Gammalsvenskby
Encyclopedia
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
: Зміївка, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: Змеевка) in Beryslav Raion of Kherson Oblast
Kherson Oblast
Kherson Oblast is an oblast in southern Ukraine, just north of Crimea. Its administrative center is Kherson. The area of the region is 29000 km², its population is 1.12 million.Important cities in the oblast include:...
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
which has a Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
cultural heritage. Zmiyivka also includes three former villages settled by ethnic Germans. These were the two Lutheran villages of Schlangendorf and Mühlhausendorf and the Roman Catholic village of Klosterdorf. In the nineteenth century, the whole region, and large parts of southern Russia contained villages settled by Germans belonging to various Protestant faiths, particularly Lutherans and Mennonites, as well as Roman Catholics. In close proximity there is Askania-Nova
Askania-Nova
Askania-Nova is a biosphere reserve located in Kherson Oblast, Ukraine, within the dry Taurida steppe near Oleshky Sands. The reserve consists of a zoological park, a botanical garden, and an open territory of virgin steppes....
.
The founding of Gammalsvenskby
The population of Gammalsvenskby traces its origins back to HiiumaaHiiumaa
Hiiumaa is the second largest island belonging to Estonia. It is located in the Baltic Sea, north of the island of Saaremaa, a part of the West Estonian archipelago. Its largest town is Kärdla.-Name:...
(Dagö) in present-day Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
, once a part of the Realm of Sweden
Realm of Sweden
The Realm of Sweden or Svenska väldet is a term that historically was used to comprise all the territories under the control of the Swedish monarchs.-Lands of Sweden:...
. Under the reign of Catherine II of Russia
Catherine II of Russia
Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great , Empress of Russia, was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia on as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg...
, the Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
-speaking population left the island in August 1781. With the promise of being granted fertile land, they were relocated to the south of Ukraine, used as colonists in territory conquered from the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. Some sources label the migration as outright expulsion, others point to the fact that the poor and oppressed serf
SERF
A spin exchange relaxation-free magnetometer is a type of magnetometer developed at Princeton University in the early 2000s. SERF magnetometers measure magnetic fields by using lasers to detect the interaction between alkali metal atoms in a vapor and the magnetic field.The name for the technique...
farmers were given what must have seemed like a generous offer at the time. The outcome, however, was to be disastrous. Many of the around 1,000 villagers died during the march to their new home. Upon arrival, they found no trace of the houses they had been promised would be ready for them. The first year in Ukraine an even larger share of the group lost their lives. According to church records, only 135 people were still alive in March 1783.
Maintaining the Swedish heritage
Three neighbouring villages were founded in the years 1803 to 1805 by GermanGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
colonists: Schlangendorf, Mühlhausendorf and Klosterdorf. The colonists were given as a gift from the Prince Potiomkin the wooden church which sometime in the mid 19th century was burnt down. As a consequence of this, the Swedes were outnumbered, and in the following years many of the priests and teachers serving the area were German. This, along with a growing shortage of arable land
Arable land
In geography and agriculture, arable land is land that can be used for growing crops. It includes all land under temporary crops , temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow...
caused the relations between Gammalsvenskby and the German villages to be rather strained at times.
Although contacts with Sweden were virtually nonexistent for around a century, the people of Gammalsvenskby maintained their traditions and their Lutheran
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
(Church of Sweden
Church of Sweden
The Church of Sweden is the largest Christian church in Sweden. The church professes the Lutheran faith and is a member of the Porvoo Communion. With 6,589,769 baptized members, it is the largest Lutheran church in the world, although combined, there are more Lutherans in the member churches of...
) faith. They also kept their old Swedish dialect. At the end of the 19th century, some ties were reestablished. A considerable amount of money was raised in Sweden and Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
to build a Swedish church, St John's parish, which was inaugurated in 1885. Visits from Sweden became rather frequent, and some villagers even subscribed to Swedish newspapers.
