A closer look through victims' eyes
Excerpts from media and text
Copii în CătuÈ™ele Siberiei
Spiridon Vangheli
The Book
Copii în Catusele Siberiei (which translates to Children in Siberia’s Shackles) by Spiridon Vangheli represents an important novella both as a commemoration of the victims of Soviet deportations, but also as a notable book in Moldovan literature.
The story follows Olguta, a young girl deported in 1941 together with her family to Siberia, the area around the Chuzik river close to Tomsk. We follow her sad journey from the night she is taken by the Soviet authorities and forcefully deported by train to the day she returns back home to her village Sofia just to be arrested for having escaped exile. The main character experiences many hardships, including her long passage to Siberia, the loss of her close friend and half brother IacobaÈ™, the arrest and later death of her mother, her dangerous searches for food in the neighboring forests, as well as her voyage back home together with her friend LiduÈ›a. The book ends with OlguÈ›a requesting she pray before being arrested and taken to BălÈ›i (a city in Bessarabia), where she finds out her father had passed away in Siberia while saving another person’s life. After serving her sentence, she is depicted on a bridge in BălÈ›i, giving charity from the little things she has in her father’s memory, a beautiful rainbow over the bridge bringing her a ray of joy.
Important elements and details:
An element that stands out to the more informed reader is the journey to Siberia by boat. Though most memoirs only mention a passage by train, Olguța and some other deportees also crossed a portion of the way by boat, referencing the many different places deportees were taken to:
“In the evening, they [the Soviet military personnel] put the women and children on a ship that sailed the Ob River for another month and a half. That is how they reached Siberia–the land of the cold and death labor camps. There, they divided the Moldovans [Bessarabians] up in the camps founded by previously deported Russians (Vangheli 10).”
Another element persistent in the novella is the role religion played in the everyday life of said deportees. OlguÈ›a, her mother, and fellow villagers are often depicted using prayer as a way to cope with the adversity they were facing. Some examples include her mother having a vision of three saints before her passing, OlguÈ›a constantly praying when navigating the forest she lived next to alone at night, or OlguÈ›a’s father praying for her and her mother’s safety before being separated from them on the train to Siberia. As such, faith was a source of strength for the deportees and other Bessarabians who managed to escape Soviet repression.
Besides religion, holding on to customs was another way for the deportees to retain their identity while navigating their new living circumstances. IacobaÈ™, a friend of Olguta that was deported together with her, lost his mother on the train to Siberia. Once in Siberia, he found refuge at a Russian woman’s house, also previously deported from Moscow. During his first winter in Siberia, he was visited by familiar faces:
"From outside, Iacobas could hear a song: 'Get up, get up, great boyars! Snow white flowers! Because the carolers are coming! Snow white flowers!' In the time you’d wipe your eyes, Iacobas was looking out of the window. Next to the house, he saw two balls of fluff–two girls covered in frost and frozen to the spot. Proof that they were still alive were the small exhale threads coming from their mouths and, of course, the carol rising towards the window. Iacobas knew these two girls. The taller girl was Liduta, nicknamed Uta by everyone, and the one wrapped up in her mother’s shawl was none other than Olguta Bujor, his half sister (p. 14)."
IacobaÈ™ ended up getting lost in the woods not late after and being pronounced dead by the villagers after an unsuccessful search. Even in the cold and unknown environment they were brought into, Bessarabians continued singing traditional songs, speaking in Romanian and connecting in ways that reminded them of home.
To Note:
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Above all, the author, writing for a contemporary audience, seeks to emphasize the importance in appreciating what we have. LiduÈ›a and OlguÈ›a received a potato each for their carols, these potatoes becoming treasures to the two girls. OlguÈ›a’s neighbors spent three days digging into the frozen Siberian soil to bury OlguÈ›a's mother, without accepting monetary compensation for their efforts. By reflecting on the experiences of our ancestors, we can appreciate the abundance we live in today thanks to their sacrifice and the kindness of people around us.
