"Be proud of the glory of your ancestors
not only is it possible, but it must be.”
A.S. Pushkin.
Interest in the past, in the history of one's family and ancestors is inherent in every person. From an early age a person has to hear and understand that there was a time before him, there were people and events.
Each family goes its own way, has its own victories and joys, disappointments and troubles. Biographies of people can be amazing and incredible. Historical phenomena do not pass without leaving a trace for people. Such a striking example can be the life and fate of my great-grandmother Lucia Dmitrievna Batrakova.
On February 7, 1939, in the village of Kurbaty, Uinsky district, a girl was born. She was born into an ordinary family of collective farm workers: her mother worked on a farm, and her father, before the war, worked in a field crew, in the field on a tractor.
The father of the newborn, Dmitry, an ardent supporter of the new government, decided that he would name his daughter in honor of the event that happened in 1917, namely the Revolution. But although the Soviet government rejected the church, the people, especially in the villages, believed in God, but such a sophisticated name was not found in the church books, but the name Lucius was found. Then the parents decided to name the girl Lucia.
On June 22, 1945, the Great Patriotic War began. The mobilization of those liable for military service was announced, and martial law was introduced. The residents of the village of Kurbaty could not stand aside either. The entire male population left to fight for the freedom of their homeland. Lucy was 2 years old when her dad went to the front. Life was difficult. In 1944, my father returned from the front. “Before the war, I don’t even remember the folder,” recalls the great-grandmother, “but I remember well how I returned. He returned at the end of 1944, as he was wounded, was in the hospital and was discharged. He sat me on his knees and for a long time showed me the bullets that were taken from him after he was wounded during the operation.” The little girl, at five years old, could not even think that these “toys” could take her dad’s life.
The Kurbatov family had livestock on their farm: cows, sheep, chickens. Despite this, life was difficult for the family, because everything was taxed. The great-grandmother recalls: “Even if the chickens did not lay eggs, they were forced to buy eggs from someone else and still hand them over, if the cow had no milk or little of it, they also had to buy them, but paying the tax according to the norm was mandatory. Hay was cut for the cows wherever necessary. Mom mowed down all the nettle holes near the house. The collective farm gave straw to the cows, so my mother mixed it with her hay and fed it with it.” The time has come for little Lucy to help her family. Starting from the age of 6, the mother took the girl with her to work. Together they transported bales of hay from the fields to warehouses on horseback, mowed the rye with Lithuanians and tied them into sheaves, and then placed them in barriers. “Mom specially made me a little Lithuanian,” the great-grandmother smiles, “and I went to the fields with it.” Lucy felt responsible and tried to keep up with her mother. And she was left alone with her parents, because the older children at that time went to study in the city, to receive education for further professional activities.
When Lyusa was 12 years old, she was doing more complex and responsible work on the collective farm. She recalls: “When I got older, I myself carried manure to the fields on horses for fertilizer along with other girls and boys. I never expected anyone to unload it for me. She turned the cart up and unloaded it herself. She was very nimble and always harnessed the horse herself. Once I remember there was one case. They asked some boss to take me to the area. But I came across a horse with a temper; he always had to be kept in check. When there were a few kilometers left to the area, this man asked me: “Girl, aren’t you afraid to ride such a horse?” “No,” I say, “I’m not afraid.” I dropped him off and went back to Kurbaty.” In the village of Kurbaty, the school taught children only up to the 4th grade, and in order to continue their education, they had to go to the neighboring village of Suda to a nine-year school. “We left home for a whole week,” recalls the great-grandmother, “we lived in an apartment. Mom collected us a bundle of food, a little potatoes, a small packet of milk, bread, and one ruble of money. We stretched all this out over a whole week. At the end of the week there was nothing left, so the hostess, Aunt Masha, with whom my younger brother and I lived, gave us a piece of bread and an onion, and that’s what we stuck with. And my mother gave little food, because taxes were high at that time. There was almost nothing left for ourselves.” Lucy graduated from 9th grade in 1952, and dreamed of going on to 10th grade and improving the level of her education. But these dreams failed to come true, trouble came: my father died. The great-grandmother still recalls this episode from her life with tears in her eyes: “Mom took my father’s death very hard. She told me that she was not able to teach me without my father and sent me to the village of Gryzany to my sister Tasya, who at that time was already married