The Russian revolution
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
once again cut off the communication channels. After the Russian revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
, the villagers pleaded for the right to leave the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and settle in Sweden, where their case had been adopted by a movement with a nationalist flavour, supported by archbishop Nathan Söderblom
Nathan Söderblom
Lars Olof Jonathan Söderblom was a Swedish clergyman, Archbishop of Uppsala in the Church of Sweden, and recipient of the 1930 Nobel Peace Prize...
. On August 1, 1929, around 900 villagers arrived in Sweden. Just a handful had opted to remain in Gammalsvenskby. Nearly a hundred soon moved on to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, a country to which earlier emigrants from Gammalsvenskby had gone. Most of them settled in Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
. Some later returned to Sweden.
The majority of the villagers stayed in Sweden, many of them settling in Gotland
Gotland
Gotland is a county, province, municipality and diocese of Sweden; it is Sweden's largest island and the largest island in the Baltic Sea. At 3,140 square kilometers in area, the region makes up less than one percent of Sweden's total land area...
. Despite their common origins, they were not allowed to stay in a single, common settlement. Considered immigrants in a country in the middle of a severe economic crisis, they were sometimes met with hostility. Soon, some of the villagers started to talk about going back to the Soviet Union. Actively persuaded by the Communist Party of Sweden
Left Party (Sweden)
The Left Party is a socialist and feminist political party in Sweden, from 1967 to 1990 known as the Left Party – The Communists .On welfare issues, the party opposes privatizations...
, the first families left before the end of 1929.
Soviet period
In total, around 250 villagers chose to return to the Soviet Union. Together with members of the Communist Party of Sweden, they established a minor collective farm called Svedkompartiya – the Swedish Communist Party.In 1929 the church was closed by the Soviet government. But life in the Soviet Union turned out to be hard. The famine of 1932–1933
Holodomor
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of...
renewed interest in the idea of returning to Sweden – some villagers signed a list stating that they wanted to leave the country. This led to the arrest of 20 people by the secret police, the GPU
State Political Directorate
The State Political Directorate was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1934...
. Five of them were sent to prison. Several villagers were killed in the Stalinist purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
of the following years.
When the German army
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
marched into the village on August 25, 1941, the soldiers were welcomed as liberators. With the retreat of the German army in 1943, the Swedes were evacuated together with the Germans of the area. Many ended up in Krotoschyn
Krotoszyn
Krotoszyn is a town in central Poland with 30,010 inhabitants . It has been part of the Greater Poland Voivodeship since 1999; it was within Kalisz Voivodeship from 1975 to 1998....
in Warthegau in the occupied Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, and nearly 150 were caught by Soviet authorities at the end of the war and sent to labor camps – Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
s, but were allowed to return to Ukraine as early as 1947. Others managed to go to Sweden or directly back to Gammalsvenskby. After the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Schlagendorf became Zmiivka (Snake-village), Mühlhausendorf became Mykhailivka (Micheal's village), and Klosterdorf became Kostyrka. Gammalsvenskby was renamed into Verbivka (Willow-village). In 1951 the church (locally - kircha) became a club at first and later it was rearranged into a storage facility for agrarian needs. In 1951 after the exchange of the territories between Poland and the Soviet Union around 2,500 people were relocated here from the Drohobych Oblast
Drohobych Oblast
Drohobych Oblast , was an oblast in the Ukrainian SSR. It had a territory of 9.6 thousands of km³, and population of 853 thousand .-History:...
villages: Lodyna, Dolyshni Berehy, and Naniv. Due to increase in population the villages were united into one big village of Zmiivka. The village became the biggest Boykos diaspora in Kherson Oblast
Kherson Oblast
Kherson Oblast is an oblast in southern Ukraine, just north of Crimea. Its administrative center is Kherson. The area of the region is 29000 km², its population is 1.12 million.Important cities in the oblast include:...
(about 80% of the village). The newly relocated population also was prohibited by the authorities to exercise their traditional holidays such as Vertep
Vertep
Vertep was a kind of portable puppet theatre and the corresponding type of drama in the culture of East Slavs which presented the nativity scene, other mystery plays, and later secular plots as well...
during Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
. They were also perceived by the locals as Nazi-collaborators.
