the book to the school and presented it to the teachers.
I was a student of the agricultural school and carried out that work. Regretfully, the records had not been preserved in full, however whatever had remained I will enter in that Chronicle so that it would be possible to get an idea about the prices of all kinds of goods, products and clothes at that time and also see the life at that time and the budget of an average peasant from the village Klishkivtsi and that of my father Sergii Semonovich Karvatskii in the period from March 1, 1933 to February 28, 1934. Having 7 ha of land my father worked also as the chairman of the people's bank and received 5500 lei salary each month. However, that sum was spent on hiring workers who would substitute for him in the field at the time when he was busy in the bank. For the days he spent carrying out banking operations, he received less payment than a simple worker did.
The following are the entries in the registration book the original of which is stored.
Total amount of land owned by Karvatskii S.S.-7 ha, including 5 ha in Berestechko, 1 ha in Malyntsi including 2/3 in the forest and 1 ha at home in Klishkivtsi.
Illustration.
Shalom Aleichem. Non-dejected stories (transliterated from Yiddish).
This is how a typical pre-1920 Klishkivtsi Jew looked like. Goat was usually called a Jewish cow.
Livestock, machinery and implements at the farm as of March 1, 1933.
Page 121
|
Item
|
No.
|
Sum (price-lei)
|
|
Horse
|
2
|
7,000
|
|
Cow
|
1
|
4,000
|
|
Calf
|
1
|
500
|
|
Sheep
|
8
|
2,400
|
|
Chicken
|
18
|
720
|
|
Astrakhan ram
|
1
|
1,500
|
|
cart
|
2
|
6,000
|
|
plough
|
1
|
2,800
|
|
Harrow
|
1
|
200
|
|
Sowing machine
|
1
|
8,200
|
|
Scythe
|
1
|
50
|
|
Hoe
|
3
|
90
|
|
Fork
|
2
|
80
|
|
Sickle
|
1
|
30
|
|
Axe
|
2
|
120
|
|
Spade
|
2
|
Illegible
|
|
Winnowing machine
|
1
|
2
|
|
Provisions (family)
|
Illegible
|
Illegible
|
|
Wheat
|
80
|
"
|
|
Rye
|
80
|
"
|
|
Corn
|
3,000
|
"
|
|
Barley
|
400
|
"
|
|
Potatoes
|
2,400
|
"
|
|
Beans
|
80
|
"
|
|
Fodder beet
|
2,400
|
"
|
|
Straw
|
1,600
|
"
|
|
Hay
|
800
|
"
|
|
Firewood
|
4,800
|
"
|
|
Debts 1 Mar 1933
|
|
|
|
Debts on promissory
Notes & other written
Commitments
|
11,200 lei
|
|
|
Debts on oral commitments (Aleksinski P.V.)
|
|
|
Regretfully, there is no record of (illegible) was planted, It can be seen from the income figures that (illegible) was planted of beets for sugar refinery.
Following is data on incomes and expenses by day (March 1933)
|
Date (day)
|
Item
|
Income (Lei)
|
Expenses
|
|
1
|
Firewood
|
|
|
|
3
|
Debts. P.Aleksinskii
|
(illegible)
|
|
|
4
|
Advance for beets
|
1,000
|
|
|
4
|
Shoemaker
|
|
150
|
|
5
|
Pharmacy
|
|
100
|
|
6
|
Blacksmith
|
|
70
|
|
7
|
Interest, Bessarabia Khotin Bank
|
|
130
|
|
9
|
Passover flour
|
|
200
|
|
10
|
Monthly salary
|
500
|
|
|
12
|
Cotton (yarn)
|
|
200
|
|
15
|
Malintsi (administration tax)
|
|
200
|
|
16
|
Kariton –coachman
|
|
290
|
|
19
|
Kerosene
|
|
20
|
|
22
|
Lambskin coat repair
|
|
120
|
|
22
|
2 sledges
|
|
60
|
|
27
|
Lambskin sale
|
1,200
|
|
|
30
|
Salt
|
|
20
|
|
Total for March
|
|
3,940
|
2,560
|
|
April 1933
|
|
|
|
|
2
|
Shepherd
|
|
200
|
|
5
|
Ropes
|
|
21
|
|
8
|
Tobacco
|
|
15
|
|
11
|
Gardener
|
|
30
|
|
15
|
Boots for Vasil
|
|
250
|
|
18
|
Bank salary
|
500