and raising children. Mom said that Tasya needs to work, and I will have to sit with her children. I had no choice but to go to Gryzany. Mom then, until the end of her life, reproached herself for the fact that she was the only one who did not teach me, did not give me a complete education.” Lucia could not disobey. Arriving at her sister’s, Lyusya babysat her nephews for some time, but then decided: “... why should I sit on my sister’s neck, I’ll go and get a job on a collective farm.” At this time, the collective farm was recruiting teams to cut wood, and she went to logging. Workdays began. The work was seasonal. What did Lucia Dmitrievna not do: together with her friend Masha, they felled the forest themselves with a hand saw, sawed it themselves and put it in a pile, stood on the combine site, collected the grain in bags and put it in carts themselves. Even though the girls were tired at work, in the evening they still went to dances, which took place to the accordion. The great-grandmother recalls this time with a feeling of nostalgia in her voice: “The club closed early, at 12 o’clock, so we then went to visit one of the guys, there was even a queue for who to go to next for an hour and a half, played various games . Then there was dancing to the gramophone. They knew how to arrange their leisure time. And in the morning it’s back to work. The Maslenitsa holiday was very interesting. We rode dressed up horses. It was interesting, it was a fun time." In 1958, Lyutsiya Dmitrievna married a local guy, Mikhail Stepanovich (my great-grandfather), and changed her maiden name Kurbatova to her husband’s last name and became Batrakova. The future husband was also simple. His father went to the front when Misha was three years old. He never returned. His military friends said that a shell hit the dugout where his father was, and he died. Mikhail Stepanovich and his brother learned that their father was buried in the Bryansk region near the village of Kopylovo, but they were never able to go there. The newlyweds did not have a wedding, they simply wrote off, because the “mother” (mother-in-law) said: “... there is no money for the wedding, you will earn money yourself, then we will celebrate...”, especially a month before these events, the family of the future husband survived a fire, and almost everyone the property burned down.
But there was no need to celebrate the wedding. A year later, the first son, Kolya, was born. And a year later, daughter Tanya was born. Starting in 1959, my great-grandmother began working at a local health center, together with her older sister, and worked there for 20 years. “The wages,” recalls Lyutsia Dmitrievna, “were small, only 20 rubles, but the work was easier.” There were no cars at that time, so we always rode horses to get calls to villages, to pick up medicines in the area, and to meetings. Lucia Dmitrievna devoted herself entirely to work. When her great-grandmother turned 55, she retired, but with her irrepressible energy she could not sit at home, she also worked part-time, first at school as a technician, and then as a nanny in kindergarten.
Now my great-grandmother is 72 years old, she lives in the village of Gryzany, Orda district with her husband, my great-grandfather, Mikhail Stepanovich, and is raising her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, she has many of them, and she gives each of them a piece of her warmth.
I would like to be like my great-grandmother, to have her human qualities: kindness, patience, responsiveness, selflessness, readiness to help those who need it. Having lived such a difficult life, she did not lose her spiritual qualities. People still go to her for advice, for a kind word. I am proud of my great-grandmother, Lutsia Dmitrievna Batrakova.
Love for all ages. And also - all generations. But true, beautiful love occurs probably once in a thousand or ten thousand couples.
We asked our readers to remember if they have a wonderful legend about the love of grandparents in their family.
Cast iron heart
Granny is the eighteenth child in a Jewish family who ended up in Siberia in a convict. My great-grandfather, a Belarusian tradesman, distinguished himself by slapping the governor. So the whole family rushed to Siberia, the great-grandmother followed the convoy in a cart, from time to time she counted the “packages” - the children (this is how she noticed the disappearance of her grandmother’s sister in time, by the way - they found her!) Granny was born in Siberia, grew up, graduated from Tomsk University.
Grandfather is from migrant peasants. They came from the Arkhangelsk (or Vologda - they lived somewhere on the border) province, to Siberia, to a new life. There were three brothers in the family. One fought for the Reds, the second for Kolchak. And my grandfather spat on politics and went to the workers' faculty at Tomsk Polytechnic University.
They met at the construction of the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant (the same one about which Mayakovsky wrote his “Garden City”). Granny was a translator for American specialists. She once stood at the opening of the second blast furnace. Melting began, cast iron began to pour. And a drop of hot metal fell to her shoes, freezing in the shape of a heart. It's like a sign. This heart, the size of a small woman’s palm, is still kept at home.
