Learn the history, gentlemen! And read fiction
Now everyone is concerned about the difficult situation in Ukraine. All on their lips stamp-stamp "zapadentsy." I just want to define my position: I am for common sense, a real assessment of events and a normal life. My parents: mother - from Dnipropetrovsk region, father - from Bukovina. My Motherland and Alma Mater are the same as those of Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Shortly before the collapse of the Union, I married a Moskal and have been living in Russia for 27 for years. At home, in Chernivtsi, I visit every year and I know well and see how it lives there. My children were born in Russia, and Father Petro baptized them in Bukovina in the local Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. Who am I? Ukrainian? Russian? Zapadenka? My heart cannot be divided into parts, like the Soviet Union. I support everyone.
Many of us (and even the leaders of the Right Sector) were born in the USSR. And in Soviet textbooks on stories the accession of the western regions of Ukraine to the Soviet Union was written briefly, formally and impersonal: “To prevent the fascist occupation, September 17 1939. Soviet troops entered the territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, and 28 June 1940. The Red Army occupied the Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia. ”
The history of Western Ukraine, like any locality, is multifaceted, interesting and instructive. I offer several lessons of history on the example of Northern Bukovina, the current Chernivtsi region.
History lesson №1
In this lesson, many did not understand anything ...
We will not go far, but at the end of the nineteenth century the territory of the modern Chernivtsi region belonged to three states at once: Austria-Hungary (Chernivtsi, Vizhnitsky district, ...), Royal Romania (Gertsayevsky district, ...) and the Russian Empire (Khotyn district, ...). At the junction of the three borders was a small town Novoselytsya. Sholem Aleichem wrote that there is one rooster singing for three states. The population in those parts was extremely colorful and multinational: Ukrainians, Romanians, Jews, Moldovans, Russians ...
Chernivtsi at the beginning of the twentieth century was compared to a ship whose crew was Austrian, the passengers were Jews, and the attendants were Ukrainians. In the cities, the Jewish population comprised up to half of the inhabitants; in the villages, the majority were in the hands of Ukrainians, Ruthenians and Romanians. Interestingly, but on the Austrian ethnographic map of the year 1910, there are no Ukrainians in Bukovina. But there are Rusyns and Lipovans (Russian Old Believers).
In 1918-1919. as a result of the First World War and the collapse of two powerful empires, the Austro-Hungarian and Russian, almost the entire territory of the Chernivtsi region was invaded by Romania. Began mass romanization of the population.
28 June 1940 of the year - the establishment of Soviet power and the accession of Northern Bukovina to Ukraine.
5 July 1941, Hitler presents Northern Bukovina to his ally - Romania. The restoration of the Romanian occupation regime is accompanied by repression aimed at families that have collaborated with the Soviets. Began the Jewish pogroms. True, the Romanian occupation was a plus - the horrors of war did not so strongly affect these places. The consequence of the frequent change of power was that so far many families are divided and live on different sides of the border.
29 March 1944, the Soviet army liberates Chernivtsi region from the invaders and the Romanian occupation. Northern Bukovina is again becoming part of Ukraine.
December 26 The USSR Supreme Council 1991 adopted a declaration on the termination of the existence of the USSR. Ukraine has become an independent state.
What is the conclusion? Over the course of only 70 years, the Bukovina nationality has changed 6 times! It turns out that three generations of residents of the Chernivtsi region constantly lived in an era of change. And do not forget - at the time of the collapse of the Union, all indigenous people from Bukovina older than 47 were born “before the Soviet regime”!
The time for change does not pass without a trace - it necessarily affects the mentality of the nation. And here is the most important lesson that the people of Northern Bukovina received in the twentieth century: in any situation, you need to hope only for yourself!
By the way, in 70, stagnant and prosperous years, it was the residents of these places who were distinguished by an indestructible commercial stance and the ability to make their home family business, despite the policy of the CPSU. Western Ukraine has always been different from Eastern - the villages were richer, bigger houses, spontaneous markets appeared everywhere along the road, where you could buy home-grown agricultural products and crafts.
History lesson №2
This history lesson was “missed” by many ...
In 1887, the number of Bukovina residents reached over 627 thousand people, whereas at the time of joining Austria in 1774, the population was only 75 thousand people.
Ninefold population growth over 100 years does not pass without a trace. Since the region was always agricultural, from 60's. XIX century of work and land was sorely missed (this is what the famous story “Earth” by Bukovynian writer Olga Kobylyanskaya narrates about this).
The first mass emigration consisted mostly of villagers. They moved to other countries in search of work and free land. In 1877, the first Bukovinian immigrants landed in the United States; in 1890, in Argentina, Brazil and Canada, they traveled to Australia and New Zealand.
In total from 70-80-ies of the XIX century. until the end of the 30-ies of XX century. from Bukovina emigrated to various sources from 50 to 225 thousand people.
Saving themselves and their families from hunger and poverty, they left for work. Some, having earned extra money, returned to their native lands, others forever remained in a foreign land. Even in Soviet times, in 60-70-ies. The twentieth century, many residents of these places maintained relationships with relatives from across the ocean, some received an inheritance from relatives who died in Canada.
