Kovryha, Dmytro

Description

Creators

Dmytro Kovryha (b. 1912), Author

Volodymyr Maniak

, Recipient

Media Type

Text

Item Types

Correspondence

Envelopes

Transcriptions

Description

Letter sent from: Hradyzk raion, Poltava oblast
Letter describes events in 1932-1933 in: Village of Husyne (no longer exists), Hradyzk raion, Kharkiv
Current location name: Hradyzk raion, Poltava oblast

Dmytro Kovryha describes events in the village of Husyne, which is now under water in the Kremenchuk reservoir. It had around 300 households and close to 800 people by 1933.

He compares the 1921 famine to the 1933 famine. The former was caused by drought, the latter by excessive requisitioning. The kolhosp members were not given any payment in kind. Kovryha himself worked there as a bookkeeper, tracking the workers’ days. At least 20-25 per cent of the village died. His father and his wife’s father died of starvation.

Kovryha blames “overzealous” activists, such as the sadistic head of the village council. He dekurkulized those who did not want to join the kolhosp or had a couple of working oxen. People ate mock foods and rats. There was no one to bury the bodies.

Ukrainian transcription available.

Notes