|
|
|
21
|
Watch repair
|
|
50
|
|
25
|
Mis. Groceries for Passover
|
|
350
|
|
28
|
Costume for Fima
|
|
|
|
30
|
Workers (illegible)
|
|
|
|
Total April
|
|
500
|
|
|
June 1933
|
|
|
|
|
3
|
Forest guard
|
|
95
|
|
5
|
Bank interest
|
|
200
|
|
7
|
Workers
|
|
130
|
|
10
|
Bast sandals for Dmytro (myself)
|
|
130
|
|
15
|
Bank salary
|
500
|
|
|
20
|
Beet weeding 2nd time
|
|
450
|
|
25
|
1,600 ton corn sold
|
3,000
|
|
|
26
|
Cotton dying
|
|
150
|
|
28
|
Two hats
|
|
175
|
|
30
|
Weeding beans
|
|
140
|
|
Total-June
|
|
3,500
|
1,280
|
|
July 1933
|
|
|
|
|
Date
|
Item
|
Income (lei)
|
Expenses
|
|
4
|
Soles
|
|
20
|
|
5
|
Nails
|
|
15
|
|
9
|
Bitnal for cart repair
|
|
120
|
|
12
|
Horseshoeing
|
|
58
|
|
15
|
3 piglets
|
450
|
|
|
23
|
3 reapers
|
|
165
|
|
27
|
3 mowers
|
|
120
|
|
30
|
Tablecloths
|
|
(illegible)
|
|
31
|
Spoons, forks
|
|
120
|
|
Total
|
|
450
|
808
|
|
August 1933
|
|
|
|
|
2
|
Debt to bank
|
|
1,700
|
|
5
|
Guard for Dibrova
|
|
50
|
|
7
|
Sewing trousers for Berko
|
|
30
|
|
9
|
Lime
|
|
40
|
|
10
|
Vodka for Chaim
|
|
408
|
|
11
|
Bank salary for July-August
|
1,000
|
|
|
15
|
Beer
|
|
240
|
|
15
|
Meat
|
|
325
|
|
15
|
Dmytro
|
|
50
|
|
15
|
Miscellaneous For Temple
|
|
85
|
|
20
|
Beet weeding 3rd time
|
|
420
|
|
21
|
Clover mowing
|
|
205
|
|
26
|
Advance payment for beets
|
2,250
|
|
|
29
|
Barley for the rent
|
|
100
|
|
Total
|
|
3,250
|
3,653
|
|
Sept 1933
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
Sewing machine repair
|
|
450
|
|
3
|
Bast sandals for Vasil
|
|
60
|
|
7
|
Furrier for hat repair
|
|
70
|
|
9
|
Dmytro
|
|
25
|
|
11
|
Kerosene
|
|
33
|
|
12
|
Matches
|
|
20
|
|
16
|
Trip to Khotin
|
|
52
|
|
19
|
Dynivtsi administration tax for Bedest
|
|
800
|
|
22
|
Advance for beets
|
1,500
|
|
|
23
|
1,600 kg. firewood sold
|
600
|
|
|
25
|
Bank salary
|
500
|
|
|
27
|
Winnowing machine sold
|
115
|
|
|
28
|
Trousers-Dmytro
|
|
220
|
|
29
|
Wheel repair
|
|
70
|
|
30
|
Books for Vasil
|
|
50
|
|
Total
|
|
2,715
|
1,845
|
|
October 1933
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
Beet advance
|
3,000
|
|
|
3
|
For the calf
|
400
|
|
|
5
|
High boots for Dmytro
|
|
800
|
|
6
|
Shoes for Fima
|
|
300
|
|
10
|
High boots for wife
|
|
500
|
|
15
|
High boots for me
|
|
350
|
|
20
|
Beet advance
|
2,000
|
|
|
23
|
Sheepskin coat for Fima
|
|
500
|
|
23
|
Sheepskin coat for me
|
|
300
|
|
27
|
Medicine (mother was ill)
|
|
130
|
|
29
|
Salt for sheep
|
|
45
|
|
Total
|
|
5,400
|
2,925
|
|
November 1933
|
|
|
|
|
2
|
Beet advance
|
1,000
|
|
|
3
|
Shoes
|
|
20
|
|
4
|
Shoemaker
|
|
60
|
|
7
|
Sugar refinery
|
|
55
|
|
8
|
Beet digging
|
|
1,650
|
|
10
|
Beet delivery to the refinery
|
|
3,000
|
|
11
|
Expenses in Khotin
|
|
68
|
|
15
|
4 workers for potato digging
|
|
80
|
|
18
|
Lamp
|
|
25
|
|
18
|
Matches
|
|
20
|
|
21
|
Shepherd
|
|
250
|
|
25
|
Grigorii for the cutting machine
|
|
2,000
|
|
26
|
Cloth and shoemaker for Vasil
|
|
220
|
|
27
|
Ram sold
|
485
|
|
|
30
|
Beet advance
|
500
|
|
|
30
|
1 kg nails
|
|
20
|
|
total
|
|
1,985
|
7,448
|
|
December 1933
|
|
|
|
|
3
|
Loan from Grigorii
|
500
|
|
|
4
|
Tea
|
|
10
|
|
6
|
Mow the clover for seeds
|
|
50
|
|
10
|
Selling of an old plough
|
1,200
|
|
|
12
|
Klishkivtsi administration tax
|
|
300
|
|
13
|
Doctor
|
|
30