In 1986, at the Interclub of Chernivtsi University, we received a Canadian delegation of descendants of immigrants. They brought national clothes of the nineteenth-century sample, spoke a language more similar to Old Slavonic than Ukrainian, played banduras and sang unfamiliar sad songs about foreign land and a distant homeland.
The ability to independently survive in all conditions of the inhabitants of these places is in the blood. And when in the 90s of the twentieth century in the post-Soviet space everything collapsed, and unemployment again hung over the region, a new wave of labor emigration from Bukovina began.
It was the residents of Western Ukraine who were the first to open the “window to Europe” and began to leave for work en masse. Men - mostly on hard physical work, women more often became housekeepers and nurses (they are especially in demand in Italy - the good is that Moldovan and Italian are similar). Like 150 years ago - without knowing either the language or the traditions, often in an illegal situation - people survive as they can. According to the UN, in 2010, 8 million Ukrainians went abroad to earn money. And in the summer season their number increases to 10-12 million.
Everybody leaves: milkmaids, doctors, workers, teachers. Often, even the most unskilled work abroad is better paid than at home. Many leave families, burning bridges - in 2004, only in Portugal, the Ukrainians officially brought 15 to thousands of children. Most likely, they will not return from there.
According to the international public organization “Quarter Hvil”, which unites the “workers” who left Ukraine since the beginning of the 90-s, everyone who has left on average monthly sends 200-300 euros to the family’s current expenses. According to the Ukrainian Analytical Center, during the first half of 2012 of the year, 3,412 billion dollars were received through official banking channels from Ukrainian guest workers through official banking channels. And if you add "non-bank" transfers, then the approximate amount they bring to the country during the year is 19,5 billion dollars.
It so happened that men are in demand mainly at a young age - physical labor is exhausting. And female carers prefer older. In the Chernivtsi region there are entire villages in which half of the children live without one or two parents - villages of old people and children. This is a real humanitarian catastrophe - the actual orphanhood of children with living parents, who have been abroad for years and replace parenting with material well-being. The “lost” generation has already grown up, living in a vacuum of normal family communication and accustomed to seeing only remittances in parents. Family foundations are crumbling - returning home for many becomes more of an ordeal than leaving. The consequences of this Ukraine will still have to feel and rethink.
Unfortunately, the country's history lesson about labor emigration of the XIX-XX centuries was also absent. Leonid Kuchma lost the confidence of “zapadentsev” after his words that only prostitutes were leaving Ukraine for work - he dishonored all women from 20 to 65 years forced to support their families.
History lesson №3
Another history lesson that everyone forgot at once ...
The Soviet government, established in 1944, was engaged not only in propaganda, agitation and collectivization. She has done a lot for the life of Bukovina. Machine-building and chemical enterprises, a network of large instrument-making plants, and science were actively developed.
In 1816, the population of Chernivtsi was 5,5 thousand, in 1880 - 45,6 thousand, in 1925 - 95 thousand, in 1959 - 152 thousand, and in 1989 - already 256,6 thousand
Knowing about the labor emigration of Bukovina in the 19th and 20th centuries, and realizing that people need work for a normal life, in 60-ies the Soviet government in Chernivtsi specially organized high-tech modern production of semiconductor materials.
An entire cluster of research laboratories for the study of semiconductor materials and the growth of polarized crystals was created on the basis of the Chernivtsi University. For 30 years many dissertations were defended, many of them were classified as "Secret". Five faculties - physical, engineering-optical, general technical, mathematical, chemical - produced specialists for this industry.
In Chernivtsi, there was a branch of the Special Design and Technology Bureau of the Institute for Problems of Materials Science of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The Chernivtsi Machine-Building Plant has been operating since 1945, in the 1968 year, the USSR Ministry of Electronic Industry founded Kalibr JSC, and Rhythm Design Bureau, the brainchild of the USSR Ministry of Defense. The list goes on: the Quartz, Graviton plants, ... They provided jobs and fed tens of thousands of families. The population of nearby villages worked in production. High-precision products from Chernivtsi were in demand not only in the USSR, they were exported all over the world. Factories built houses for their workers, kindergartens, motels, clinics.
After the collapse of the Union of a free and independent Ukraine, all this became “suddenly” unnecessary, and unemployment, which many had forgotten in Soviet times, again came to Bukovina.
The destruction of the real sector of the economy, the curtailment of production, the rupture of established commercial and industrial relations, the destruction of a huge number of jobs, meager wages — all this led to the fact that Kalinovsky Bazaar, one of the largest wholesale and retail markets, became the largest operating “enterprise” of Chernivtsi Ukraine. How many Bukovinians did he help to survive in the new era of change? And how much he broke the professional life and dreams of a career? No one will answer these questions.
History lesson №4
Learn, learn and learn! - who said this is bad?
Under Austro-Hungary, German was the main language of instruction in schools. There were few schools, and only children of noble and rich parents could study there.