My grandfather was a local power engineer at this plant. I still remember my grandmother telling me: “I go into the office, and he’s sitting there. So handsome.” Both were incredibly beautiful. We lived in a civil marriage all our very long lives. Both had many admirers and admirers, but even options did not arise.
Yesenin
My grandfather, a handsome actor-director, fell in love with my grandmother when she worked as a teacher - she was such a little, little philologist. And my grandfather was handsome. She came to listen to him read Yesenin from the stage at the club - the most beloved poet was in Krasnoyarsk, and when he read, excuse me, “Son of a Bitch” (about a dog who carried notes to a girl) and reached the lines “Yes, I liked girl in white\And now I love - in blue!” instead of “blue” he read “green” and pointed to the grandmother sitting in a green dress. She was embarrassed, the audience applauded.
This was in the fifties. They got married and lived a happy life together.
Waited from the army
In those distant times, when people served in the Russian army for 25 years, one of my ancestors was drafted into the army. Before leaving for duty, he went to see a friend to say goodbye. The friend was married, and even had a newborn child - in the cradle.
My ancestor, who, of course, did not know whether he would return at all, took the baby from the cradle in his arms and sadly joked that he would return and marry her. The baby was female. No one took the joke seriously; they giggled and forgot.
The ancestor ended up in a grenadier regiment, acquired a surname - then peasants got along without surnames. And somehow these years of service passed safely, the soldier returned home safe and sound.
And what’s interesting is that the baby also grew up and... during all this time she did not get married, although there was no flaw in her appearance, nor in her mind, nor in her health. If you consider that even in my time, girls at the age of 25 were officially considered old maids, then, in general, it was probably not very fun for a girl to live unmarried.
When the soldier returned, it was then that everyone remembered the old joke and they were matched. My ancestor, who served, although he was not in his early youth, was an enviable groom - as a former soldier, he received a pension in silver and learned to read and write in the army. I forgot my native language in the army, I tried to speak Russian with my relatives, but I quickly remembered everything. The first polyglot in our family, the rest then only knew how to speak two languages - Chuvash and Tatar (Tatars lived around). And this one also spoke Russian.
And they got married, and they began to live and live well and make good things.
Girl with no address
My great-aunt was called Tanya in life, but according to her passport she was Kira. And she didn’t bear her stepfather’s last name, but her father’s, but not everyone was aware of this. Her fiancé didn’t know Lev, for example, when he was called to the front. He returned later and started looking for her - either her family had gone somewhere, or she wasn’t at home at all, no one knew anything. I contacted the police - Tatyana so-and-so, they say, was NEVER here. The situation seemed hopeless, but Lyova did not give up and continued to ask everyone. And I came across Tanya’s former neighbor, who knew where the family had gone. So now I have the genes of both.
apples
My grandmother worked at a factory in the thirties and was friends with one woman, five years older than her. The woman's only son brought her lunch all the time. And from some point on, he always took another apple to treat his mother’s friend. He treated him like that for three years, and then he turned sixteen (that’s what they say). He took my grandmother aside and, like in the old movie, began kissing my grandmother’s hands on her knees and persuading her to marry him. Either because she was already over twenty-five, or for some other reason, she agreed. And then... she didn’t come to the painting at the registry office, which was supposed to take place in secret, and she was ashamed. The boy persuaded the lady at the registry office to sign it later today out of turn, jumped on his bike and rushed to the hostel where my grandmother lived. I don’t know how I persuaded her, but two hours later he came out and, as she was, in some kind of home dress, she rode with him on a bicycle to the registry office.
Their mother-in-law, of course, didn’t let them home. At first, the grandmother spent the night in the hostel, and her young husband spent the night in the park in the gazebo. Then they rented a corner (this means a part of the room separated by a curtain and a wardrobe) and began to live there. When their first daughter was born, only the mother-in-law forgave her daughter-in-law. Until that moment, they stood side by side in the factory behind the machine and did not speak.
Grandfather was at the front during the war and returned almost intact, with scars from shrapnel. And he continued to almost carry his grandmother in his arms until his death. When we still lived in a communal apartment, in the morning I got up before everyone else and went to the bathroom to wash clothes. Before everyone else - so that the neighbors don’t see and judge. When they got a separate apartment under Khrushchev, grandfather always vacuumed and did the laundry so that grandma wouldn’t get tired. He said: “It is wrong to say that washing is a woman’s job. Anyone who has ever washed a family knows how difficult it is. This should be a man’s job, like chopping wood.”
He outlived his grandmother by only two months.
