Chronicles of Bolshevik expropriation, experienced and recorded by Todos Nehliad
I leaf through the diary. It is a an ordinary school notebook, but it contains entries in violet that serve as eye-opening evidence perhaps unmatched in modern history. This diary belongs to Todos Nehliad, resident of Pyliava, a Ukrainian village where Bohdan Khmelnytsky defeated Polish szlachta troops in 1648.
Todos Nehliad appeared in this sinful world in 1885 and was dealt the first blow by fate August 20, 1931 (here and further on the reader is referred to excerpts from his diary): “Village Council Chairman Zverkhanovsky, Deputy Chairman Stepan Antoniuk, Hryts Hrativ, Yakiv Navmystiuk, Stepan Yakiiv, Kyshchak, Andriy Kuchyr, Oleksa Deryi, Serhiy Podzyhun, and Yustym Kuchir confiscated two stacks of oats, fifteen of buckwheat, two of wheat, two stacks of rye, eight poods of rye flour, eight poods of wheat flour.” [1 pood is about 36 pounds avoirdupois (16.36 kilograms)]
They and those like them again visited him January 4, 1932, April 7, 1932, April 17, 1932, April 14, 1932, May 9, 1932, expropriating “nine poods of rye, eight of wheat, ten of barley, three of buckwheat... Four poods of millet, 45 pounds of fatback, twelve sacks of fodder weighing 29 poods, two poods of hackled and ten poods of rough yarn... a crosscut saw, an ax, two chisels, two drills, one pitchfork, a shovel, and two window frames...” However, the heaviest blow came on September 20, 1933 when “Village Council Chairman Stepan Bondar, accompanied by Prokhir Kozlyk, Hryts Bats, Andriy Kuchyr, Stepan Babych, David Kravets, Hryts Melnychuk, Onopry Senchuk, Petro Namystiuk, Antin Antoniuk, and Dymian Chrnoostrovsky [made me] sell my home with a roof of blackthorn for 305 rubles, a thatched cowshed for 125 rubles, twenty barn poles, and eight dresses; nine 8x8 inch boards, each ten arshins long [1 arshin = 2 ft. 4 in.], four pillows, one lamp, five double windows, two benches with backs, one couch, one large mirror, two long benches, a six-arshin 12x8 inch log, 15 oak boards, each 4 arshins long and 10x6 in., a trough for twenty buckets, and a hand-operated mill... Hryts Antoniuk of Pyliava and Kyndych took the new bed and the new table with carved legs for himself; Antoniuk and Kindych took two small and two long benches, also the log for the Pyliava school; Ivan Namystiuk took the two double windows and the lamp for himself; the hand-operated mill was broken to make rulers for the school in Vihnankirove, so Kazmiruk could teach his pupils using my small mill. The cart broke carrying timber to the collective farm... September 29, 1933. Matviy Popyk, Andriy Kuchyr, and Savva Oleksiv threw my family out of our house...”
* * *
Who was Todos Nehliad? How did he come by all that property? Was it by ruthlessly exploiting the toiling masses?
Nina Hrytsak of Pyliava, a retired schoolteacher, is a niece of Todos Nehliad’s aunt. It so happened that she grew up with the Nehliads and she has since jealously preserved the family archives. Among other things she has a unique document. It reads, “Statement drawn up by the Office of the Department for Government Decorations. Done on 23 February, 1916, in the City of Petrograd at 6 Gagarinskaya Street. This is to testify that Feodosiy Neglad, private of the 132th Infantry Regiment of Bendery, is entered under #458820 in the List of Recipients of the Order of St.George, 4th Class, having been conferred the said award on 5 August, 1915, by an order of His Majesty, as submitted by the Field Military Chancellery of His Majesty on 19 November, 1915, as per #4422. Signed and sealed by Sokolov, Acting Deputy Secretary of the Department for Government Decorations.”
Todos Nehliad lost a leg in a battle for “the Faith, the Tsar, and Mother Russia” as attested by a document reading, “Certificate of Disability, issued in the name of Feodosiy Neglad, retired private of the 132th Infantry Regiment of Bendery. Drawn up by the Commission of the Nikolayevsky Military Hospital of Petrograd, on February 16, 1916.” It is complete with the case history, signed by the chief physician (signature illegible), with daily entries showing how Feodosiy Nehliad, resident of Kamianets-Podilsky province struggled back to life.
Nina Hrytsak recalls what “Granddaddy Todos” had to say:
“Once the hospital in Petrograd was visited by Tsar Nicholas II. The soldier would remember it for the rest of his life. The tsar asked him where he was from, about his family and how they were faring.
“The recipient of the Order of St. George returned home a cripple but well provided for. Under an imperial edict, the authorities of Pyliava supplied him with timber and blackthorn (then an expensive roofing material). He had a home and a barn built (incidentally, the Bolsheviks used his blackthorn to cover the collective farm’s mill; it is still there, in Oleksiyivka, a village not far from Pyliava). After selling his home and barn, he stayed on the plot, building a cabin in the vegetable garden where he would live for a long time with an ailing wife and four children.”
* * *
His diary is for people with strong nerves. The entries are like bare high voltage wire. Some just list expropriated property, others are personal observations offering the particulars of events, but now and then attesting the expropriating activists pathological greed: “November 19, 1938. An official named Konhun, village council member Yavdkokym Kozlyk, Kyrylo Batz, Hryts Batz, Mykhailo Sereda, Vasyl Synytsia confiscated a white goat. Mykhailo Sereda pulled out the pole to which it was tied and led it away... village council member Stepan Babych sold six cubic meters of rock, loading twenty carts for 36 rubles and sending them to Vasyl Mustafa at the village of Derkach. Residents of Pyliava Zakhar Melnychuk and Yavdeichyk took part in the transaction, pulling out and loading the stones under the threshold...”