|
|
15
|
Belt for cutting machine
|
|
310
|
|
16
|
Debt to Grigorii
|
|
500
|
|
17
|
Bank salary
|
Illegible
|
|
|
19
|
Stave (for 2 barrels)
|
"
|
|
|
20
|
Cooper
|
"
|
|
|
23
|
Forester
|
"
|
|
|
23
|
Beet advance
|
2,000
|
|
|
24
|
Rye flour for Christmas
|
Illegible
|
|
|
24
|
Meat
|
"
|
|
|
24
|
Vodka & beer
|
"
|
|
|
24
|
Misc. grocery for Christmas
|
|
30
|
|
28
|
Kerosene
|
|
30
|
|
28
|
salt
|
|
32
|
|
total
|
|
4,200
|
2,316
|
|
January 1934
|
|
|
|
|
4
|
Blacksmith & metal for sledge
|
|
255
|
|
7
|
Stitching cotton stockings
|
|
75
|
|
10
|
sugar
|
|
53
|
|
15
|
Winnowing machine hire
|
45
|
|
|
18
|
Bank salary
|
500
|
|
|
20
|
Debt to Klishkivtsi bank
|
|
1,000
|
|
21
|
meat
|
|
60
|
|
23
|
Expenses in Chernovtsy
|
|
50
|
|
28
|
Winnowing machine hire
|
25
|
|
|
30
|
Bank interest
|
|
83
|
|
31
|
Three sacks
|
|
80
|
|
Total
|
|
570
|
1,557
|
|
February 1934
|
|
|
|
|
3
|
For beet final calculation
|
5,211
|
|
|
4
|
Plough
|
|
2,850
|
|
7
|
Guard for Berest
|
|
240
|
|
11
|
Bast sandals
|
|
115
|
|
11
|
Three shawls
|
|
70
|
|
14
|
Three wedding parties
|
|
520
|
|
15
|
Clover thresher
|
|
20
|
|
18
|
Wedding party
|
|
130
|
|
20
|
Bessarabia bank
|
|
1,000
|
|
20
|
Interest "
|
|
124
|
|
23
|
Sheep skin dressing
|
|
40
|
|
25
|
Three ropes
|
|
12
|
|
27
|
Winnowing machine hire
|
50
|
|
|
28
|
Trip to Khotin
|
|
60
|
|
Total
|
|
5,261
|
5,181
|
Total for the year — 33,611 lei. Expenses for the year — 32,622. Balance 989
That is how the income and expenses of an average family in the year 1933-34 looked like. It should be taken into account that the head of the family received 500 lei a month for his work as the Chairman of the People's bank. To the above dry records one should add the everyday work of the whole family. Every morning without having breakfast we would go to the field. No one would like to have breakfast at home because our field was at Berestechko situated 15 km away., so we had to get up early to get to the field together with Berestechko people and (illegible). We were never late.
Page 125
It could be seen from the records that beets gave us good profits: 2 ha gave us (illegible). Expenses for growing beets were 6,120 lei. It should be remembered however that weeding digging and transportation demanded payment for those whose tasks we couldn't do ourselves. We had to work daily doing weeding, digging and transporting of beets and hiring other people to do the work that we could not have done ourselves. At that time even nine-year old Vasia and 12-year old Fima could come every day to the field to help the adults. Expenses for me, a 20- year old lad were 1,620 lei included bast sandals, hat, trousers, high boots, sheepskin coat and also 90 lei to pay the musicians. For Fima it was 1,035 lei and for Vasia 580 lei. The best land was left for beet production. For fertilizers we had only super phosphate bought from the sugar refinery owner. Having sown beets one year we had to let the land rest until at least the fourth year before beets could be sown again. One has also to take into consideration the factor of work productivity then and now (illegible). The earth was hard and not loosened. The landowner, after the spring tillage and weeding during the whole day would see that he had done too little.
