Gammalsvenskby
Verbivka (Standard Swedish: Gammalsvenskby, local Swedish dialect: Gammölsvänskbi; literally: "Old Swedish Village"; Ukrainian Старошведське, Staroshveds'ke) is a part of the village Zmiyivka (Ukrainian: Зміївка, Russian: Змеевка) in Beryslav Raion of Kherson Oblast, Ukraine which has a Swedish cultural heritage. Note that the whole surrounding area once belonged to the German as well as various Protestant colonizers, particularly Lutherans and Mennonites. In close proximity there is Askania-Nova.
The founding of Gammalsvenskby
The population of Gammalsvenskby traces its origins back to Hiiumaa (Dagö) in present-day Estonia, once a part of the Realm of Sweden. Under the reign of Catherine II of Russia, the Swedish-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. Some sources label the migration as outright expulsion, others point to the fact that the poor and oppressed serf 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 German 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 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 (Church of Sweden) 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 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 once again cut off the communication channels. After the Russian revolution, the villagers pleaded for the right to leave the Soviet Union and settle in Sweden, where their case had been adopted by a movement with a nationalist flavour, supported by archbishop Nathan Söderblom. 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, a country to which earlier emigrants from Gammalsvenskby had gone. Most of them settled in Manitoba. Some later returned to Sweden.
The majority of the villagers stayed in Sweden, many of them settling in Gotland. 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, the first families left before the end of 1929.
During in the USSR
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 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. Five of them were sent to prison. Several villagers were killed in the Stalinist purge of the following years.
When the German army 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 in Warthegau in the occupied Poland, and nearly 150 were caught by Soviet authorities at the end of the war and sent to labor camps – Gulags, 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 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 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 (about 80% of the village). The newly relocated population also was prohibited by the authorities to exercise their traditional holidays such as Vertep during Christmas. They were also perceived by the locals as the Nazi-collaborators and, thus, the fascists.
Gammalsvenskby today
After the fall of the Soviet Union, contacts with Sweden have been reestablished. Some economic support has been given by the Church of Sweden and Gotland Municipality. In 1996, Chumak, a Swedish-owned company that produces oil, ketchup and canned food, was established in the nearby town of Kakhovka. 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), 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.
- Example of local vocabulary
| Old-Swedish | Swedish | English |
| Pärter | Ankor | Ducks |
| Kardefflar | Potatis | Potatoes |
| Baglescani | Tomater | Tomatoes |
As late as 2008, the Swedish king and queen visited Gammalsvenskby.
See also
External links and further reading
- Stackholmnews:Swedish village in Ukraine (October 2009) Template:En icon
- 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: [1]
| Europe |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Americas | ||
| Oceania | ||
See also: Nordic diaspora and Swedes | ||