The article was prepared by Lilith Mazikina
Saaya Ayalga Ayanovna
A tree cannot grow without roots, a person cannot live without customs.
Popular wisdom says: Without roots, wormwood cannot grow. I think: every person should know the roots and history of their family.
Nowadays, studying your family has become especially relevant.
As my grandmother says, modern families communicate very little not only
with distant but also close relatives. The connection between generations is lost.
Some young people don't even know their great-grandparents.
I see the purpose of my work as to better know my ancestry and preserve the most valuable material about family history for subsequent generations.
My work cannot lay claim to any global historical discoveries. First of all, I wanted to know about my great-grandmother.
Tasks:
- Meeting with the oldest representatives of their kind;
- Studying archive materials;
- Studying literature on the topic.
Methods research:
- Studying family archives, documents, photographs and interesting episodes from the life of representatives of my family
Subject of study: study of family history.
Objects of research:
1. Memories and stories of grandmothers and great-grandmothers about life.
2. Photos, documents,.
Relevance. We, today's generation, do not know our ancestors well, but from time immemorial it was customary for our ancestors to know their relatives.
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Municipal budgetary educational institution
Secondary school No. 3 of Ak-Dovurak
Research work on the topic:
"The Story of My Great Grandmother"
Completed by: students of grade 9 “b” Saaya Ayalga Ayanovna
Scientific supervisor: Adyg-ool Aidyn-kys Kaldar-oolovna
Ak-Dovurak-2014
Introduction……………………………………………………...3
Chapter I. Genealogy. Family tree…………….5
Chapter II. The story of my great-grandmother………………………...6
Conclusion……………………………………………………………... 10
Appendix……………………………………………………………………..11
Literature……………………………………………………………....13
Introduction
A tree cannot grow without roots
A person cannot live without customs.
Popular wisdom says: Without roots, wormwood cannot grow. I think every person should know the roots and history of their family.
Nowadays, studying your family has become especially relevant.
As my grandmother says, modern families communicate very little not only
with distant but also close relatives. The connection between generations is lost.
Some young people don't even know their great-grandparents.
I see the purpose of my work as to better know my ancestry and preserve the most valuable material about family history for subsequent generations.
My work cannot lay claim to any global historical discoveries. First of all, I wanted to know about my great-grandmother.
Target:
Tasks:
- Meeting with the oldest representatives of their kind;
- Studying archive materials;
- Studying literature on the topic.
Research methods:
- Studying family archives, documents, photographs and interesting episodes from the life of representatives of my family
Subject of study: study of family history.
Objects of research:
1. Memories and stories of grandmothers and great-grandmothers about life.
2. Photos, documents,.
Relevance. We, today's generation, do not know our ancestors well, but from time immemorial it was customary for our ancestors to know their relatives.
Chapter I
Genealogy. Family tree
Genealogy is a special or auxiliary historical discipline that deals with the study and compilation of genealogies, ascertaining the origin of individual clans, families and individuals, identifying their family ties in close unity with the establishment of basic biographical facts and data on activities, social status and property.
Genealogy arose from the practical needs of the ruling classes, who needed to consolidate their kinship relationships for a variety of reasons. Knowledge of pedigree was required to determine a person’s place on the ladder of the social hierarchy. It was also necessary for inheritance law, not only in the field of inheritance of property, but also of power (dynastic law). In the field of archival affairs, genealogy also opens up great opportunities for finding new documents kept by the population. In this case, we are talking about identifying the living descendants of famous figures of the past and people from their environment.
A pedigree, or, as they used to say, a genealogy, is a sequential list of generations of people of your kind.
In the past of genealogy, family trees were the domain of only a privileged handful of aristocrats. And the entire mass of the common people “weren’t supposed to have ancestors.” But it is precisely millions of people who have the right to be proud of their ancestors, whose labor created the wealth of the Motherland.
Many peoples consider it a sacred duty to know their ancestry, at least up to the fifth generation. So in China, before the Eastern New Year, the family gathers at the festive table and remembers their ancestors up to the fifth generation. The peoples of the Altai Mountains know their genealogy down to the seventh generation.
Chapter II
The story of my family
I live in a friendly and hardworking family, which has great respect for the older generations and knows its family well. My grandparents, who were and are studying our genealogy with interest, became valuable assistants in this work.
Our family is large and friendly. I won’t be able to talk about everyone here, but I will still try to say a kind word about the most respected people in our family, about those with whom my family tree began.
