Wessela Dolyna (Tarutyne)
| Wessela Dolyna | |||
| Весела Долина | |||
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| Basic data | |||
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| Oblast : | Odessa Oblast | ||
| Rajon : | Tarutyne district | ||
| Height : | 36 m | ||
| Area : | 2.18 km² | ||
| Residents : | 1,206 (2004) | ||
| Population density : | 553 inhabitants per km² | ||
| Postcodes : | 68544 | ||
| Area code : | +380 4847 | ||
| Geographic location : | 46 ° 14 ' N , 29 ° 19' E | ||
| KOATUU : | 5124780701 | ||
| Administrative structure : | 1 village | ||
| Mayor : | Petro Hramatik | ||
| Address: | вул. Радянська 49 68544 с. Весела Долина |
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Wessela Dolyna (Ukrainian Весела Долина ; Russian Весёлая Долина / Wessjolaja Dolina , German Klöstitz , Romanian Cleastitz or Cleaşniţa ) is a village in Tarutyne district , Odessa Oblast in Ukraine on the Chaha River. The place was founded at the beginning of the 19th century by German emigrants in the historical Bessarabia landscape .
history
founding
The place was established in 1815 as village number 4 among 25 Bessarabian German mother colonies in the Russian governorate of Bessarabia . Previously, Tsar Alexander I had called German colonists into the country in a manifesto of 1813. They were supposed to cultivate the newly won steppe areas that were awarded to Russia in the Peace of Bucharest after the 6th Russian Turkish War in 1812 . The manifesto met with approval due to its tempting offers (donation of land, tax exemption, religious freedom, etc.) and led to the emigration of several thousand people in the following years. The founders of Klöstitz came partly from Prussia and mostly from the Duchy of Warsaw (Warsaw colonists) with the Łódź area (see also History of the Germans in the Łódź area ). From these areas they went on a guided trek by horse-drawn cart, handcart and on foot. The emigrants reached central Bessarabia in September 1814, where they wintered in the villages of local Moldovans . They were joined by emigrants from Württemberg, Baden and the Palatinate, who had traveled down the Danube to the Black Sea using Ulm boxes .
In the spring of 1815, 134 emigrant families arrived on the steppe area assigned to them by the Russian settlement authorities. They came from Prussia (49), the Polish Duchy of Warsaw (45), from Württemberg (19), from Baden (14) and from the Palatinate (7). Until the first permanent buildings were erected in 1816, they lived in earth huts. The coexistence of Swabian and Palatinate speakers from south-west Germany and those from the north-east resulted in a local dialect . Like all German settlers in Bessarabia, the emigrants received around 66 hectares of land from the state for cultivation. The land was steppe-like overgrown with tall grass, thistles and weeds.
Surname
Initially, the name Emaut was used for the settlement and later the name Tschaha after the river flowing there. In 1818 the Russian administration established the name Klyastiz in the form of the welfare committee for the colonists of southern Russia . The place name refers to the battle of Kljastizy (today in Belarus Kljastiz / Клясціцы) as part of the Patriotic War . Under the direction of welfare committees, many of the newly established settlements for places of victorious battles against Russian were Napoleon named. The name was later Germanised by the residents of Klöstitz.
location
Klöstitz was located in the historical landscape of Bessarabia and in the southern Bessarabian steppe area of Budschak . The landscape is a slightly hilly country with fertile black earth soil . The settlers used the soil as arable land and pasture. Initially, the landscape was extensive and almost tree-free, but became richer in trees after the Second World War in Soviet times through afforestation. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the village was centrally located in the main settlement area of Germans in Bessarabia. It was not far from the large German market towns and centers of Germanness in Tarutino and Arzis . Klöstitz was located in an elongated valley of the Tschaha steppe river , which was also known as Schag in German. The valley is bordered by flat slopes with a height of about 30 m. In the course of time, the Neu-Klöstitz subsidiary settlement developed on the other side of the river, which later formed a unit with Alt-Klöstitz.
Yards
The village ground plan corresponded to the usual structure of German colonist villages in Bessarabia. There was a continuous main street and two parallel side streets with a large cross-connecting street between Neu- and Alt-Klöstitz. The farmhouses were lined up along the streets with the gable facing the street. The houses were single-storey, elongated buildings made of adobe bricks, plastered and whitewashed, and covered with reeds. An adobe wall served as the property boundary to the street. The plots were about 20 meters wide and 400 meters long. In addition to the residential and auxiliary buildings, there were various utility areas (threshing floor, hayloft). In the rear part of the property there was usually a large vineyard. Most of the villagers made a living from agriculture and in 1940 farmed a total of around 10,000 hectares of land.