Gammalsvenskby today
Church of Sweden
The Church of Sweden is the largest Christian church in Sweden. The church professes the Lutheran faith and is a member of the Porvoo Communion. With 6,589,769 baptized members, it is the largest Lutheran church in the world, although combined, there are more Lutherans in the member churches of...
and Gotland Municipality
Gotland Municipality
Gotland Municipality is a municipality that covers the entire island of Gotland in Sweden. The city of Visby is the municipality's seat.-History:...
. In 1996, Chumak
Chumak (company)
Chumak is a Swedish-Ukrainian food processing company located in Kakhovka, Kherson Oblast. It is today one of Ukraine's biggest food processing companies and has commercial offices in Kiev, Minsk and Moscow. Among its products are ketchup, mayonnaise, pasta, salad dressings, cooking sauces, canned...
, a Swedish-owned company that produces oil, ketchup and canned food, was established in the nearby town of Kakhovka
Kakhovka
Kakhovka is a port city on the Dnieper River in the Kherson Oblast of southern Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Kakhovsky Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast, and is located at around .It is home to the KZEZO as well as the Tavria...
. Today, the village has only around 108 people who share a Swedish cultural heritage. Only a few of them still speak the Old-Swedish dialect fluently and German is often used instead. The Zmiivka's emblem consists of three crowns (Tre-Kronor
Three Crowns
Three Crowns is a national emblem of Sweden, present in the Coat of Arms of the Realm of Sweden, and composed by three yellow or gilded coronets ordered two above and one below, placed on a blue background....
), the Swedish national symbol, as well as the blue cross on the yellow field. The whole raion of Beryslav is heavily Ukrainized due to the fact that a lot of people from the western Ukraine were resettled here. There are such villages as Lvivski Otruby, Lvove, Tarasa Shevchenka, and others that remind of the resettlement of the west-Ukrainian residents. As recently as 2008, the Swedish King and Queen visited Gammalsvenskby.
Example of local vocabulary
| Old-Swedish | Swedish | English |
| Pärter | Ankor | Ducks |
| Kardefflar | Potatis | Potatoes |
| Baglescani | Tomater | Tomatoes |
External links and further reading
- Stackholmnews:Swedish village in Ukraine (October 2009)
- The Svenskbyborna society in Sweden (in Swedish)
- A comprehensive history of Gammalsvenskby (in English)
- A page about Gammalsvenskby (in Swedish)
- Recent short article on Gammalsvenskby: A Swedish village in Ukraine, in Hidden Europe magazine, May 2006 (Issue 8), pp. 40–43. ISSN 1860-6318. hidden europe (in English)
- Photos from Gammalsvenskby
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
: Gammalsvenskby, local Swedish dialect: Gammölsvänskbi; literally: "Old Swedish Village"; Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
Старошведське, Staroshveds'ke; German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
Alt-Schwedendorf) is now part of the village of Zmiyivka (Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
: Зміївка, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: Змеевка) in Beryslav Raion of Kherson Oblast
Kherson Oblast
Kherson Oblast is an oblast in southern Ukraine, just north of Crimea. Its administrative center is Kherson. The area of the region is 29000 km², its population is 1.12 million.Important cities in the oblast include:...
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
which has a Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
cultural heritage. Zmiyivka also includes three former villages settled by ethnic Germans. These were the two Lutheran villages of Schlangendorf and Mühlhausendorf and the Roman Catholic village of Klosterdorf. In the nineteenth century, the whole region, and large parts of southern Russia contained villages settled by Germans belonging to various Protestant faiths, particularly Lutherans and Mennonites, as well as Roman Catholics. In close proximity there is Askania-Nova
Askania-Nova
Askania-Nova is a biosphere reserve located in Kherson Oblast, Ukraine, within the dry Taurida steppe near Oleshky Sands. The reserve consists of a zoological park, a botanical garden, and an open territory of virgin steppes....
.
The founding of Gammalsvenskby
The population of Gammalsvenskby traces its origins back to HiiumaaHiiumaa
Hiiumaa is the second largest island belonging to Estonia. It is located in the Baltic Sea, north of the island of Saaremaa, a part of the West Estonian archipelago. Its largest town is Kärdla.-Name:...
