Mazepa, Hanna

Description

Creators

Hanna Mazepa (b. circa 1923), Author

Volodymyr Maniak

, Recipient

Media Type

Text

Item Types

Correspondence

Envelopes

Transcriptions

Translations

Description

Letter sent from: Kyiv
Describes events in (1932-1933): Dziubanivka (Dziubany), Bryhadyrivka raion, Kharkiv oblast, and unknown locale in the Donbas
Current location name: Dziubanivka (Dziubany), Kozelshchyna raion, Poltava oblast, and unknown locale in the Donbas

Author is a retiree who recalls the events in the village of Dziubany (aka Dziubanivka), now Poltava oblast.

She did not live in the village at the time of the famine, as her father had moved the family to the Donbas, where those who worked received 400 grams of bread a day as well as rations of 200 grams of bread per dependent.

Back in Dziubanivka, many people died, including her uncle Dmytro (whose wife Kylyna worked for 300 grams of bread to feed four children). Dmytro may have died by overeating after being hungry for a long time as his wife was saving the bread for the children, and he could not eat weeds/greens as others did. Once Dmytro had died, Kylyna attempted to kill her children by filling the house with smoke, and children died, two lived. Locals buried those who died in the village by themselves. A neighbor's husband and seven children were carted off to the cemetery to be buried, and she did not know where they had been buried because she herself was too swollen to go.

She recalls a song made up about Aval, an accountant at the kolhosp, and how hard they worked but how little it counted for with him in terms of payment: "no cow or pig, only Stalin on the wall."

Cousin Ivan sent a letter from the village asking for help to his father, who was dying of hunger. Her parents quickly sent off some toasted bread, but the uncle died by the time the parcel arrived.

Relates some minor details about her husband's village of Stavy, Kaharlyk raion, Kyiv oblast, during the famine.

Notes