Was that 36 rubles worth of purchase entered into the books or did the money land wind up in someone’s pocket? Nothing is on record. Todos Nehliad wrote only about things he knew for certain. “...In April, Vasyl Storozha plowed my vegetable garden, chopping down two acacias and taking them with him. They robbed him clean: “In 1930, Oleksandr Dorokh of Krasnoholovytsi, together with Mykola Keriy, member of the village council in Shtopove, took away my red fur coat lying on the couch.” Now and then some of the activists had doubts and then staged discussions. “In October 1945, Ivan Shpatlai, an official from Pyliavka, and Village Council Chairman Mykhailo Savchuk took away a four-year-old red cow grazing on the pasture near the tower; there was a meeting at the office, discussing whether to return the cow or leave it public property; we were not levied the meat tax, as there were no able-bodied members of the family. And then Yosyp Hryyiv said the cow would not be returned, and that I should have been exiled anyway. After that Trokhym Yukhymiv drove to the base in Syniava.”
Needless to say, the expropriation was done in the name of the Revolution. “During Easter, in 1946, Hryts Batz, Mykhailo Romaniv, and militiaman Rekhta confiscated five bottles of homemade cherry brandy; they came to tell me I had to sign a government bond worth 15,000 rubles.”
* * *
Todos Nehliad passed away after making the last entry: “Dug up two acacias in 1960, they had sprung long roots in the vegetable garden; people would think they were Dorosh’s.”
A team of archaeologists visited Pyliava once. Digging in the center of the village, they found several millstones that were almost modern. These turned out to have belonged to Todos Nehliad who had buried them lest they be taken by Party-Komsomol activists.
“He also buried a plow and a cultivator. We dug them up later,” says Nina Hrytsak.
These tools ought to be displayed at a museum, along with the old woman’s story on tape.
“The old man would put me on top of the fence and tell me to take a good look around. If you see any one approach, start singing loudly. While I stayed silent he would grind corn using the millstones...”
He had one leg but a pair of skilled hand. He was a wheelwright, cartwright, and a shoemaker, using boot trees of various sizes. He had more than enough customers. He also had a small private farming plot, so he was locally known as a Hindu (Indus, slang for individual farmer outside the collective farm — Ed.). He never joined the collective farm and did not allow his children to join it.
Why did he keep a diary? Was it because he expected the time would come and the situation would change, that people would read it and learn the truth about the socialist paradise? Hard to say. Nina Hrytsak says he was “a literate man and had studied in school for four years; there were few like him at the time.” Was it because he sought truth and believed that justice would be restored and the expropriated property be returned?
“After he and his family were thrown out of their home, he sent complaints to the highest authorities, but all his letters were returned to the village council, with instructions to take ‘appropriate measures and study the matter on the spot.’ Yet old Todos believed that he would have his way. He did under Khrushchev. A district- level official arrived and told the village council that a resolution had been passed in the man’s case and returned satisfied that he had carried out his duty. Then what? The old man’s home was still occupied by a Party- Komsomol activist’s family. Officials came several times until old Todos demanded that he stay until that resolution was fulfilled. It was wintertime. The activist’s wife burst into tears. Where would they go with their children; it was cold outside. The old man agreed to let them stay until the spring.
“Todos Nehliad was so encouraged by his victory he decided to try to return some of the expropriated property, he wrote again but in vain. The family archive has letters from various authorities in response to petitions from this recipient of the Order of St. George and disabled veteran of World War I. One is signed by the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Stara Syniava District Council of People’s Deputies: “C/O Feodosiy F. Nehliad. In response to your letter addressed to the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR, concerning permission to cut down the acacias to be used as firewood and timber, the Executive Committee, Stara Syniava District Council of People’s Deputies, informs that the said request cannot be granted, since the said trees are on a plot, the possession of which you lost in 1939, whereby the said trees were part of the plantations possessed by the collective farm. In 1957, the collective farm allotted a plot of 0.15 ha to physician Talash and the latter is still in its possession, while the said trees grow over a street, serving as a protective belt. Therefore your request cannot be granted as being unfounded.”
* * *
Ivan Kozelsky, a local history expert, says the Pyliava Diary matches Musa Jalil’s Moabite Notebook [Soviet Tatar poet {1906-44}, wounded and was captured by the Nazis in 1942, while in the Soviet Army; in prison, he wrote the Moabite Notebook series of verse; conferred the Lenin Prize posthumously, in 1954; the said series was lauded by official critics as “a hymn to the staunchness of a person convinced that he was serving a righteous cause.” —Ed.] or Tanya Savicheva’s diary from Leningrad under Nazi siege. It is “as horrifyingly truthful, as profoundly arresting.” With Mrs. Hrytsak’s permission he will hand the diary over to the Holodomor Researchers Association of Ukraine.
What happened to Todos Nehliad’s children? The eldest son was exiled to Siberia for failing to fulfill a set work quota. He spent eight years in a labor camp and then returned and settled in Ivankivtsi, a neighboring village, with his family. The other three were sent to Germany during World War II. Somehow the Nazis spared the youngest daughter; she was exiled somewhere also for failing to fulfill the work quota, says Nina Hrytsak.
Todos Nehliad’s archives from the Ukrainian village of Pyliava offers an exhausting answer to the current most burning question of why we live so badly. Because there have been — and most probably will be — people who cannot and will not work themselves, but who are matchless expropriators. The diary mentions characters who “took my whetstone... came with a cart, loaded it with twenty stacks of barley and then dropped them by the [village] store where they lay for a long time... took the acacias... came and took away two cartloads of potatoes and a cartload of beets for their homes.” Then they had came to power and did it in the name of the revolution and justice. The times have changed, but they are still there, albeit following a “different road.”