(Dagö) in present-day Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
, once a part of the Realm of Sweden
Realm of Sweden
The Realm of Sweden or Svenska väldet is a term that historically was used to comprise all the territories under the control of the Swedish monarchs.-Lands of Sweden:...
. Under the reign of Catherine II of Russia
Catherine II of Russia
Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great , Empress of Russia, was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia on as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg...
, the Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
-speaking population left the island in August 1781. With the promise of being granted fertile land, they were relocated to the south of Ukraine, used as colonists in territory conquered from the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. Some sources label the migration as outright expulsion, others point to the fact that the poor and oppressed serf
SERF
A spin exchange relaxation-free magnetometer is a type of magnetometer developed at Princeton University in the early 2000s. SERF magnetometers measure magnetic fields by using lasers to detect the interaction between alkali metal atoms in a vapor and the magnetic field.The name for the technique...
farmers were given what must have seemed like a generous offer at the time. The outcome, however, was to be disastrous. Many of the around 1,000 villagers died during the march to their new home. Upon arrival, they found no trace of the houses they had been promised would be ready for them. The first year in Ukraine an even larger share of the group lost their lives. According to church records, only 135 people were still alive in March 1783.
Maintaining the Swedish heritage
Three neighbouring villages were founded in the years 1803 to 1805 by GermanGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
colonists: Schlangendorf, Mühlhausendorf and Klosterdorf. The colonists were given as a gift from the Prince Potiomkin the wooden church which sometime in the mid 19th century was burnt down. As a consequence of this, the Swedes were outnumbered, and in the following years many of the priests and teachers serving the area were German. This, along with a growing shortage of arable land
Arable land
In geography and agriculture, arable land is land that can be used for growing crops. It includes all land under temporary crops , temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow...
caused the relations between Gammalsvenskby and the German villages to be rather strained at times.
Although contacts with Sweden were virtually nonexistent for around a century, the people of Gammalsvenskby maintained their traditions and their Lutheran
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
(Church of Sweden
Church of Sweden
The Church of Sweden is the largest Christian church in Sweden. The church professes the Lutheran faith and is a member of the Porvoo Communion. With 6,589,769 baptized members, it is the largest Lutheran church in the world, although combined, there are more Lutherans in the member churches of...
) faith. They also kept their old Swedish dialect. At the end of the 19th century, some ties were reestablished. A considerable amount of money was raised in Sweden and Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
to build a Swedish church, St John's parish, which was inaugurated in 1885. Visits from Sweden became rather frequent, and some villagers even subscribed to Swedish newspapers.
The Russian revolution
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
once again cut off the communication channels. After the Russian revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
, the villagers pleaded for the right to leave the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and settle in Sweden, where their case had been adopted by a movement with a nationalist flavour, supported by archbishop Nathan Söderblom
Nathan Söderblom
Lars Olof Jonathan Söderblom was a Swedish clergyman, Archbishop of Uppsala in the Church of Sweden, and recipient of the 1930 Nobel Peace Prize...
. On August 1, 1929, around 900 villagers arrived in Sweden. Just a handful had opted to remain in Gammalsvenskby. Nearly a hundred soon moved on to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, a country to which earlier emigrants from Gammalsvenskby had gone. Most of them settled in Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
. Some later returned to Sweden.
The majority of the villagers stayed in Sweden, many of them settling in Gotland
Gotland
Gotland is a county, province, municipality and diocese of Sweden; it is Sweden's largest island and the largest island in the Baltic Sea. At 3,140 square kilometers in area, the region makes up less than one percent of Sweden's total land area...
. Despite their common origins, they were not allowed to stay in a single, common settlement. Considered immigrants in a country in the middle of a severe economic crisis, they were sometimes met with hostility. Soon, some of the villagers started to talk about going back to the Soviet Union. Actively persuaded by the Communist Party of Sweden
Left Party (Sweden)
The Left Party is a socialist and feminist political party in Sweden, from 1967 to 1990 known as the Left Party – The Communists .On welfare issues, the party opposes privatizations...