Economic development
In the early years, the settlement was hit by epidemics , fires and bad harvests with above average frequency. In 1829 365 people died in the plague brought in as a result of the Russian-Turkish war . In 1831 a cholera epidemic passed through the town, which caused around 70 deaths when it reappeared in 1848. Low rainfall and plagues of locusts often resulted in poor harvests. During the German settlement period between 1815 and 1940, this was the case 17 times. Even animal diseases , such as anthrax , raged several times and snatched several hundred animals toward each. Klöstitz already had 2,000 cows in 1827. During the Crimean War , the village was affected by military billeting in 1855.
Despite the difficulties, Klöstitz developed well economically in the course of the 19th century. Viticulture , which benefited from the knowledge of the people who immigrated from southwest Germany , played a decisive role . Around 1850 the residents owned around 30,000 vines. Around 1940 there were 10 business enterprises, a dairy, a mill, two restaurants and a consumer cooperative in the village.
Administrative center and parish
In 1818 the Welfare Committee for the Colonists of Southern Russia designated Klöstitz as the seat of an area office serving the self-government of the settlers. He was headed by a high school from Klöstitz. The Bessarabian German settlements Borodino, Beresina , Leipzig, Paris, Brienne and Arzis were subordinate to the regional office ; later Friedenstal, Neu-Arzis, and Hoffnungstal were added.
From 1845 a pastor had his office in Klöstitz, which became a parish . In 1859 it included the places Beresina, Borodino, Hope Valley, Mathildendorf and Mansyr with 5,400 church members. The parish expanded through the establishment of new villages and by 1904 already had 10,200 members.
In 1871 self-government was restricted when the colonies were placed under the administration of the Tsarist Empire. Klöstitz retained its status as the administrative center, which was then called Wollost . Over the course of time, the administrative facility created a fire fund , an orphan's fund and, in 1910, a bank .
In 1874 the tsarist empire revoked the exemption from compulsory military service for the colonists, which had been promised for eternity. This made Klöstitz the pattern center for the German-born settlers in Bessarabia. The introduction of conscription caused a wave of emigration to North America. Even in Romanian times from 1918 onwards, the recruits from the neighboring communities in Klöstitz were mustered. 48 residents of German descent from Klöstitz died as soldiers on the Russian side in the Russo-Japanese War 1904/05 and in the First World War . A war memorial was erected for them in the village in 1930 . Today it is the only surviving war memorial of Bessarabian Germans in the former Bessarabia. Around 2005 it was provided with a fence and a cross with the help of donations from former villagers, the neighboring Soviet memorial from 1964 also received a fence with the help of the donations.
In 1929 the residents of the parish Klöstitz elected Immanuel Baumann as pastor . He looked after around 10,000 community members in around 10 German villages. In 1936 the Synod of the Tarutino parish appointed him senior pastor . He was thus a church representative for around 92,000 Bessarabian Germans. After the resettlement of the Bessarabian Germans in 1940, after the usual waiting period in a resettlement camp, he went with them to the Wartheland in Poland, which was conquered by Germany . In the Konin district , as settler pastor and superintendent , he looked after the resettlers in their new settlement area.
War memorial from 1930 for the villagers of Bessarabia German origin who died in the First World War
Inscription of the war memorial
On the left the Soviet memorial for soldiers who fell in World War II, on the right the war memorial from 1930
Church and school
Since religion strongly shaped the life of all Bessarabian Germans, the church and also the school were the focal points of village life. The locations of both facilities in the village center were determined when the village was founded. In 1843 a prayer house with a bell tower and a pastorate were built there. School lessons also took place in the prayer house until a school building of its own was built in 1872. School lessons only took place from autumn to spring, as many students did field work on their parents' farm in the summer.
53 years after the village was founded, a church building with a 50 m high church tower and 800 seats was inaugurated in 1868 . The church was built by the villagers themselves. Shortly after the resettlement of the German-born residents in October 1940, an earthquake struck Bessarabia, which caused considerable damage to the church. The remains of the building were used as a truck repair shop in Soviet times around 1944. In the 1990s the ruins were removed and the stones were used for road construction. The desecration occurred apparently for practical reasons, but also for political reasons. Throughout Bessarabia, in Soviet times, church buildings were used for other purposes as storage facilities or leisure clubs, as atheism was considered a fundamental part of Marxism-Leninism .
Inhabitants and resettlement in 1940
During the Russian colonization of Bessarabia in the 19th century, the various ethnic groups (Russians, Germans, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Gagauz, Jews) were each settled in their own villages. Almost exclusively residents of German descent lived in Klöstitz. Originally Romanians and Nogai Tatars lived in Budschak . The Tatars were expelled to the Ottoman Empire or resettled to Central Asia around 1812. The Romanians ( Moldovans ) stayed in the Budschak, but became a minority.