My mother’s family begins in the village of Kyzyl-Dag and Kara-Khol, Bai-Taiginsky kozhuun, where my grandparents Kan-ool and Ilimaa Kandan live. They are shepherds: they graze cows, sheep, and goats. I come to them every summer and help with the housework. Now they are already 73 years old.
Grandfather Kan-ool’s parents are famous shepherds of the Tuvan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic; they were the first order bearers of socialist labor. These were hardworking people who raised a love of work in their children and grandchildren. Their names were Kandan and Urule. . They were very kind, loved their land and people. I want to tell you about my great-grandmother Urula Shyrapovna Kandan.
She is the first woman of Tuva to receive the medal of the hero of socialist labor in the Tuvan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the medal of the mother of the heroine.
“The true treasure for people is the ability to work.” This statement of the ancient Greek sage Aesop can be fully attributed to the beautiful woman - Hero of Socialist Labor Urula Shyrapovna Kandan. She, the heroine mother who raised and raised eleven children, could do everything: everyday, hard, intense work, and raising sons and daughters.
Over the course of a number of years, she quietly achieved remarkable production indicators, and for two years in a row she received 160 lambs from hundreds of queens. One day, employees of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic asked themselves a question: what is the equivalent of fifteen years of shepherding for Urule Shyyrapovna Kandan? They calculated it and were surprised themselves: it turns out that about six thousand animals were released and handed over to the state by this tireless woman, who was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on March 7, 1960.
In every clan, in every family there are people who glorify their family with their exploits, work, and talent.
For their kindness and hard work, the villagers decided to leave their names in history: one of the streets in the village of Teeli is named after my great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers.
This is our family: strong, successful and, I think, unique in some way. We treat all elders in our family with care. Every word of the great-grandmother, grandmother and grandfather is highly respected. I value their opinion and love all my loved ones very much.
Conclusion
So, with the help of our parents and grandparents, we reconstructed our family's ancestry as best we could. To do this, we collected information about all relatives. We tried to find out not only about those who are close to us, but also about those who are no longer alive [see. appendix 2].
I realized that I owe my life to many generations of my family. Therefore, we must treat our loved ones with care, not forget them, and help them in everything.
I have gained some experience in studying the history of our family. I will definitely continue this work and someday compile a real history of my kind. I hope that my family will definitely help me in the future.
Literature
1) Glorious daughters of Tuva. In Tuvan language. Kyzyl 1967, p. 29.
2) Honored people of Tuva of the 20th century. 2004, page 46.
3) National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan
Informants:
1. Kandan Kan-ool Salchakovna is the eldest son of Urule Kandan Shyyrapovna.
2. Kandan Tatyana Salchakovna - the youngest daughter of Urule Kandan Shyrapovna.
3. Saaya Ayana Kan-oolovna is the granddaughter of Urule Kandan Shyrapovna.
I am 60 years old, I am already a grandmother myself, but I often remember my grandmother Katya. When I was little, I loved listening to stories from my grandmother's life. She was illiterate, but a very religious woman. She had 12 children, and 10 of them died during the war, defending their homeland. I want to tell you a few stories that I heard from grandmother Katya. The stories are unusual, it’s hard to believe in them, but my grandmother said that this is the absolute truth.
There was a woman living in their village, everyone called her a witch, and they avoided her house. Her eyes were heavy, if she looked at the cow, then that day the cow would not have milk. With just one glance, she could damage any villager. Many said that at night she turns into a black cat. But people didn’t know how to prove this. One day all the men of the village gathered and decided to watch for the witch at night. They didn’t have to wait long; a black cat jumped out of the witch’s house. The witch herself did not have any cat, everyone immediately guessed that it was the witch herself. The men rushed after the cat with axes, and one man cut off its paw. Everyone noticed how the cat suddenly disappeared. The next morning everyone came to the witch again. And what they saw was the witch lying on the bed with her hand bandaged. There was no doubt that it was she who turned into a black cat at night. The men ordered the witch to leave their village and not return here again. The witch left, but the man who cut off the cat’s paw became disabled himself; he cut off his own hand while chopping wood for the winter. Everyone said that there was a witch's curse here. After the witch was gone from the village, the cows began to produce more milk, and people began to live more friendly.