Even though this children’s novella falls under the fiction genre, it is based on real events. The author chooses to emphasize the often overlooked voices in history–those of children. By showcasing the atrocious characteristics of the war-time deportations through the eyes of OlguÈ›a, a regular child, Vangheli creates a story meant to resonate both with a younger audience and adults, thus successfully informing a greater audience of this important event in Moldovan [Bessarabian] history. This novella is also a required reading in the middle school curriculum, introducing the topic in a digestible, though rather sad, way to a younger audience.
Vangheli's novel also draws attention to the age element in the spoken and written history of the events. While this moment in Moldovan/ Romanian history has definitely had a huge impact on our population as a whole and we should remember the legacy of the victims of deportation, we ought to pay close attention to the way this history is written. Most primary sources come from the descendants of the victims of deportations, leading to a potential bias in the description of events. In most cases, those who lived to tell their story were young children or teenagers at the time of deportation, making them very susceptible to emotional trauma and interpretation. Though this does not imply they are hyperbolizing the emotional heaviness they felt during these terrible events, no deportation experience was the same. We should not downgrade the memories of the victims of deportations, but instead honor their legacy and keep their stories alive. This is exactly why preserving archives and funding museums is of utmost importance.
Calvarul: Familia Ciobanu sub teroarea regimului - Dumitru Ciobanu
Background to the main events:
A valuable account of the June 1941 deportation is that of Dumitru Ciobanu in his short novel Familia Ciobanu (The Ciobanu Family), as it expands on the events that might have led to the day of deportation. At the beginning of the chapter, Ciobanu mentions he had just returned to his village of Ciuciuleni (pronounced Chiuchiuleni) after completing his studies at the Chisinau school of divinity in June 1940 (placing himself at 19 years in the fall). All survivors of the deportations alive today are advanced in age and were very young during the deportation, making an account of a young adult very valuable to document those times.
Speaking of the many sudden changes leading up to June of 1941, Dumitru Ciobanu touches on the way the internal affairs in his village changed once Bessarabia was occupied by the Soviet Union.
In his account of early June 1941, the author mentions the changes brought in by an unwelcome newcomer:
“After about three weeks, a man of about 25 came to our village and introduced himself at the town hall as the president of the village soviet. He spoke an ugly language, pervaded with Russian terms. Though he called himself a member of the Komsomol, from his actions you could tell he was a KGB agent. That is how the soviet power appeared in the village of Ciuciuleni.
The horrors began. With time, all the lazy men, drunks and thieves joined the Komsomol member. He started accumulating 'arguments against those he thought could organize a rebellion. These so-called 'enemies of the state' were to be eliminated.
One night, ten men, of different ages and socio-economic backgrounds, disappeared from the village. The news quickly spread. The family, relatives, friends, and villagers suffered a terrible shock. The KGB agent’s supporters were practically celebrating (Ciobanu 20).”
Ciobanu goes on to expand on the effects the new village leadership had on the village’s population:
“The second step, brought about by the instructions from Moscow, was sending the young men aged 18-25 to work in the Donbas mines in Ukraine. The third, so-called drudgery, made households that owned horse carriages work on the construction of a strategic main road previously started by the Romanian state, without monetary compensation. Since technology did not exist at the time, everything was done by hand. Workers would spend 2-3 weeks on site, sleeping under the starry sky and bringing food from home. They would then change with other such wealthier villagers. And so it went on.
Another crime committed by the self-proclaimed president of the village soviet was the mandatory taxes imposed by him. Taxes came in the form of money, but also meat, eggs, oil, wool, animal skins, etc. If you paid these taxes, you were required to pay them a second and a third time. Villagers that refused paying these taxes were threatened, being told that 'I will send you to the white bears from the North Pole!' (p. 20)”
June 13th, 1941
In the next chapter, Dumitru Ciobanu goes on to describe the way he and his family were deported, mirroring the description of other memoirs and accounts of the June 1941 events:
“June 13th, 1941. In the early morning hours, a loud noise could be heard throughout the village: gate hits, dogs barking. Father, unsettled and still wearing a shirt and underpants, ran outside. Shouts could be heard. He opened the gate, then came back inside, starting to expect something bad was about to happen. He woke us up, got dressed, and went out again.
Two villagers and four armed soldiers broke into our yard. The civilians entered, while the soldiers were guarding outside. One of them exclaimed: 'In the name of the state law, I order you to declare all weapons under your possession!' Father answered: 'I do not own any weapons.'