- 1862 - 1,350 inhabitants
- 1882 - 2,062 inhabitants
- 1900 - 2,488 inhabitants
- 1930 - 2,908 inhabitants, including 2,711 Germans, 66 Romanians, 60 Russians, 56 Jews, 9 Bulgarians and 6 Gypsies (Roma).
- 1940 - 3,212 inhabitants
At the end of the 19th century a lively club life developed in the village, for which there was a club house. In 1888 a women's association was founded to support the Alexander Asylum in Sarata . Later a wind choir, a cultural association and hunting clubs were established.
After the occupation of Bessarabia by the Red Army at the end of June 1940 as a result of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the residents of German descent were given the opportunity to resettle in the German Reich . Almost all entitled persons made use of this, because after the Soviet takeover the Soviet system was introduced, as in other villages in Bessarabia. At that time, 3,212 people in 717 families lived in the village. 82 residents were of non-German origin. The relocation of Klöstitz took place between September 27th and October 13th, 1940. Buses and trucks transported women, old people and children to the Danube port of Reni, about 150 km away . The men followed as a trek by horse and cart. The villagers traveled to the German Reich on Danube steamers and the railroad, where they were housed in camps in Thuringia . After 1 to 2 years of waiting, they were assigned new farms in the Konin district in the Wartheland , the Polish owners of which had previously been expropriated or expelled without compensation.
When the Red Army and with it the front drew closer at the beginning of 1945 , the Bessarabian Germans, like the rest of the resident German population, fled westward in refugee routes to what would later become the Federal Republic and the later GDR. Many former residents from Klöstitz were overrun by the approaching front. Quite a few people were killed or were deported to the Soviet Union for 10 years. After the Second World War , 91 families from Klöstitz settled in Vaihingen an der Enz in the Kleinglattbach district . Until today (2010) meetings of the former residents take place there, who keep in regular contact after Wessela Dolyna. Mutual visits take place at special anniversary celebrations.
After 1940 until today
The courtyards of the German-born residents in Klöstitz, which were vacant at the end of 1940, were initially taken over by 30 Polish families and families from the Moldovan and Bulgarian neighboring villages, who were housed there by the Soviet authorities. The development was reversed again when German and Romanian troops recaptured Bessarabia during the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 ( Operation Barbarossa ). In August 1944, the Red Army overran the area as part of Operation Jassy-Kishinev and several buildings, including the pastorate, were destroyed in the retreat battles . After that, people from other parts of the Soviet Union were settled in the place.
After 1945 Klöstitz belonged to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic . A few kilometers to the north was the border with the former Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic , now Moldova . In 1946 the place was officially renamed Wessela Dolyna ("Happy Valley"). As early as 1944, an agricultural state farm with 5,700 hectares of land was founded in the village , which included the fields of plant breeding and animal production . The joint company was the only employer in town. In the northern part of the village, the former upper village, a Soviet garrison was established , which practiced on a nearby military training area. This created a number of new buildings while older buildings were demolished. The garrison withdrew in 2002.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Ukraine's declaration of independence in 1991, the location near the border with Moldova has had a negative impact on the number of inhabitants and the number of jobs in the town.
In 2000, former German residents of Klöstitz inaugurated a memorial stone that reminds of the German history of the place and the resettlement of its residents in 1940.
town hall
School building from around 1990
Street in town
Culture house with library, pharmacy and doctor's office
Orthodox prayer house in a former farmhouse
Soviet memorial in place for soldiers who fell in World War II
Personalities
- Immanuel Baumann (1900–1974), German clergyman
- Arnulf Baumann (* 1932), German clergyman
- Viktor Dulger (1935–2016), German engineer and inventor
- Stepan Poltorak (* 1965), Minister of Defense of Ukraine
See also
literature
- Arnold Mammel: Klöstitz, the picture of home , 3rd edition, 2000, ISBN 978-3935027014
- Albert Kern (Hrsg.): Heimatbuch der Bessarabiendeutschen . Aid committee of the Evangelical Lutheran Church from Bessarabia, Hanover 1964.
- Klöstitz, 1815–2010 The development of a Bessarabian village , ed. by Winfried and Arnulf Baumann , Würzburg, 2011
Web links
- Private website about the place with emigration routes and genealogical data
- Map of the place and the surrounding area (Russian labeling)
- History of the place until 1848 (English)
- Street scene in winter with church around 1900
- List of fallen local residents in the First and Second World Wars
- Photos from the place, including the memorial stone, put up by former residents of Klöstitz
- Today's photos
- Data list of the German emigrants as founders of Klöstitz