Another story my grandmother told me happened to her when she was young. They were sailing with a friend on the lake, and an unfamiliar woman swam up to them and said that they would find a treasure on the island. The girls turned the boat around and swam to the indicated island. And in Karelia there were many lakes and many unknown islands. When my grandmother and her friend went out to the island, they found nothing there except a large number of fish husks. She was unnaturally large in size. They each took a handful of husks and casually tossed them into their pockets. When they returned home, they began to tell their relatives about what had happened. And the brothers asked them, where are the fish skins? And the girls quickly ran to their pockets. And what did they find there: instead of fish skins, there were gold coins in their pockets. The brothers quickly rushed to this island, but it was empty, not a single fish husk. They returned empty-handed and reproached their friends for a long time that they had not collected enough fish skins, which turned into gold coins.
I loved listening to my grandmother's stories and was a good, attentive listener. My grandmother said that during the war the Germans could not reach them because their village was surrounded by swamps and the Germans did not dare to make their way through the dangerous swamps. But enemy planes constantly flew over the village. And during the entire war, one cow was killed and one schoolboy was wounded. He and the boys were skiing in the forest, and the pilot from above mistook them for partisans. And then one day a German plane crashed near the village. All the people rushed to save him, not even suspecting how dangerous it was. After all, the German was armed, but the local residents had no weapons. And the grandmother said that the plane fell into a quagmire and began to quickly go to the bottom of the swamp. The German shouted something in his own language, but no one understood him. People have already decided that they need to save the person, even though he is an enemy. And then the unexpected happened, a little old man appeared, his clothes were made of branches. Old people began to say that this was a goblin, he always appeared in the forest to help people. Everyone thought that he would now help the German pilot, but he was running through the swamp around the sinking plane. The goblin was simply weightless; it seemed that he was not running, but flying. The German shouted and extended his hands to him, but the goblin did not react to his cries, but tried to drive away the curious people. And then the inexplicable happened. The plane was already completely swallowed up by the quagmire. The German stood up to his full height, grabbed a machine gun, and prepared to shoot unarmed people. But the goblin quickly jumped up to him, snatched the machine gun and threw it to the people. The German's head was already sinking into the quagmire. The goblin suddenly disappeared. And the German pilot’s machine gun remained in the village until the end of the war and reminded people of the goblin-savior. If not for him, it is unknown how this story would have ended.
My grandmother also told me about her husband, grandfather Mikhail. During the Finnish War he was captured. And he was sitting in a deep hole in the open air. It was very cold and hungry. My grandmother prayed every day for her husband, asking the Lord God to return from the war alive. When the grandfather returned, he began to tell his grandmother that some unknown force helped him in captivity. He sat in a hole in the open air and thought that it was all over and that they would bury him here. One day, early in the morning, a horse approached his hole. She looked at her grandfather for a long time. And then she disappeared, by lunchtime she appeared again and in her teeth she was holding a large bush with cloudberries. These berries are yellowish in color and look like raspberries, only bigger. Having thrown this bush with berries to the grandfather, the horse left. The next day, someone threw a bottle of moonshine into his hole. Grandfather drank it in small sips and warmed up. The next day at lunchtime he again saw the horse’s face; it was holding a cotton blanket in its teeth. Grandfather did not understand what was happening. Late at night something fell on my grandfather; it was a log. With its help, he got out of the hole. And what he saw: an already familiar horse stood in front of him. Grandfather climbed onto the horse; he had no strength at all. His body hung on her back. Grandfather lost consciousness, but realized that the horse was taking him somewhere. The next day the grandfather was with his family. He never parted with his savior. After the war, my grandfather came home with his horse. And he told his neighbors and grandmother about his savior. After the war, my grandfather undermined his health and began to drink frequently. But his savior saved him more than once in peaceful life. The horse always brought the drunken grandfather home and kept him from freezing in the harsh winters. When the horse died, the grandfather did not live long in this world. His frozen body was found in a snowdrift. So the grandmother became a widow and lived to be 96 years old.
We often learn about the love of our grandmothers not from them, but from films. From the sad ones, where a woman is waiting from the front for a missing person. The romantic and funny ones, where a girl and a guy fall in love with each other at a construction site, at lectures, in virgin lands. Because very often those grandmothers who could have told something different chose to remain silent. Let it seem like it was just like in a movie...
The cruel twentieth century wrote many life stories that you don’t want to share. Erasing them from your memory is the same as erasing the memory of these women.