, the first families left before the end of 1929.
Soviet period
In total, around 250 villagers chose to return to the Soviet Union. Together with members of the Communist Party of Sweden, they established a minor collective farm called Svedkompartiya – the Swedish Communist Party.In 1929 the church was closed by the Soviet government. But life in the Soviet Union turned out to be hard. The famine of 1932–1933
Holodomor
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of...
renewed interest in the idea of returning to Sweden – some villagers signed a list stating that they wanted to leave the country. This led to the arrest of 20 people by the secret police, the GPU
State Political Directorate
The State Political Directorate was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1934...
. Five of them were sent to prison. Several villagers were killed in the Stalinist purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
of the following years.
When the German army
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
marched into the village on August 25, 1941, the soldiers were welcomed as liberators. With the retreat of the German army in 1943, the Swedes were evacuated together with the Germans of the area. Many ended up in Krotoschyn
Krotoszyn
Krotoszyn is a town in central Poland with 30,010 inhabitants . It has been part of the Greater Poland Voivodeship since 1999; it was within Kalisz Voivodeship from 1975 to 1998....
in Warthegau in the occupied Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, and nearly 150 were caught by Soviet authorities at the end of the war and sent to labor camps – Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
s, but were allowed to return to Ukraine as early as 1947. Others managed to go to Sweden or directly back to Gammalsvenskby. After the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Schlagendorf became Zmiivka (Snake-village), Mühlhausendorf became Mykhailivka (Micheal's village), and Klosterdorf became Kostyrka. Gammalsvenskby was renamed into Verbivka (Willow-village). In 1951 the church (locally - kircha) became a club at first and later it was rearranged into a storage facility for agrarian needs. In 1951 after the exchange of the territories between Poland and the Soviet Union around 2,500 people were relocated here from the Drohobych Oblast
Drohobych Oblast
Drohobych Oblast , was an oblast in the Ukrainian SSR. It had a territory of 9.6 thousands of km³, and population of 853 thousand .-History:...
villages: Lodyna, Dolyshni Berehy, and Naniv. Due to increase in population the villages were united into one big village of Zmiivka. The village became the biggest Boykos diaspora in Kherson Oblast
Kherson Oblast
Kherson Oblast is an oblast in southern Ukraine, just north of Crimea. Its administrative center is Kherson. The area of the region is 29000 km², its population is 1.12 million.Important cities in the oblast include:...
(about 80% of the village). The newly relocated population also was prohibited by the authorities to exercise their traditional holidays such as Vertep
Vertep
Vertep was a kind of portable puppet theatre and the corresponding type of drama in the culture of East Slavs which presented the nativity scene, other mystery plays, and later secular plots as well...
during Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
. They were also perceived by the locals as Nazi-collaborators.
Gammalsvenskby today
Church of Sweden
The Church of Sweden is the largest Christian church in Sweden. The church professes the Lutheran faith and is a member of the Porvoo Communion. With 6,589,769 baptized members, it is the largest Lutheran church in the world, although combined, there are more Lutherans in the member churches of...
and Gotland Municipality
Gotland Municipality
Gotland Municipality is a municipality that covers the entire island of Gotland in Sweden. The city of Visby is the municipality's seat.-History:...
. In 1996, Chumak
Chumak (company)
Chumak is a Swedish-Ukrainian food processing company located in Kakhovka, Kherson Oblast. It is today one of Ukraine's biggest food processing companies and has commercial offices in Kiev, Minsk and Moscow. Among its products are ketchup, mayonnaise, pasta, salad dressings, cooking sauces, canned...
, a Swedish-owned company that produces oil, ketchup and canned food, was established in the nearby town of Kakhovka
Kakhovka
Kakhovka is a port city on the Dnieper River in the Kherson Oblast of southern Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Kakhovsky Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast, and is located at around .It is home to the KZEZO as well as the Tavria...
. Today, the village has only around 108 people who share a Swedish cultural heritage. Only a few of them still speak the Old-Swedish dialect fluently and German is often used instead. The Zmiivka's emblem consists of three crowns (Tre-Kronor
Three Crowns
Three Crowns is a national emblem of Sweden, present in the Coat of Arms of the Realm of Sweden, and composed by three yellow or gilded coronets ordered two above and one below, placed on a blue background....
