Perhaps, throughout the entire pre-revolutionary history of our city and region, 1915 was the most tragic and difficult year. It was the second year of World War I, during which the following events took place:
— the bloody “Carpathian Offensive” from January 7 to April 20;
— the siege of Przemyśl from September 1914 to March 1915;
— the Gorlice Breakthrough from May 2, 1915, to June 15, 1915;
— the “Great Retreat” from June 27 to September 14;
— the “Vilnius Offensive” in August–September.
All of this brought terrible grief to the families of the residents of Sloboda Ukraine over the loss of their loved ones.
The large-scale offensive launched by the German and Austrian armies in 1915 on the Eastern Front posed a threat of enemy invasion into new territories and the capture of the country’s key industrial centers. In light of this, the government began preparing to relocate the most important plants, enterprises, and factories deep into the rear—and not only from the western provinces. By mid-December, information about them had been compiled and was eventually published in compilations such as these:
Kharkiv newspapers of that time, in early 1916, reported:
…The largest number of evacuated enterprises were sent to Moscow—137—followed by Petrograd—53, Yekaterinoslav—21, Kharkiv—20, Nizhny Novgorod—17, Pskov—14, Orel—13, Poltava—12, Tver—7; among them were 170 machine and foundry plants, 6 glass factories, 29 chemical plants, 1 distillery and rectification plant, 8 breweries, butter-making plants—5, tanneries—25, shoe factories—22, woodworking plants—25, printing houses—18, and textile mills—43.
…During the war, 46 commercial and industrial enterprises were evacuated to Kharkiv. By trade sector, the evacuated enterprises are broken down as follows: 9 shoe warehouses, 12 haberdashery warehouses, 8 leather warehouses, 4 cloth warehouses, 10 textile warehouses, and 2 cardboard warehouses. Thirty-two warehouses were evacuated from Lithuania, 13 from Poland, and 1 from Courland. In addition, four tanneries were relocated to Kharkiv from Smorgon; one cast iron foundry and machine-building plant and one tannery from Minsk; one pasta factory from Riga; one shoe factory, and a plant belonging to the General Electricity Company; and from Warsaw—a shoe factory.
…As is well known, at one time a number of factories, plants, and artisanal enterprises were evacuated from the Kingdom of Poland to the interior provinces.
Data from the evacuation department of the Central Military-Industrial Committee shows, among other things, that some of these enterprises were relocated to Kharkiv, in the Kharkiv Province. Among these firms are the mechanical factory and cast iron foundry of the I. L. Zamarovsky Joint-Stock Company (near the “Chuguev” station), the Kozlovsky Screw-Cutting Factory (Kharkiv), the Krzeminski Factory (Kharkiv), the Shezamar Joint-Stock Company factory (Chuguev), the “Gerlach and Pulst” Machine-Building Plant (Kharkiv), the “Konrad Yanurshkevich & Co.” furniture factory (Kharkiv), and the “Maevsky & Co.” pencil factory (Slavyansk).
In the 1916 publication *Vacant Premises (for Plants, Factories, and Workshops) and Land Plots Offered for the Needs of Evacuated Industrial Enterprises*, one can also find quite a few advertisements from our fellow countrymen.
For example, Leonid Stepanovich Kuropatenko, a resident of Kharkiv, offered to sell an estate near the Rubizhne station in his application dated October 17, 1915.
However, statistics alone are not always enough to fully understand the scale of the evacuation to our lands in 1915. In today’s article, I would like to provide a more detailed account of what was evacuated and from where.
Let’s start with the Warsaw Governorate. In 1915, the following were evacuated to our city from Warsaw itself:
— the 8th Boys’ Gymnasium
— the “Gerlach & Pulst” machine-building plant;
— the Kozlovsky screw-cutting factory;
— the Krzeminski metal products factory.
The Prushkovsky Metal Works was relocated to Slavyansk. The “Sheroka” mechanical workshop was also evacuated to what was then the Kharkiv Governorate.
The following items were transported from the Vilna Governorate to our city:
— Judicial investigator for particularly important cases at the Vilnius District Court;
— The Vilnius District telephone network;
— G. M. Dojno’s Vilnius Steam Stocking Factory;
— “Motor,” A. Piness’s machine-building plant in Vilnius.
The following were evacuated to the city of Slavyansk:
— the Vilna Psychiatric Hospital;
— the Vilna District Hospital.
And in Izyum—the district offices of the military commanders of Vileika and Oshmyany.
The only facility from the Vitebsk Governorate to end up in Kharkiv was the “Kozhevnik” leather factory in Dvina.
From the Grodno Governorate—the Białystok telephone network.
From the Kyiv Governorate—the Kyiv Teachers’ Institute.
The Hentsin Higher Primary School (Radom Governorate) was evacuated to Lebedyn.
The Minsk Zemstvo Administration, as well as the Minsk Zemstvo’s warehouse of agricultural machinery and implements and the Kovalevsky-Trilsky Joint-Stock Company for the Sale of Agricultural Machinery and Implements, were relocated to Sumy.
The Art and Industrial Workshop of the city of Kamianets-Podilskyi (Podolia Governorate), after being evacuated to our city, was housed within the walls of the commercial school. The Volochysk customs office, also from the same governorate, was evacuated to Kharkiv.
A large number of different factories from the beautiful city of Riga (Livonia Governorate) have also found a home in our city:
— Gratman’s oil mill;
— the “Kometa” mechanical shoe factory;
— Kropman’s shoe component factory;
— the “Leitner & Co.” automotive and mechanical plant;
— the “Leman & Grossman” tinware factory;
— the “Rakuzon” Mechanical Plant;
— the “Silva” Woodworking Factory;
— the Freinkel Steam-Powered Tannery;
— the “Spielberg” Mechanical Plant;
— the Steinnert Scale Factory.
The Essen Riga Porcelain Factory was evacuated to Slavyansk.
The Libavskoye II Municipal Elementary School, as well as the city’s post and telegraph office and the stock exchange telegraph office, were also evacuated to Kharkiv. And from the beautiful Latvian city of Kovno (now Kaunas), which was then the center of the province of the same name, Count Platov’s boys’ gymnasium and the Hansvold private girls’ gymnasium found their way to our beloved city. The Novo-Alexandrian Agricultural Institute (Lublin Province) also found a home in Kharkiv.
Many religious institutions were also relocated to our city and region. For example, the Kholm Theological School and its administration were moved to Kharkiv. And the Volyn Theological Seminary was relocated to Kupiansk. However, important institutions were not evacuated only to the heart of Sloboda Ukraine. There were quite a few of them in other cities of our region as well.
For example, Volchansk was home to the Dubno Gymnasium for boys and girls. Akhtyrka was home to Remizova’s Zhytomyr Commercial School. And Sumy was home to quite a few institutions from the city of Rivne, including:
— noble guardianship;
— county council;
— children’s shelter;
— administration of the Rivne County Hospital.
Archival documents reveal the reason for this. It turns out that the original plan was to evacuate these institutions to Akhtyrka. However, by that time, there simply were no available spaces in the city. Therefore, the institutions from Rivne were housed in Sumy.
So it wasn’t just factories and small-scale industrial enterprises that temporarily “relocated” to our lands in 1915. We mustn’t forget that the evacuation of that time also involved the people who worked there and their fates.
Who could have imagined back then that refugees, the wounded in hospitals, evacuated factories, volunteers, and the funerals of loved ones killed in the war would come to define Kharkiv not only in 1915, but also in 2015…
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