Sundress - on ribbons
My great-grandmother was actually given in marriage to the first person they met, because they found a good groom for her younger sister, and “they don’t reap through a sheaf” - that is, a younger sister cannot be married off before an older one. The great-grandmother lived in her husband’s family for about a year, and in order to avoid fulfilling her marital duty, she slept on the stove with his grandmother all the time.
When Soviet power came, she was the first to rush to the neighboring village to get a divorce. Her husband, who had never come into his own, was watching her outside the village, “tearing her sundress into ribbons,” but she ran away and did not give in. And a few years later she met my great-grandfather, 6 years younger than her, fell in love, got married, gave birth to 4 children.
took pity
Our past neighbors - my grandfather and grandmother - got married during the war. She was a nurse, she was sleeping, and he raped her while she was sleeping. In the process, he realized that she was a virgin, was afraid of arrest and proposed marriage: “no one will marry you anyway.” She was scared and agreed. So he reminded her all his life: “If I hadn’t taken pity on you, no one would have taken you.”
Harmonist
My great-grandmother's sister fell in love with an accordion player at her own wedding and ran away with him. She gave birth to three children. He walked around and drank all his money away. Bill, of course. She and the children went to dinner with my great-grandmother. The great-grandmother was tired of feeding her sister, and she forbade her to come and bring her children. My sister went and hanged herself.
farmhand
My great-great-grandmother served as a farmhand in the house of a rural priest. Then the owner married his son to her. They lived together all their lives. According to family stories, the great-great-grandfather, as he got drunk on a holiday, began to tell his wife: you, they say, are a farm laborer, know, give your place.
Flaw
One of my grandmothers got married after the war when the men returned from the front. She had a loved one, but he lost a couple of fingers in the war. And the grandmother decided that she wouldn’t be able to feed without her fingers. She married her grandfather, who became an alcoholic. And the one without fingers later became an accountant. And he earned money and didn’t drink...
Activist
One of my great-grandmothers was forcibly married off at the age of sixteen to a security officer. She gave birth to three sons... And then her husband was shot. She gave up her sons from her hated husband to an orphanage and left for Siberia! She was a crazy activist and party leader, they say.
Turkish girl
My great-great-grandmother is a military trophy from the Russian-Turkish War. Her great-great-grandfather brought her from Turkey, after raping her, and then did her a favor and married her. Of course, she was forced to convert to Christianity. She died either from her fifth or sixth birth, very early, she was not even thirty.
Necessary
My great-grandmother's husband did not return from the front. She “lost” her passport, got a new one without a stamp, sent her daughter to the village and got married again. Keeping silent about the previous marriage, because who needs a widow with a child.
The deception was revealed about eight years later, and then the great-grandfather began beating the great-grandmother. Beat almost every day. She endured it, then broke his ribs. While he lay and fused his ribs back together, she nursed him, apologized and consoled him. After this my grandfather was born.
The great-grandfather continued to beat the great-grandmother, but carefully. Half-heartedly. It's scary because it happened. But what to do! Necessary.
Deacon
My grandfather held a grudge against his parents for a long time because his beloved sister was forcibly married to a clerk, known in the village for his evil temper. Soon after the wedding, she tied the goat poorly, it got loose and gnawed something in the garden. The husband beat his wife so that she lay prone for a long time and remained lame for the rest of her life.
Grandfather, having heard about this matter, tore the stake out of the fence and went to investigate. The clerk, having received his due, became quieter for a while, but the matter still ended badly. They were throwing haystacks, the husband somehow didn’t like how his wife gave him a fork, he hit her on the head with the handle of a fork, and she went blind.
Don't overdo it!
My great-grandfather, who was then about 35 years old, wooed my 15-year-old great-grandmother. She didn't want to marry someone so old. Then my great-great-grandfather beat her with the reins in the stable so that she wouldn’t go after rich suitors. She got married like a sweetheart... She gave birth to six daughters. Then the war began, and all six had to be raised by one. But after the war, she didn’t want to return to her husband, so she raised her daughters alone.
Unequal marriage
I was lucky enough to communicate with my great-grandmother, born in 1900. She lived in a village in southern Ukraine. She was married off at the age of 16 to a widower with three children. The widower was over 30, he limped and was generally a little crooked. But he paid off the numerous debts of my great-grandmother’s parents. In general, it was under these conditions that she was married off. Actually sold.
Pilot
During the war, my grandmother worked in the rear, at a factory. She was a very young girl, 15 years old. One day I fainted from hunger on the way to work. While they found her, while they pumped her out and found out who she was, the factory bosses almost put her in prison - for desertion and failure to show up at work.