Communist Underground in Klishkivtsi
Having established the occupation regime, Rumanians tried to denationalize the local population. They did not allow people to open schools where teaching was carried out in the mother tongue. In schools and the gymnasium it was absolutely forbidden to pronounce a single word in the Russian or Ukrainian language. At all public places and shops where people gathered posters were placed "se va vorbi numai romaneste" meaning that only Rumanian can be spoken. All officials and teachers were obliged to change their surnames for Rumanian surnames. Those who refused to do so were fired. The intelligentsia was the first subject of denationalization. Those who were afraid to lose snug jobs followed the order and Iavorfskii turned into Paltinianu (sycamore) Karvatskii became Koomorniku, Kozlovskii became Kapranu etc. Having drafted our young men, Rumanians would not allow them to study the military art but sent them instead to do auxiliary work like that of batman etc, treating them like unreliable elements. However, neither terror, suppression nor small sops of the occupiers were able to break the wall of the villagers to fight for their national and social liberation. The strike organized by the gymnasium students immediately alerted the Rumanians. Students did not wish to have a White Guard officer as their director and their protest was a political action. However, there no doubts that the underground was behind them; seeing in the students' future fighters for the people's cause, for communism. When I missed studies in the gymnasium for three days I could not understand why my father would not notice that and behaved as if nothing had happened.
In the documentary story "From Bucovina to Paris", page (illegible) the authors convincingly show the revolutionary work that was carried out in the village at that time. Telling about Iosip Klisch they write, "Once he started talking about communists. It turns out that in Rumania there is a Communist party like that in the Soviet Union. They are fighting for the better life of the people and against the oppression of landlords and capitalists."
Page 126
(illegible). In Klishkivtsi the liaison man was a former participant of the uprising. Fedir Mitrofaniuk a former fighter in the Kotovskii detachment lived in Ukraine. Our villager Bragar was sentenced to ten years of hard labor for operating as a liaison with the Soviet Union. Instructions of that kind had let I. Klisgch, S. Vinogradov, I. Karkavchuk and others to the idea that in Rumania there existed a communist party that should fight for the ideals of communism. At that time in the village proclamations were disseminated as well as revolutionary literature and Soviet newspapers.
"Early in the 30's in the Khotin area quite a large underground party organization operated and in all rural areas of the region party committees existed with primary groups and circles in the majority of villages. Communists already had their own printing house that published various proclamations, leaflets and other revolutionary literature, writes A. Volokh, the former Secretary of the Khotin underground regional committee of the Rumanian communist party (Radians'ka Bucovina) 24.12.1966
There is no doubt that under the conditions that existed then in the Khotin region I. Klisch, E. Vinogradov and Ekselrud could work under much easier conditions that anyone else. They were the sons of rich fathers with prospects of becoming influential capitalists. The Siguranta would rather hope to get their help rather than be cautious of them. Even if there had been some signals the Siguranta was sure that rich people's sons would immediately betray other people and that would be that.
The father of I.Klisch was a major businessman as he traded in lumber. The area in town where he lived (0.40 ha) as filled almost up to the heaven with large stacks of firewood and lumber. He bought from the state large areas for tree felling and processed wood receiving large profits. The fathers of Klisch, Vinogradov, Ekselurd and Sadovnik were
Page 127
However, at that time their sons would hardly have been suspected and their organization operated successfully. (Chervonyi Shkoliar –Red Schoolboy).
The fathers of Klisch and Vinogradov had their persuasions while their sons had quite different persuasions. They had lived from childhood many years among our villagers and saw the misery and destitution and they saw how the occupiers terrorized the area. After having received proper instruction they became dedicated to the people's cause and active disseminators of Marxist and Leninist ideas among the population.
They had studied at the Lyceum together with adults who fought for their conscience and learned a lot. Their world outlook had been formed under the influence of communist circles and such people as Rarenko, Kunitskii and others.
In Klishkivtsi, communist leaflets appeared regularly and red flags were displayed on the eve of the great revolutionary holidays in places where people gathered such as the Yarmariski fair, bus stops (rogatka) etc.
