Nikola Shuhaj
Nikola Šuhaj ( Микола Петрович Сюгай , born April 3, 1898 in Nižní Koločava , today Ukraine ; † August 16, 1921 on the Polonina Žalopka) was a robber from Carpathian Ukraine . He is best known as the eponymous hero in the novel The Robber Nikola Šuhaj by the Czech writer Ivan Olbracht .
Life
Nikola Šuhaj was born as the son of the woodcutter and small farmer Pedro Šuhaj in Koločava in Carpathian Ukraine, then part of Austria-Hungary , and grew up with his family. In 1917 he was drafted into the military, but he deserted twice from his 85th regiment stationed in Hungary and fled to his homeland. During his second escape, he was discovered by police officers in his hometown. He shot two of his pursuers and had to hide in the woods until the end of the war. After the Hungarians fled Koločava at the end of the war, he left his hiding place and returned to his village, which now belonged to Czechoslovakia . He married his childhood sweetheart Eržika Dračová and initially led the life of a farmer for a year and a half.
In 1920 Nikola Šuhaj became a robber out of necessity . First he stole two barrels of cheese from shepherds who had their mountain pasture near his village. Although he was masked with a scarf, he was recognized and arrested two days later. Since the police could not immediately take him to the next larger town, Volovec , they handcuffed him to a sewing machine in their office . His wife Eržika brought him food, and after three days she helped him escape. She later claimed in a court investigating police behavior that she had sold all of her cattle to bribe the auxiliary officer. However, the court did not believe her. A police officer who was supposed to find them tracked them down and mistakenly shot his wife, who later suffered a miscarriage as a result. As a result, Shuhaj shot the policeman. Now it was impossible for him to return to a middle-class life.
He gathered a gang of about 10 men around him, the stagecoaches, wagons that drove to the market in Khust and attacked and robbed hikers. At the same time, many robberies were committed in the region , which were also attributed to him, but no culprit could be proven. Because Šuhaj and his gang only ambushed wealthy people and distributed parts of their booty among the poor, also to pay off smaller debts, he quickly became a folk hero. During a wildcat strike workers in Khust carried a banner: "Nikola Šuhaj leads us!" The Czechoslovak police became increasingly nervous because they failed to stop him. The police station in Koločava was increased to 40 men and tried to get information from the villagers about his hiding place by means of arrests and beatings. The huts of Šuhaj's father and his in-laws were set on fire, his father fled to Romania, and his younger brother joined the band of robbers. A reward of 3,000 kroner was offered upon Šuhaj's capture.
Finally, in August 1921, they were tracked down through treason. There was a shooting outside the mountain hut where they were hiding, in which Nikola Šuhaj was seriously wounded. A policeman, who was later claimed to be her lover by Šuhaj's wife Eržika, was shot dead, but the Šuhajs managed to escape again. Three days later, on August 16, 1921, Nikola Šuhaj and his brother were killed with axes by three members of their gang who wanted to secure the reward. The police officers who were summoned rifled their bodies with bullets and reported to their superiors that they had tracked down the Shuhajs and shot them in a firefight. But because Šuhaj's cronies wanted to get their reward, the dizziness was exposed. Because they are said to have stolen 6,600 kroner from the deceased, they were charged with robbery and murder before the district court in Khust , but acquitted after eleven months of pre-trial detention, with reference to the dangerousness of Shuhaj and her poor mental capabilities. Disciplinary proceedings were opened against the police officers involved in Užhorod because of the false report of Šuhaj's death in a firefight and their behavior in Koločava, they were accused of arson and bribery . However, only the chief of the Koločava Police Station was sentenced to a disciplinary penalty and dismissed from service.
Legends
Legends quickly grew up around Nikola Šuhaj's life and death. It was said that he fended off the police bullets with a green magic whip, and that his magic shotgun with an incised cross never missed its target. He was also invulnerable: he deserted during the war with a friend in Russia and fled to the house of a witch who wanted to marry him and his friend to her two daughters and prepared them a magic potion to protect them from the dangers of war. However, when the deserters realized they were dealing with a witch, they killed the woman and fled. On the run, they shot each other to get wounded and thereby become unfit for war, but they found that the magic potion had made them invulnerable. Songs about Šuhaj, mostly with one stanza and alternating with the shepherd's pipe, were sung by the shepherds in the mountain meadows:
"The cuckoo called, set on dry wood. They killed Suchaj, the days are difficult now.
Erzica became a widow, the little child orphaned, the cool earth, Nikola, they left you alone. "
The cuckoo was considered by the pagan Slavs as a place of refuge for the dead souls.
Among the Ukrainians of his homeland, Šuhaj was considered the successor to the legendary opryschky , bandits who fled to the mountains and forests out of a love of freedom, stole from the rich and distributed their booty to the poor. Its most famous representative was Oleksa Dovbuš , who lived in the Carpathian Mountains in the middle of the 18th century. The Ukrainian language, like the brigands in Italian , differentiates them from predators who only go for prey. In Czechoslovakia, Šuhaj's actions caused a sensation. The writer and journalist Ivan Olbracht wrote two books about him, which could not be translated into Ukrainian and were banned from reading in middle schools. Milan Uhde , signer of Charter 77 and after the " Velvet Revolution " 1990 Czech Minister of Culture, wrote a drama about his life in 1975: "Balada pro banditu", which was filmed in 1978. In 2002, the musical "Koločava" about his life, composed by Petr Ulrych and Stanislaw Mosa, was performed in Brno .
literature
- Ivan Olbracht : Nikola Šuhaj loupežník. Prague 1933
- Ivan Olbracht: Hory a staletí. Prague 1935
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Shuhaj, Nikola |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | european predator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 3, 1898 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Nižní Koločava |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 16, 1921 |
| Place of death | Žalopka |