), the Swedish national symbol, as well as the blue cross on the yellow field. The whole raion of Beryslav is heavily Ukrainized due to the fact that a lot of people from the western Ukraine were resettled here. There are such villages as Lvivski Otruby, Lvove, Tarasa Shevchenka, and others that remind of the resettlement of the west-Ukrainian residents. As recently as 2008, the Swedish King and Queen visited Gammalsvenskby.
Example of local vocabulary
| Old-Swedish | Swedish | English |
| Pärter | Ankor | Ducks |
| Kardefflar | Potatis | Potatoes |
| Baglescani | Tomater | Tomatoes |
External links and further reading
- Stackholmnews:Swedish village in Ukraine (October 2009)
- The Svenskbyborna society in Sweden (in Swedish)
- A comprehensive history of Gammalsvenskby (in English)
- A page about Gammalsvenskby (in Swedish)
- Recent short article on Gammalsvenskby: A Swedish village in Ukraine, in Hidden Europe magazine, May 2006 (Issue 8), pp. 40–43. ISSN 1860-6318. hidden europe (in English)
- Photos from Gammalsvenskby
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
: Gammalsvenskby, local Swedish dialect: Gammölsvänskbi; literally: "Old Swedish Village"; Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
Старошведське, Staroshveds'ke; German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
Alt-Schwedendorf) is now part of the village of Zmiyivka (Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
: Зміївка, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: Змеевка) in Beryslav Raion of Kherson Oblast
Kherson Oblast
Kherson Oblast is an oblast in southern Ukraine, just north of Crimea. Its administrative center is Kherson. The area of the region is 29000 km², its population is 1.12 million.Important cities in the oblast include:...
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
which has a Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
cultural heritage. Zmiyivka also includes three former villages settled by ethnic Germans. These were the two Lutheran villages of Schlangendorf and Mühlhausendorf and the Roman Catholic village of Klosterdorf. In the nineteenth century, the whole region, and large parts of southern Russia contained villages settled by Germans belonging to various Protestant faiths, particularly Lutherans and Mennonites, as well as Roman Catholics. In close proximity there is Askania-Nova
Askania-Nova
Askania-Nova is a biosphere reserve located in Kherson Oblast, Ukraine, within the dry Taurida steppe near Oleshky Sands. The reserve consists of a zoological park, a botanical garden, and an open territory of virgin steppes....
.
The founding of Gammalsvenskby
The population of Gammalsvenskby traces its origins back to HiiumaaHiiumaa
Hiiumaa is the second largest island belonging to Estonia. It is located in the Baltic Sea, north of the island of Saaremaa, a part of the West Estonian archipelago. Its largest town is Kärdla.-Name:...
(Dagö) in present-day Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
, once a part of the Realm of Sweden
Realm of Sweden
The Realm of Sweden or Svenska väldet is a term that historically was used to comprise all the territories under the control of the Swedish monarchs.-Lands of Sweden:...
. Under the reign of Catherine II of Russia
Catherine II of Russia
Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great , Empress of Russia, was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia on as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg...
, the Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
-speaking population left the island in August 1781. With the promise of being granted fertile land, they were relocated to the south of Ukraine, used as colonists in territory conquered from the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. Some sources label the migration as outright expulsion, others point to the fact that the poor and oppressed serf
SERF
A spin exchange relaxation-free magnetometer is a type of magnetometer developed at Princeton University in the early 2000s. SERF magnetometers measure magnetic fields by using lasers to detect the interaction between alkali metal atoms in a vapor and the magnetic field.The name for the technique...
farmers were given what must have seemed like a generous offer at the time. The outcome, however, was to be disastrous. Many of the around 1,000 villagers died during the march to their new home. Upon arrival, they found no trace of the houses they had been promised would be ready for them. The first year in Ukraine an even larger share of the group lost their lives. According to church records, only 135 people were still alive in March 1783.