Cruel Rumanians carried out searches trying to chase any suspected person. However they never suspected Klisch and Vingoradov. Those lads organized an activist group in the village that included Ivan Diordichuk, Pantelei Diordichuk, Georgii Chabanyk and many others. They gathered at the Jewish cemetery in the center of the village and read revolutionary literature the papers "Pravda" and "Izvestia" and brought to Klishkivtsi the truth about the Soviet Union.
What was the cause of the organization's demise? It was due to a desire to increase the membership. When the organization included only a small circle of participants mainly former students of the Klishkivtsi gymnasium such as Vinogradov, Klisch, Karnavchuk, Boichuk and Grytsunik it observed the conspiracy rules.i.e. information about all the actions was delivered to people secretly. However, Iosip Klisch decided to create five member units with the proviso that every new recruit to the organization would immediately look for four potential members. That was the cause of the demise. I personally warned Klisch that this practice was dangerous because it would allow unreliable elements entry into the organization. Control would be lost on enlisting new reliable members. However, he almost never backed down from his position once it was made and that brought on the failure. Ekselrud turned out to be the weakest link. He was a gentle, well-groomed lad who had never heard a refusal to his whims. When caught by gendarmes he was not able to withstand torture when his hands were tied behind his back, when he was lifted up by rope tied to his arms to the ceiling and lowered onto a red hot kitchen stove. On top of that his torturers promised him freedom and he betrayed his comrades. He named everyone who he knew. Fortunately he did not know everyone. When the Rumanians started interrogating Klisch and Vinogradov, they failed and learned nothing more. The known fact that "a Rumanian would sell even his own father for money" played a role here.
Rich fathers managed to stop tortures and later used Rumanian legislation that permitted their children to be released on bail. They paid a good sum of money to get them released. The bail was 30,000 lei and their sons were released. No one kept an eye on them afterwards, the only condition being that they wouldn't leave Klishkivtsi. The Rumanians would have been happy if the young men left for then they could keep the money. Rumanians loved money. However, the young men used their liberation not as their fathers thought they would.
Page 128
Vinogradov together with a girl named Sadovnik, and friends of his, Ivan Karkavchuk and Ivan Boichuk arranged to escape across the Dnestr River to continue their struggle that they had begun years earlier. Karkavchuk (from illegible) and Boichuk from Perebintsi immediately after arriving in the USSR were sentenced to 10 years for crossing the border illegally. As to Vinogradov and his Sadovnik girlfriend, their fate is not known to this day. Karkachuk and Boichuk served their terms and are now working. Leontii Grytsunik and Kotelev from Novoselitskii raion were executed by the Rumanians in 1941 upon their return. Ekselrud stayed at home and was not prosecuted. However in 1940, the NKVD) People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs) arrested him and his fate is unknown.
Klishch's father who was the most mature and rich behaved differently. At that time (1937) an agricultural fair took place in Paris. The Rumanian government encouraged those who would like to go to the fair. Old Leiba Klisch got a pass (invitation) issued in the name of someone other than his son and sent him to France in the hope that his young son would lose his infatuation with politics and would continue his studies. Iosip Klisch before his arrest had studied in Bucharest the Polytechnic Institute Old Klisch could afford educating his son in any higher institute of learning in Europe. Iosip Klisch who left for France was thinking something quite different. He was attracted not by his father's capital but by the fight for justice for whom he had dedicated his short but bright life. In Paris, I. Klisch soon came in contact with French communists and dedicated himself totally to political activity. In France he married Genrietta Tovarovska who gave birth to their son Sergi (Serge). During the war with Germany, I.Klisch was an active participant in the "Resistance Movement" and one of the first volunteers in the front units with the guerillas. He became the commander of the guerilla unit "Stalingrad". At dawn on July 2, 1943, Klishch (secret name Alber) died a heroic death while carrying out an important mission for the Headquarters of the French Resistance.
Following are the recollections of a participant in the last operation of Klisch. Oleksandr Konstananian was his comrade in arms in the struggle in France, in the city of Montferrand-le-Chateau that he published in the paper "Radians'ka Bucovina", 11.IX. 1966
"Manush (one of the commanders at the front) introduced me to the unit commander. The very first meeting made a very strong impression on me. His name was Alber. A tall, handsome man with noble features and a kind smile, he looked to me rather like a young scientist dedicated to his science studies rather than an underground leader. When I learned more about him I was persuaded that he was a dynamic strong-willed person, resolute in all his decision. Politically mature and possessing great initiative…".