A thorough search of the whole house followed. Everything was turned upside down. They did not find anything. (p. 21)”
Then follows the drive to the train station and the journey in cattle wagons, with very little food and water. The men are, as mentioned in previous accounts, sent to labor camps, while women and children are taken to secluded areas in Siberia.
Important elements and details:
More unique to Dumitru Ciobanu’s account is the detailed description of the psychological and physical effects of starvation on the human mind and body in the following chapter. The author remembers the time he suffered from typhus while in exile:
“Torture through starvation, particularly through its consequences, is impossible to describe. The person reaches hallucinations. They dream of delicious food, smiling in their sleep like a newborn. When they wake up, the prisoner swallows nothingness and stays with the torture, the stomach churning and stomach aches. I say these things from my personal experience because I got to experience these things: I was sick with typhus and suffered from hallucinations because of the very high temperatures. I thought I could see my mother bringing me food and telling me to eat. I was trying to get up, but the recovering man next to me would reassure me and remind me that there was no one else next to me (p. 24).”
As such, Ciobanu’s story touches on the events preceding the June deportations, but also the direct consequences of the forced deportation on the deportees. Though the bias of the author is understandable and justified, we should take into account that this is one of the many accounts of the events from the author’s own perspective. For instance, Ciobanu believes the people that invaded Ciuciuleni were ethnically Russian, mentioning that: “The next couple of weeks, 2-3 Russian officers creeped around the village. Because our houses were in the center of the village, they charged into our homes. Usually, they would also spend the night in our house. Though we offered them food, the Russians refused. They were probably scared to be poisoned,” when referring to the weeks following the occupation of Bessarabia in 1940 (p. 20). Though the Soviet people who committed the invasion could have been of non-Russian ethnicities, the author puts the whole blame on the Russians as the main perpetrator of the negative actions mentioned above. In all, it is important to acknowledge and respect the opinion and experience of the author, while still recognizing the chaos happening throughout the whole world at the time of the deportations and the many actors involved in the repressions happening in the 1940s.
Expeditiile Memoriei
Co-produced by OWH Studio Chișinău and TVR Iași for TVR Internațional
Films by Violeta Gorgos
Project initiative: Octavian Èšâcu
About:
Expeditiile Memoriei (in translation: Expeditions of Memory) is a multi-year project conducted by representatives from Moldova and Romania meant to educate the local Romanian communities on the subject of the deportations through documenting several expeditions conducted by said delegation to places in Siberia where Bessarabians were deported during the 1940s and beyond. The expeditions took place in Kazakhstan (2013-14), Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk (2016-17), Tomsk and Novosibirsk (2018), and Tyumen (2019). Participants in the expeditions were historians, filmmakers, journalists, and students.
Photo from the 2018 Expedition
Photo source: cotidianul.md
Episodes: A description
The TV episodes of the Expeditions of Memory present multiple common elements between most, if not all, of the cities visited during the expeditions. One such element is the legacy of Bessarabians in Siberia through their contribution to the founding or expansion of Siberian villages. Deportees that chose to remain in Siberia even after they were freed from exile helped build houses and infrastructure in the villages they were deported to or the villages they traveled to on their own after being abandoned in the Siberian vastness. Some Siberian natives even relocated to Bessarabian-built houses after some of the deportees returned home to Bessarabia. Many Bessarabians chose to stay in Siberia and start new families there, leaving communities of descendants of deportees still living there today. One thing is certain though–that deportees always strived to stay hopeful and make the most out of their devastating situation.
Local people in Siberia tended to be friendly with the deportees and try to support them. For example, from one of the episodes on the expedition to Tyumen, particularly in the Kordon and Pervomaisk regions, we learn of how Bessarabians would exchange beautiful hand-woven rugs for food from the locals. Another example would be the generous attitude of people from Kazakhstan towards the deportees now inhabiting their villages, where Kazakh people learned to co-inhabit their lands together with deportees. Local children are cited to have given deportees food in secret for adults to avoid very harsh punishments from the local Soviet authorities. Some deportees would temporarily give their children to local families for them to be raised and well fed.