To rectify the situation, her aunt goes to the front - the case is closed. After the war, my grandmother went to live in Georgia. I met a military pilot there; love at first sight! 9 months later my mother was born. When it came to the wedding, it turned out that she had a “criminal” past. The pilot was immediately recalled from the unit and... that’s it. Although my mother tried to look for my father all her life, she could not find him. They say I look a lot like him...
On different sides
My grandfather, a nobleman, left my grandmother alone with her two daughters in exile. When the Germans came to Latvia, my mother’s sister was sent to a camp. Mother went to fight for Russia, which she had never seen.
The grandfather found one of the daughters in the camp and, having learned that the second was in the Red Army, promised to personally hang her. A Russian officer with a full St. George's bow, he was in a German uniform. He was caught in Yugoslavia by Tito's partisans and shot. My mother had a different middle name all her life. And I’ve never even seen his card.
Changed my mind
One of my great-uncles dated a woman and loved her. One day she and a group of people went to the beach to swim, and there she was raped in the water. It’s as simple as that – they surrounded a bathing woman and raped her. He changed his mind about getting married.
Escape to marriage
After graduating from college, my future grandmother was assigned to work in a remote Uzbek village. So deaf that all those who arrived were thinking about how to escape from this “prison,” and the village authorities, accordingly, were thinking about how to keep them by force. They weren’t given leave, they weren’t issued documents, they weren’t allowed to travel to a neighboring town or even leave the village anywhere...
After two years of this hell, my grandmother seized the moment when the head of the collective farm left and escaped. She managed to knock out legal documents for vacation and rode out on a cart, and there was a chase after her: they knocked on the departing director, and he turned around and ordered to catch up... They didn’t catch up. Grandma came to her relatives to spend her vacation, but the question arose - how not to return when the vacation is over?
The solution we found was banal for our family. According to the law, a wife cannot be separated from her husband. Therefore, during a month of vacation, they found a decent groom who had a residence permit and a job in the capital, and married her off. The collective farmers, by the way, took revenge. When my grandmother asked them for her work record and other documents, they stated that they had lost everything. And my grandmother lived with my grandfather until his death, and it was half a century of marriage without love.
Master
My grandmother, the first singer and dancer in the village, married my grandfather - a stern, courageous, real man. Grandfather knew how to work and earn money, he knew how to do everything around the house - from sewing and cooking to repairing watches and furniture, he knew how to get scarce goods for the family in the most difficult years and to extract all kinds of benefits and allowances from the state. Then my grandfather returned from the war and finally became a dream come true - a “stone wall”, a breadwinner, a hero.
But the “stone wall” also had a downside. Grandfather was a real tyrant. Everything had to be just his way. Besides, he was amazingly stingy. Grandmother was not allowed more than one dress for going out, cosmetics, new bed linen, and was not allowed to use what was given by relatives and friends. It was not allowed to go to the cinema or theater because it was a waste of money...
For a long time I thought that they lived this way out of poverty, until I discovered that my grandfather kept a lot of money in a closet drawer. By the way, they didn’t like guests in the house. They lived together for more than fifty years. The grandfather understood perfectly well that he was turning his wife’s life into hell. In old age, after a series of strokes, when reality began to mix with the imaginary, he often had the same nightmare. That she will take revenge...
Kulak daughter
My grandmother was the daughter of a kulak, her family was exiled to Siberia. There the red commander had his eye on her. He got married to a revolver, threatened the whole family with lime... And after some years he found himself another wife, a young one. As a result, the grandmother carried both the children and the household on herself. And my grandfather’s “young” wife later left him.
Dresser
My great-grandmother died at 36, having had about 40 abortions. She herself was a nurse, her husband was much older than her. He married her by force. I came to her village with food appropriation, saw the young great-grandmother and issued an ultimatum: get married or dispossess your parents.
Then my grandmother was born, whom my father named after his first wife with a Jewish name; the first wife, also a fiery revolutionary, died of tuberculosis. My great-grandfather took my grandmother to her grave several times a year. Grandma didn’t love her own mother, and apparently her mother didn’t either.
Before my grandmother, my great-grandfather and great-grandmother had a boy who died as an infant. They buried him in a chest of drawers. This chest of drawers, without one drawer, stood in their apartment until their evacuation from Leningrad.
Article prepared by: Lilith Mazikina