It was learned later that the last operation organized on Klisch's initiative started after meticulous preparation in the Rue Beaujon on the outskirts of Paris at Clichy on July 2, 1943 at 9:00. To carry out the operation Klisch picked two men from his unit, Oleksandr (Armenian) and Aron (German). Oleksandr had to be the first to attack the SS car. The operation was carried out brilliantly. None of the passengers in the car was able to move or scream. A bomb prepared by Olga Bonchak worked excellently. Near the Beaujon hospital a heap of corpses, glass and metal remained. The operation participants started retreating keeping a distance of 50 meters. In Traversier Street Oleksandr was caught and led in the opposite direction to the Beaujon hospital. When they crossed Grange-Bateliere Street, Klisch appeared from around the corner. He put his pistol to the agent's breast and ordered Olkesandr to disappear. The whole area was alerted and from all directions Hitlerites rushed to the place of the operation. Klisch retraced his steps to Jan Jores Boulevard, however one the Gestapo agents attacked. A brief fight followed then a shot-and Klisch fled from the place. Page 129 Germans appeared and shot using automatic weapons. Klisch was wounded in the leg. It took a lot of will to run tow quarters along the street, reach the courtyard and take cover in the basement of the building on L'Abrevua Street. The yard keeper saw the place where the wounded Klisch hid and informed the Hitlerites. This was the place where the battle took place that lasted for six hours as described by (illegible) between one hundred SS men and one guerilla that was bleeding profusely. A short entry appeared in the Chronicle of F&PF (France, Frontiers and Guerillas): "Today, July 2, 1943 the commander of the "Stalingrad" unit Iosip Klisch from Bucovina, fighter's code name Alber sign number L001 died as a hero at Clichy in the battle against 100 fascist SS soldiers". ("Radians'ka Bucovina", no. 178 11.IX 1966)
On July 7, 1945 a memorial plate was installed on the façade of the building where Lt. Alber died. Comrade in arms of Klisch carved the marble in golden letters: "Here in the year 1943 in battles with the German fascists occupiers died a heroic death the communist Iosif Klisch".
One street in Paris is named after the brave Bucovinan resident. One of the most beautiful streets of our village also bears the name of Iosip Klisch. May the great deed of I. Klisch be honored for it is the continuation of the relay-race of the great October for the next generation. No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten.
It is painful and sad to describe the circle of my comrades from the gymnasium. I studied with Emanuil Vinogradov in the same class. We shared many happy moments and many unpleasant ones. I remember how Iosip Klisch participated in disputes, his chin protruding, looking like a fighter in the arena. He would never back off from his persuasions or from what he had once planned. The Komsomol organization had been destroyed however and the underground never stopped its activities. To the great surprise of the Rumanians they saw on May 1, 1939 a nice red flag that proudly fluttered at the entrance ark of the Klishkivtsi market. It was placed by Diordiichuk Pant. K and Nikiforchuk Af. Latest news recorded from the Moscow radio statements were passed from one person to another. No, the occupiers will not be able to defeat our people!
Page 130
Why is the hotar (border area) between Klishkivtsi and Malintsi curved? In the period of the year 1861 land reform an engineer came to Klishkivtsi to separate the village from Malintsi and Zarozhany. He started to draw a straight line from the Sankitsi field via the Balatarka, Malintsi ravine and over the village he reached Dibrova. At that moment the engineer saw that on the hill there was a man standing on his knees with his forehead touching the earth. The engineer sent someone to find out what was the matter and who was the person sitting in such a strange position. It turned out that the man was the old Poshtar, a resident of Malintsi. The man rose and came crying to the engineer and to the crowd of people that helped him. The man had already seen that the straight line of the hotar (border) went right through his poor house so that it had to be demolished because otherwise the house would be located on the border between the two villages. The man humbly asked the engineer to prevent such a disaster. The engineer agreed to his request but asked him in which of the villages he would like his house to be. Poshtar replied that he would prefer Malintsi. That is why the hotar line between Klishkivtsi and Malintsi is curved which can be seen on the drawing or if one reaches Dibrova and looks in the direction of the forest.
In 1935 a cultural-educational center was established in the village for the intelligentsia consisting mainly of Rumanians. The center was called "Astra" meaning a celestial luminary. The villagers were allowed to go to the center and borrow a book for reading. The books of course were in the Rumanian language so the villagers would never go there.