Maintaining the Swedish heritage
Three neighbouring villages were founded in the years 1803 to 1805 by GermanGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
colonists: Schlangendorf, Mühlhausendorf and Klosterdorf. The colonists were given as a gift from the Prince Potiomkin the wooden church which sometime in the mid 19th century was burnt down. As a consequence of this, the Swedes were outnumbered, and in the following years many of the priests and teachers serving the area were German. This, along with a growing shortage of arable land
Arable land
In geography and agriculture, arable land is land that can be used for growing crops. It includes all land under temporary crops , temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow...
caused the relations between Gammalsvenskby and the German villages to be rather strained at times.
Although contacts with Sweden were virtually nonexistent for around a century, the people of Gammalsvenskby maintained their traditions and their Lutheran
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
(Church of Sweden
Church of Sweden
The Church of Sweden is the largest Christian church in Sweden. The church professes the Lutheran faith and is a member of the Porvoo Communion. With 6,589,769 baptized members, it is the largest Lutheran church in the world, although combined, there are more Lutherans in the member churches of...
) faith. They also kept their old Swedish dialect. At the end of the 19th century, some ties were reestablished. A considerable amount of money was raised in Sweden and Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
to build a Swedish church, St John's parish, which was inaugurated in 1885. Visits from Sweden became rather frequent, and some villagers even subscribed to Swedish newspapers.
The Russian revolution
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
once again cut off the communication channels. After the Russian revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
, the villagers pleaded for the right to leave the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and settle in Sweden, where their case had been adopted by a movement with a nationalist flavour, supported by archbishop Nathan Söderblom
Nathan Söderblom
Lars Olof Jonathan Söderblom was a Swedish clergyman, Archbishop of Uppsala in the Church of Sweden, and recipient of the 1930 Nobel Peace Prize...
. On August 1, 1929, around 900 villagers arrived in Sweden. Just a handful had opted to remain in Gammalsvenskby. Nearly a hundred soon moved on to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, a country to which earlier emigrants from Gammalsvenskby had gone. Most of them settled in Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
. Some later returned to Sweden.
The majority of the villagers stayed in Sweden, many of them settling in Gotland
Gotland
Gotland is a county, province, municipality and diocese of Sweden; it is Sweden's largest island and the largest island in the Baltic Sea. At 3,140 square kilometers in area, the region makes up less than one percent of Sweden's total land area...
. Despite their common origins, they were not allowed to stay in a single, common settlement. Considered immigrants in a country in the middle of a severe economic crisis, they were sometimes met with hostility. Soon, some of the villagers started to talk about going back to the Soviet Union. Actively persuaded by the Communist Party of Sweden
Left Party (Sweden)
The Left Party is a socialist and feminist political party in Sweden, from 1967 to 1990 known as the Left Party – The Communists .On welfare issues, the party opposes privatizations...
, the first families left before the end of 1929.
Soviet period
In total, around 250 villagers chose to return to the Soviet Union. Together with members of the Communist Party of Sweden, they established a minor collective farm called Svedkompartiya – the Swedish Communist Party.In 1929 the church was closed by the Soviet government. But life in the Soviet Union turned out to be hard. The famine of 1932–1933
Holodomor
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of...
renewed interest in the idea of returning to Sweden – some villagers signed a list stating that they wanted to leave the country. This led to the arrest of 20 people by the secret police, the GPU
State Political Directorate
The State Political Directorate was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1934...
. Five of them were sent to prison. Several villagers were killed in the Stalinist purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
of the following years.
When the German army
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
marched into the village on August 25, 1941, the soldiers were welcomed as liberators. With the retreat of the German army in 1943, the Swedes were evacuated together with the Germans of the area. Many ended up in Krotoschyn
Krotoszyn
Krotoszyn is a town in central Poland with 30,010 inhabitants . It has been part of the Greater Poland Voivodeship since 1999; it was within Kalisz Voivodeship from 1975 to 1998....