Communities in Kazakhstan that traditionally honor their ancestors and cultural heritage have played a significant role in preserving the memory of deportations. Students at the University of Karaganda, the city where a labor camp for deportees used to be located, contributed to the creation of an extensive database of the people who served their sentence in Karaganda, including a separate book for Moldovans and Romanians. Expeditions of Memory-Episode I (on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOsvEHx_Vlw) even introduces the viewer to the strong Community of Moldovans and Romanians in Almaty, a city in Kazakhstan. The community leaders organize events for the community to connect and maintain the culture of their country of origin, speaking to the importance of preserving cultural heritage even in new lands.
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Another common element would be the eternal presence of Bessarabians in Siberia. In even the most remote areas of Siberia that the expeditioners visited there were cemeteries containing gravestones bearing Moldovan names. One finds such visits to the Siberian cemeteries rather impactful, considering how the expeditioners chose to honor the memory of deportees by lighting candles in front of the graves. Beautiful was also the support the expeditioners received from local communities in finding said cemeteries and other documents or people that remember of and attest to the memory of deportees. It is through the help of such people that the project could be completed and documented.
Some of the cities visited by the expeditioners had museums dedicated to honoring the legacy of the victims of Soviet repressions. One such city is Tomsk, located in the Tomsk Oblast. During their visit to Tomsk, the expeditioners learned more about the victims of repression and the 500,000 deportees to Tomsk alone from the former Soviet republics. Other cities, though, did not even bear the memory of deportations.
Following the memory line..
Most significant in the Expeditions of Memory were the interviews with Siberian locals that were either descendents of deportees, friends of descendents, or even some individuals who were previously deported to Siberia from Bessarabia. Nina Guțu-Cușnarenco, now very advanced in age, was deported to Siberia in 1949. She now lives in Borovoi in the Tyumen region. Using a mixture of Romanian and Russian while speaking, she told the expeditioners memories of her early life at home:
“You would open the door [to her house] and the fireplace was straight like that. And on the stove… on the stove there were small cakes with sour cherries like the ones in Moldova. Mother made a lot of them, and she would put them there and cover them until I would eat them.”
She then expanded on the details of the deportation itself. In Expeditions of Memory-Episode II, AniÈ›a Matroi, originally from Crasna in the CernăuÈ›i region of Ukraine (formerly part of Bukovina until Soviet occupation), but currently living in Kazakhstan’s Karaganda, went out of her way to welcome the expeditioners into her home. Speaking in Romanian, the woman expanded on her life in Kazakhstan and her mother now returned in Bessarabia. There are many such examples in the Expeditions of Memory documentaries.
Such oral and visual memoirs are invaluable resources both for historians and regular citizens alike, as they help pay tribute to and preserve the memory of the victims of repression. These, together with archives recollecting affairs from the 1940s onward ensure future generations can learn from the past and prevent other atrocities from taking place in the future.
Sources
1. Top Image: Munteanu, Natalia. “„Singura bucurie a fost atunci când a murit Stalin”. Confesiuni din Siberia de gheață.” moldNova(blog), December 13, 2017. https://moldnova.eu/ro/singura-bucurie-fost-atunci-cand-murit-stalin-confesiuni-din-siberia-de-gheata-25721.html/.
2. Vangheli, Spiridon. Copii în cătuÅŸele Siberiei : Nuvelă documentară / Spiridon Vangheli ; il. : Eugen Å¢âbârnac. – Ch. : OltiÅ£a, 2001. – 40 p. : il. – ISBN 9975-9569-1-2.
3. Librarius. “Copii in catusele Siberiei,” 2011. https://librarius.md/ro/book014094-copii-in-catusele-siberiei.
4. Ciobanu, Dumitru. Calvarul : (Memorii) : Familia Ciobanu sub teroarea regimului / Dumitru Ciobanu. – Ch. : S. n., 2009. – 100 p. – ISBN 978- 9975-4074-2-7.
5. Cotidianul. “Octavian Èšîcu//ExpediÈ›iile Memoriei (I): Basarabenii din regiunea Tomsk,” September 26, 2018. https://cotidianul.md/2018/09/26/octavian-ticu-expeditiile-memoriei-i-basarabenii-din-regiunea-tomsk/.
*All the translations from the Romanian are mine, unless otherwise specified.