History of
Ignatovka/Hnativka
Editor’s
Note:
These narratives use the traditional Russian name for the
village, Ignatovka, as it was known in the days of the Russian
Empire. During the
early Soviet years of the 1920s, the name was changed to the
Ukrainian Hnativka, or Gnativka, pronounced
similarly to the Russian.
Medieval
Beginnings
Ignatovka is a small village located on the
west bank of the Irpina River, directly opposite the larger
hillside town of Bilohorodka.
The founding date of the village is unclear, but
Bilohorodka was a significant settlement in the pre-Czarist,
medieval period known as Kievan Rus (roughly from the 10th
through the 13th Century). The Kievan Rus era is
now regarded generally as the cradle of Russian culture, and
created the modern legacy shared by Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.
The Kievan Rus ruler Vladimir I, built a
sumptuous 10th C. palace, Bilhorod Castle, in
present-day Bilohorodka, [1].
Here the
hillside terrain East of the river provided fine views, cool
summer breezes and most importantly, defensibility. The kings spent time
outside the capitol of Kiev and away from the supervision of the
Church officials. This
location of Bilohorodka and Ignatovka on the regional route
leading westward 13 miles from Kiev, was strategic as such, and it
is known today as route P04.
Bilohordoka was destroyed when the Mongol
invasion devastated Kiev in 1240.
It ceased to exist as it was known but the modern small
town of Bilohorodka eventually grew around the site of the
historic palace. If
Ignatovka existed in the 13th Century, it probably met the same
fate. The
medieval palace is now being slowly excavated by archeologists. Bilohorodka has had at
least a small Jewish population in recent times.
Early Ignatovka
The village probably began with a few houses on
the West bank of the Irpina River, where the road leading to Kiev
came to have a ferry for the river crossing. It might have had a small
inn or tavern for late travelers awaiting the ferry the next day. Flat, very rich and
tillable soil extended west and northward from the village and its
river.
The town had a “wishbone” layout with two
residential streets in the 19th C, which is still
evident today (See Maps). According
to a family account, one street was for Jews, the other for
gentiles. A small
market, probably a weekly event, was said to be located near the
intersection of the two streets and the main road from Kiev along
the south side of the village overlooking the river.
Satellite photos of the current town reveal a
regular plot plan for dwellings on the two streets. Most plots are of a
similar size, suitable for a garden behind the house.
The shtetl had a synagogue which according to
tradition was founded when the village came into being. The community had
two prayer houses by 1892—the original house “Staraya (Old) Prayer
House”. A
second school “Novaya (New) Prayer School” was probably chartered
in 1880 [2]. Both
houses belonged to the Jewish community and their exact locations
are not known today.
Extensive records of this kahal have come down and
are preserved in various regional archives. A religious shrine
located on the south side of the town known as an ohel is venerated by the
Hassidic community is still in existence today. (See section on Ohel
below)
Up until WWI, a small ferry ran across the
river between the towns, taking advantage of the higher ground
that was afforded for landings and wagon access on both sides. The ferry location is
thought to be just North of, and very close to the modern bridge
crossing of the Irpina on the highway leading from Kiev. A line of old trees
demark the extant dirt road leading directly to the likely
crossing point on the river bank.
The tree closest to the bank of the river bears the clear
marks of a scar in its bark.
This was the probable attachment point for a cable loop or
heavy rope to guide the ferry.
No piers or bulkheads from the ferry landings survive.
19th Century Ignatovka
According to a kahal record, a large
fire in 1859 destroyed roughly 60 of the 80 Jewish homes in the
town. For some time
afterward the community sought to secure funds from the Tsar
Alexander and charitable organizations abroad for the
reconstruction of the homes.
One of the appeal documents for recovery aid suggests that
before the fire the village had a likely population of 400 Jewish
residents.
Another smaller fire was noted in the kahal records in 1870
without much detail given. The
causes or these blazes is not mentioned in the kahal
accounts.
The Turbulent Years
Winds of change were afoot in the lands of the
Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th Century. Discontent with
the system of compulsory serfdom, was expressed by the growing
unrest and number of rebellions that took place on rural estates. Many of these conflicts
were ended by the intervention of the Czar’s army troops, often
with serious violence.
The abolition of serfdom in 1863 changed the
political outlook, but left most feudal subjects still tied to the
land and towns in which they worked. Only after the Russian
revolution were former feudal subjects---peasants, tradespersons
or others---able to move freely about and seek new opportunities.
In the 17th
& 18th Centuries in Ukraine, roughly 75% of the
rural population lived under serfdom.
The series of pogroms after 1880 added to the
pressures on Jewish communities.
The political unrest escalated until the suppression of the
1905 failed Bolshevik revolution.
As a consequence of these social tensions, the Tsar
assented to limited reforms.
Among them, the creation of the Duma, an elective body of
property owners to consider legislation [3]. Some Jews in Ignatovka
were eligible to become voters in this body.
The defeat of the Tsar’s armies in the
Russian-Japanese war of (1904-05) added to popular discontent. Some of Ignatovka’s sons
went to this front. Many
Jewish families, or at least their young sons, now fearing the
approach of wider European conflict, soon moved abroad, and added
to the growing emigration from the Russian hinterland.
A 1923 Snapshot of the Shtetl— Report of The
Joint Distribution Committee
A unique picture of the village is provided by
a report called Report of
Ignatovka -- Kiev
Gobierna, by the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in 1923. Founded by concerned
American emigres, many of whom were Jews originally from eastern
Europe themselves, the JDC collected and funneled material aid to
the hard-pressed Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and the
Ottoman Empire beginning in 1914.
The JDC report for Ignatovka reflects the condition of the
village after WWI. It is appended below (See Documents), and
is summarized:
·
The Jewish population
before the war was roughly 1300 persons, living in approximately
120 houses.