in Warthegau in the occupied Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, and nearly 150 were caught by Soviet authorities at the end of the war and sent to labor camps – Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
s, but were allowed to return to Ukraine as early as 1947. Others managed to go to Sweden or directly back to Gammalsvenskby. After the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Schlagendorf became Zmiivka (Snake-village), Mühlhausendorf became Mykhailivka (Micheal's village), and Klosterdorf became Kostyrka. Gammalsvenskby was renamed into Verbivka (Willow-village). In 1951 the church (locally - kircha) became a club at first and later it was rearranged into a storage facility for agrarian needs. In 1951 after the exchange of the territories between Poland and the Soviet Union around 2,500 people were relocated here from the Drohobych Oblast
Drohobych Oblast
Drohobych Oblast , was an oblast in the Ukrainian SSR. It had a territory of 9.6 thousands of km³, and population of 853 thousand .-History:...
villages: Lodyna, Dolyshni Berehy, and Naniv. Due to increase in population the villages were united into one big village of Zmiivka. The village became the biggest Boykos diaspora in Kherson Oblast
Kherson Oblast
Kherson Oblast is an oblast in southern Ukraine, just north of Crimea. Its administrative center is Kherson. The area of the region is 29000 km², its population is 1.12 million.Important cities in the oblast include:...
(about 80% of the village). The newly relocated population also was prohibited by the authorities to exercise their traditional holidays such as Vertep
Vertep
Vertep was a kind of portable puppet theatre and the corresponding type of drama in the culture of East Slavs which presented the nativity scene, other mystery plays, and later secular plots as well...
during Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
. They were also perceived by the locals as Nazi-collaborators.
Gammalsvenskby today
Church of Sweden
The Church of Sweden is the largest Christian church in Sweden. The church professes the Lutheran faith and is a member of the Porvoo Communion. With 6,589,769 baptized members, it is the largest Lutheran church in the world, although combined, there are more Lutherans in the member churches of...
and Gotland Municipality
Gotland Municipality
Gotland Municipality is a municipality that covers the entire island of Gotland in Sweden. The city of Visby is the municipality's seat.-History:...
. In 1996, Chumak
Chumak (company)
Chumak is a Swedish-Ukrainian food processing company located in Kakhovka, Kherson Oblast. It is today one of Ukraine's biggest food processing companies and has commercial offices in Kiev, Minsk and Moscow. Among its products are ketchup, mayonnaise, pasta, salad dressings, cooking sauces, canned...
, a Swedish-owned company that produces oil, ketchup and canned food, was established in the nearby town of Kakhovka
Kakhovka
Kakhovka is a port city on the Dnieper River in the Kherson Oblast of southern Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Kakhovsky Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast, and is located at around .It is home to the KZEZO as well as the Tavria...
. Today, the village has only around 108 people who share a Swedish cultural heritage. Only a few of them still speak the Old-Swedish dialect fluently and German is often used instead. The Zmiivka's emblem consists of three crowns (Tre-Kronor
Three Crowns
Three Crowns is a national emblem of Sweden, present in the Coat of Arms of the Realm of Sweden, and composed by three yellow or gilded coronets ordered two above and one below, placed on a blue background....
), the Swedish national symbol, as well as the blue cross on the yellow field. The whole raion of Beryslav is heavily Ukrainized due to the fact that a lot of people from the western Ukraine were resettled here. There are such villages as Lvivski Otruby, Lvove, Tarasa Shevchenka, and others that remind of the resettlement of the west-Ukrainian residents. As recently as 2008, the Swedish King and Queen visited Gammalsvenskby.
Example of local vocabulary
| Old-Swedish | Swedish | English |
| Pärter | Ankor | Ducks |
| Kardefflar | Potatis | Potatoes |
| Baglescani | Tomater | Tomatoes |
External links and further reading
- Stackholmnews:Swedish village in Ukraine (October 2009)
- The Svenskbyborna society in Sweden (in Swedish)
- A comprehensive history of Gammalsvenskby (in English)
- A page about Gammalsvenskby (in Swedish)
- Recent short article on Gammalsvenskby: A Swedish village in Ukraine, in Hidden Europe magazine, May 2006 (Issue 8), pp. 40–43. ISSN 1860-6318. hidden europe (in English)
- Photos from Gammalsvenskby