When the Romanians began to learn Romanian. The son of a wealthy peasant could be accepted to the gymnasium, but only if he was recorded by a Romanian. Thus, the government increased the number of the Romanian population - and some changed their names to the Romanian mood for the sake of educating children.
The Soviet government really took up the universal education. In fact, for the first time in the history of the Bukovina region, children began to learn children in Ukrainian in schools. Since the population here is multinational, then the schools opened different. For example, in Novoselitsa with a population of 9 thousand people were 3 high schools: with Ukrainian, Russian and Moldovan language of instruction. And everyone could learn in their own language.
Since the teachers who speak Ukrainian were sorely lacking, in 50-60. to Bukovina sent on the target distribution of graduates of pedagogical and pedagogical schools from all over Ukraine. This is exactly how my mother, a graduate of Krivoy Rog Pedagogical Institute, got into Chernivtsi region.
There were not enough teachers for Moldovan schools. Here too the Soviet government quickly solved the problem. On the basis of the Chernivtsi University in 50-s, special Moldovan branches are opened, which are external, for the year 3 they train teachers. Specialties have chosen related: historical-philological, physical and mathematical, chemical and biological. By the middle of 60, the personnel issue in Bukovina’s schools was resolved. And at the university there were three departments of philology: Ukrainian, Russian and Moldavian.
Chernivtsi University was opened in 1875 year. During the years of Soviet power, lectures at Chernivtsi University were given in both Ukrainian and Russian — it all depended on which language was native to the teacher. And students could take exams in their own language. And never, I repeat, NEVER on this basis there were problems, and not underestimated. The teachers, knowing that students take notes of lectures, simultaneously translating them into their own language, always accentuated the translation of terms. My friend and classmate, who came to study in Chernivtsi from the Crimea, understood Ukrainian, but did not speak - and finished her studies with a “red” diploma.
Since everyone at my home spoke both Russian and Ukrainian (and my dad also Moldovan: the training at the Romanian school affected), I personally did not even notice what language was spoken around me. Many also easily switched from Russian to Ukrainian and vice versa, and this was normal. And if the answer to a question asked in one language was answered with another, then it didn’t hurt anyone, it’s just convenient for the interlocutor. By the way, I graduated from school with the Ukrainian language of instruction, and I defended my diploma in Russian. And today, after many years, arriving home, I easily and with pleasure turn to my native Ukrainian language. And I speak it much cleaner than some presidents and prime ministers of Ukraine.
How much state (popular!) Money has been spent in modern Ukraine, not to improve people's lives, but to duplicate "Russian-speaking" old Soviet and new Russian films. On the subtitles, which cause a feeling of awkwardness and shame for the power that you too want to separate yourself from the country in which they were born? The skills that people don’t need die off, without decrees and prohibitions - but the state looks decent and democratic in such situations. And the necessary knowledge survive, no matter what.
By the way, in all countries where post-Soviet tourists appear, the locals are happy to learn Russian - without orders and coercions, of their own accord. Good tips are the best incentive in applied philology.
The purity of the native language is a noble cause, exciting every nation. In one form or another, this issue is raised in different countries. For more than 50 years, economists and mathematicians of Ukraine spoke “percent”, and in 90's, remembered the native analogue "vidsotok". This can be understood and explained by the desire for self-identity. But when too much Russian “helicopter” and “map” change to the original Ukrainian “gelicopter” and “map”, for some reason it is immediately recalled that the “percentage” sounds the same in Russian.
All this resembles a banal marital divorce: with the smashing of dishes, throwing out photographs, maiden name, spite of time, and neighbors beggars, buying cheaply became “suddenly” unnecessary jointly acquired property. But children remain, and we cannot escape from common affairs, memories and traditions.
History lesson №5.
Learning is never too late, especially when learning the right.
It so happened that in the post-Soviet space, everyone diligently tries to forget and not see the good in the union past, and they are trying to replace it with what they saw behind the “knoll”. So here and there, after Europe, we are striving to legalize same-sex marriage after Europe. There are many other "nice" civilized examples.
And I think, why not take an example from other European traditions? All Western Europe lives in tourism - and not bad lives! Western Ukraine boasts no less interesting cities with magnificent architecture, powerful fortresses, historical monuments, ski and summer resorts, sanatoriums with healing waters ... All this was known and in demand since the times of the USSR. Lviv, Khotyn fortress, Truskavets are brands that do not require large advertising in the post-Soviet space.
But it is naive to hope that streams of tourists from the European Union will flood Ukraine — they have such good in bulk. Moreover, it is much easier to raise prices to the world level than to arrange the same service and conditions. But the inhabitants of Russia would gladly go to where Schengen and knowledge of foreign languages are not yet needed. It is time for our new independent economists with MBA to understand long ago: nothing strengthens the overall friendship and independent economy like good pay. But, as they say in the East: if you want to open a shop - learn to smile.
And finally, the lesson of literature - in one of the works of the Strugatskys the irreconcilable, bloody war of the two countries is mentioned. And then it turns out that they were a single state for a long time. In genius fiction, almost all works are prophetic. It is in our power to ensure that this story does not become a reality.
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