·
Ignatovka had some light
industry before the war which were:
·
2 flour mills,
·
2 millet mills,
·
1 brewery and
·
1 tannery,
·
The numbers of workers in
these businesses is unknown.
All of these enterprises were destroyed by the time of the
JDC visit in 1923.
·
The 120 Jewish houses were
purchased by local peasants and torn down after the war. The land from these
properties was converted into orchards.
·
Most of the Jews left the
shtetl after 1917, once they were bestowed equal rights with the
rest of the population following the Russian revolution. Many moved to Kiev or
elsewhere, after which time the Jewish population of Ignatovka
dropped to 900.
·
Many of the residents were
engaged in small commerce, and more than a few were shoemakers.
Civil War
As Ignatovka faced the prospects for peace
after 1920, it was swept up in the events of a civil war, a
conflict pitting the new soviet government against the
recalcitrant monarchists known generally as the White Armies and
others who struggled to preserve their position. The notorious White
general Denikin led an army on a murderous campaign northward up
the Dneiper River late in 1919, stopping in villages to pacify the
local population and liquidate the Jewish communities. In Ignatovka they led a
pogrom which resulted in the deaths of 40 people in the month of
August. The remaining
Jews fled to Kiev, although in 1920, 3 families returned to the
village, but most left it for good later that year.
Ignatovka in the 1930’s & 40’s
By 1932-34, a devastating famine known as the holodomor gripped
Ukraine, which decimated many rural settlements. The few remaining Jews
had reportedly left Ignatovka for good by the 1930’s.
The town suffered further during WW2 as the
German war machine swept through this part of Ukraine. In the early years
of the conflict the invaders reached Kiev by the summer of 1941. Much of central Kiev
was leveled or reduced to ruins in the fighting. It is not clear if the
numerous empty residential lots still to be seen today in
Ignatovka were destroyed by the wartime fighting or simply had
been cleared when the Jews sold their houses to peasants in the
1920s.
One of the infamous “killing fields” of WWII,
the ravine of Babi Yar, is located within the modern city limits
of Kiev, now swallowed up by the growth in the northern quarter of
the town. It is estimated that as many as 100,000 victims---Jews,
Roma, political dissidents and others were murdered at Babi Yar
before the war was over.
Some anecdotal evidence points to the likelihood that
Ignatovkers perished at this site.
The shtetl cemetery on the southwest side of
the village, was virtually obliterated when the tomb stones and
other masonry features, were carted away in the Soviet years. Some of the stones are
reputed to be in a nearby village of Horenychi where they were
said to have been used in newer construction. (See the JewishGen
Locality Map). After
WW2 the sloping cemetery was converted into a garbage dump for the
town, reportedly by the Soviet authorities [4]. Later this former
site of the cemetery was filled and regraded with topsoils to
create level farm plots, which appear to be in cultivation at this
time.
Ignatovka Today
Little of the town from the times of the
Russian Empire remain in Ignatovka today. Few older houses have
survived especially in the Jewish quarter. The turmoil of the
Russian Revolution, WW1, the privations of the 1930 famines, and
WW2 resulted in destruction of much of the old village. The
locations of the synagogues or prayer houses are unknown. Most of the buildings in
the Jewish part of town are gone.
Little or nothing remains of the market square said to be
just North of the main highway.
A convenience store housed in a small brick building on the
south side of the highway is all that marks the location of the
old market square. The
village has no commercial center or district, per se.
Anatevka Refugee Center
Since the beginning of the war in the Donbas
region with Russian-separatist forces in 2014, Ukraine has been
affected by the armed conflict, and has seen the growth of refugee
population. The war
is over the efforts of Russia to claim the region of the Donets
River basin known as Donbas in Eastern Ukraine.
In 2015 one Rabbi Moshe Azman, a Chabad leader
affiliated with the iconic Brodsky Synagogue in Kiev, founded a
live-work, refugee center in Ignatovka situated on the main
highway, and extending southward to the Irpina River flood
terraces. It consists
of several 2 or 3-story buildings loosely arranged, and resembles
a small community college. It
includes a timber shul, a dormitory, several
residences. It is
surrounded by an iron fence with a security entry gate on the main
highway. The center
borrowed the old name Anatevka, and uses the image of a
bearded man playing a fiddle from a rooftop as its logo.
The refugee population at the center is not
clear, and the center was operating three small private schools
serving the surrounding communities. Its website boasts of a
lyceum for girls, a new kosher restaurant/café, and a shop which
has begun making protective garments for medical uses in the
Coronavirus pandemic [5]. The
Ohel, a religious shrine, is located apparently on or
adjacent the center’s grounds.
Access to the public is limited.
• • • • • •
Presently the town has become, among other
things a commuter “bedroom” community, as workers with jobs in
nearby Kiev can get into the city center with a short commute on
the main road. Several “mini-mansions”
and new homes have sprung up where old cottages once stood. Urban ills of the nearby
city have afflicted the village, as many homes are now protected
by tall corrugated metal fences and patrolled by watchdogs. Auto traffic on the main
road, is heavy and at peak times seemingly continuous. Many of what were
pleasant narrow lanes in the village have taken on a more hardened
urban appearance.
NOTES
[1] Belgorod,
Outpost of the Hall of Kiev, by Vladimir
Gripas 2 March 2007
(in Ukrainian)
See Wikipedia “Bilohorod Kyivskyi” for English discussion.
[2]
Personal correspondence with Ukrainian researcher.
[3]
Legislature with limited powers 1906-1917. www.encyclopediaofukraine.com
[4]
Personal correspondence with researcher.
[5]
Friends of Anatevka
https://www.anatevka.com
Copyright ©
2021 Les Shipnuck
and Scott Heskes