During World War I, our people endured one of the most terrible tragedies in their history. Ukrainians living in the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, as citizens of two warring nations, found themselves on opposite sides of the front lines and were forced, against their will, to kill one another. What connected our region and city to Lviv and Galicia at that time? You won’t believe it, but quite a lot. For example, in the document “Decision of the Holy Synod, February 17–18, 1915, No. 1243,” we find the following entry:
Archbishop Anthony of Kharkiv, taking into account that the flock of Kharkiv consists of the descendants of settlers from Galicia and Volhynia (17th century), when organizing a collection for the Galicians, pointed out in his appeal the particularly close kinship between the residents of the Kharkiv Diocese and the Galicians, who were suffering from famine and ruin; and, in addition to the usual collections, designated January 25 as a special day for this purpose, promising in a special appeal that the collected sum, upon obtaining permission from the Holy Synod, would not be disbursed through the usual channels but would be sent directly, as a fraternal gift from Kharkiv to Lviv, to the charitable committee. Thanks to this, the collection proved to be very generous, and therefore His Eminence requested permission to send the amount collected on January 25—more than two thousand rubles—directly to the Galician Charitable Committee. The Holy Synod granted Archbishop Anthony’s request.
Some might say that this incident is purely propaganda. For me, however, it’s simply yet another example of the residents of our city demonstrating their compassion and sense of identity—as, incidentally, happened more than once back then. After all, you have to admit that if the people of Kharkiv didn’t consider themselves descendants of settlers from Galicia and Volhynia, they probably wouldn’t have donated any money.
During the war, a large number of refugees arrived in the city. However, at that time they were coming not from the southeast, but from the west. They were met, just as they had been several years earlier, at the South Station. Numerous charitable organizations sprang up in the city, including the “Society for Aiding the Little Russian Population Affected by Hostilities.”
Among the documents on this subject stored in the Kharkiv Regional State Archives, one can find, if so desired, some very interesting information related to the residents of Lviv and Galicia. In particular, these documents are highly valuable from a genealogical perspective.
After the Russian Empire’s army retreated from Galicia in 1915, administratively deported persons and hostages began to appear in our region. It goes without saying that all of them, as well as their places of residence, were registered and kept on record.
According to documents from the Kharkiv Governor’s archives, there were none in the Bohodukhiv District in the fall of 1916.
Nor were there any in the Okhtyrka, Zmiiv, Izium, Starobils’k, Kup’yans’k, Lebedyn, and Kharkiv districts.
However, they were present in the Vovchansky, Valkovsky, and Sumsky districts. Among the 13 people administratively exiled from Galicia was Vladimir Yakovlevich Dimitrishin, a resident of Lviv. Who knows—perhaps their descendants still live in this beautiful city to this day.
However, the largest number of hostages from Galicia were housed in Sumy.
All foreign clergy of the Protestant, Catholic, and Greek Catholic faiths who had arrived in our region during peacetime were granted prisoner-of-war status when the war began. However, there were also military chaplains who were taken prisoner during combat operations. All information about them, as well as their places of residence, was meticulously recorded. Therefore, in my opinion, documents of this kind may be of considerable interest to researchers of the history of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
Documents reveal that in 1917, Roman Adamovich Kalenyuk, a regimental chaplain in the Austrian Army, was stationed in the settlement of Terny in the Lebedyn District. He was also a Greek Catholic. He was taken prisoner along with the garrison of the Przemyśl Fortress. He arrived in Terny from a prisoner-of-war camp in Kyiv. His father, Adam Samsonovich Kalenyuk, an Orthodox priest from Lviv, also visited Terny. However, unlike his son, he found a calling in Sloboda Ukraine, where he began serving at the local Church of the Intercession.
In 1917, six Greek Catholic priests resided at the Holy Trinity Monastery in Okhtyrka:
- Ioann Vasilyevich Mokritsky,
- Mikhail Andreevich Radoshitsky,
- Grigory Maksimovich Gontarevsky,
- Vasily Antonovich Rudavsky,
- Emelyan Vasilyevich Linkovich,
- Daniil Yukhimovich Poloshimovich.
None of them were detained or arrested after the war began; they were forced to leave their parishes and became refugees.
As is well known, Austria-Hungary was a multinational state. A number of researchers have provided some very interesting data on the ethnic composition of the army. They note that by the beginning of the 20th century, 29% were Germans, 18% were Hungarians, 15% were Czechs, 10% were South Slavs, 9% were Poles, 8% were Rusyns, 5% each were Slovaks and Romanians, and 1% were Italians.
Attention was also paid to the nationality of prisoners of war in the Russian Empire.
For example, separate lists were compiled for Jewish prisoners of war.
And among all these mountains of documents dating back 100 years, one can find real treasures.
After all, the records contain extremely detailed information about individual soldiers. For example, we can learn that Private Joseph Tverdokhleb of the 3rd Uhlan Regiment was of Rusyn ethnicity, a Greek Catholic, born in 1896 in the village of Nadiby in the Sambor District, and was taken prisoner on September 16, 1915, near the city of Rivne. In addition to highly detailed biographical information—which is of immense value to descendants—such documents also contain photographs in very good condition. Thanks to this, we can now see the young Ukrainian Joseph Tverdokhleb, who found himself a prisoner of war in Sloboda Ukraine during World War I.
I think that back then, our ancestors didn’t really have a choice as to which side to fight on. They were simply fulfilling their duty as citizens of their country. Refugees, hostages, prisoners of war—these are far from the most pleasant chapters in history. However, they do connect two beautiful Ukrainian regions, Galicia and Sloboda Ukraine, and show us the full tragedy of a situation in which Ukrainians, fighting for different states, killed one another… Let’s hope that something like this never happens again in our history.
