MONOGRAF of the VILLAGE of VOLOKA V2 AAC Formatted
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MONOGRAF OF THE VILLAGE OF VOLOCA BY TOADER IONICA Translated by J. Ungrin Version II March 2009 Original Romanian version is published at www.Voloca.blogspot.com M ONOGRAF OF THE V ILLAGE OF V O L O C A Table of Contents About Toador Ionica 5 Translators Foreword . 6 PART I 1.1 The people who historically lived in our regions. The establishment of the Romanian people 8 1.2 The establishment of the Romanian population . 12 1.3 The period of the establishment of the Romanian peoples was long and difficult .. 13 1.4 The village of Voloca in ancient times. The first inhabitants. History and legends.. 17 1.5 Struggles and endless invasions, difficulties and suffering without an end in sight 30 1.6 From where does the name Voloca come for the village? .. 38 1.7 Voloca before and after 1775 .. 41 1.8 The village of Voloca and its inhabitants over times, in great detail . 47 1.9 Inhabitants of the village of Voloca. In 1774 Voloca was part of the estate of the Putna Monastery. 64 1.10 The management of the commune through the ages .. 66 1.11 The dialect of Voloca and the changes it suffered in different eras .. 70 1.12 The food of Voloca – preparation of meals 75 1.13 Clothing and dress of Voloca: Household industry and Crafts people . 79 1.14 The heating and lighting of homes in the distant past . 85 1.15 The houses and households of Voloca . 89 1.16 The predictions of our Volocan ancestors on things to come 95 1.17 The Cemetery at Holeriste ( TN: Translates as “of the Cholera” victims) 100 1.18 The customs and habits of our elders 102 1.19 Caslegile (Non-Lenten) and Lenten observances in the past 113 1.20 Remembrance of the dead. About memorial meals. The Ascensiion of Our Lord. Day of the Heroes... 115 1.21 Construction of the Chernauti-Suceava-Itcani railway line . 132 1.22 About “Bees” (construction get-togethers) “socials”, and merrymaking .. 134 1.23 Places where dances were held in the village .. 139 1.24 Talented musical artists from Voloca. Solos vocalists and instrumentalists. How we are losing our songs, hora, etc. .. 143 1.25 The Folclorul of Voloca 151 3 M ONOGRAF OF THE V ILLAGE OF V O L O C A PART II 2.1 Volocans, good householders and knowledgeable craftsmen 154 2.2 Dumitru Sfecla, a teacher in Voloca. A great celebration in Voloca. The celebration of Iordan (John the Baptist) on the Derelui .. 157 2.3 Forest Workers –Tree cutters and passionate hunters from Voloca . 165 2.4 Chichifoi came to the village to improve the icons on the alter of the church .. 169 2.5 Two economic institutions that existed in Voloca during the Austrian period .. 174 2.6 Volocans who departed for Canada and the USA 179 2.7 Other Volocans who emigrated to foreign states for various reasons .. 187 2.8 How WWI started 190 2.9 Our village during WWI . 192 2.10 The Great Reunion of 1918. The moment of quiet victory in the history of the Romanian people 209 2.11 The mixing of the population of northern Bucovina 230 2.12 Teachers who worked in Voloca shortly after the Great Union of 1918 . 233 2.13 Father Georgi Pojoga .. 236 2.14 Activities of Cultural Associations in Voloca over the period 1920-1930 .. 250 2.15 Gatherings and dances that took place in the past at the home of Grigori Vanzureac .. 254 2.16 Activities overseen by the societies. The formation of a choir and the results obtained 262 2.17 Education efforts of Ilie Repciuc, the Director of the primary school in Voloca .. 273 2.18 Intellectuals rising from the ranks of villagers from Voloca . 277 2.19 Consumer Co-operative in Voloca. The Association for Insuring Animals 283 2.20 General Census of the Romanian population for the commune of Voloca on the Derelui, located in the district of Chernauti, taken 29 December 1930 . 287 2.21 How the pupils and students of Voloca spent their school holidays . 292 2.22 Spiridon Porfiran . 296 2.23 In the east, in the sky, an enormous cross of fire . 302 2.24 Voloca, a rich and beautiful commune 304 (TN: – we are left with a final short history) 307 4 M ONOGRAF OF THE V ILLAGE OF V O L O C A About Toador Ionica Little is known about Toador Ionica other than what can be gleamed from the Monograf. “Google” only has references to this Monograf. To begin with, we look at the name. We have not come across the family name “Ionica” in thousands of records of the Voloca church covering births, marriages and deaths, over the period 1800 and 1920. The author, as you will read, uses many ways of naming people. Names like Mitruca, son of Nicholai, are sometimes all we are given. This leads one to ask if Ionica was just a very local family usage stemming from, for example, “Toader, son of Ionica” and that there was a more common Volocan family name like Paulencu or Penteliciuc or Ungurean or…., that has just been dropped. The author’s first name is spelled both “Teodor” and “Toader” at various places in the Romanian version of the document. There are a number of hints, not always consistent, to indicate that Toader Ionica was born in Voloca about 1905-1908. In Chapter 2.9 he tells us that he and his father were attempting to watch artillery from the top of a hill in Voloca in the fall of 1914 and the young boy attempted, unsuccessfully, to use binoculars. We can guess he was then 6-7 years of age. In Chapter 1.24 we find that his father was Gheorge Ionica and that his father was a talented player of the fluier. Unfortunately, Gheorge went to war in late 1917 and was killed shortly thereafter. Teodor was then left with just his mother. There is never a hint of any other siblings. Also in Chapter 1.24 we find that his mother was Domnica Gheorge Ionica and that he learned a lot of Romanian songs from her. Toader Ionica attended primary school in Voloca and then continued on to study in Chernauti, the district capital. While in “liceu” (approximately equivalent to high-school) he began to direct choirs of various sizes in Voloca, traveling back to the village several times a week. Chapter 2.16 details his efforts with the choirs in full detail. In Chapter 2.18 he lists his education as “graduated classical liceu” and “graduated Faculty of Law and State Affairs and became a functionary and a professor”. When the Russians took over northern Bucovina in 1940, he became a refugee but returned several years later. The path of his life then becomes a bit more difficult to follow. Toader returned to Voloca for some periods of his life, as we learn at various points, and he wrote chapters of the Monograf in a series of bursts, sometimes perhaps even during stays in Voloca. In the 1980s he was able to do some traveling further afield and he tells us in Chapter 2.7 that he was in Brasilia in 1983. He “wrote” the Monograf before the easy availability of word processors and it appears as if he dictated the stories to someone. We have learned from Mihail Onufreiciuc, who gave us the great gift of posting this work on Blogspot.com, that sometime around the end of WW II, Toader Ionica had been involved in a train accident and had lost the use of both his hands. He apparently dictated the Monograf to his wife who then “wrote” it. Mihail Onufreiciuc also supplied us with the information that Toader Ionica died in 2000 or 2001. He would have been in his early 80’s at that time. The original Romanian-language version of the Monograf was given by Toader Ionica to Radu Onufreiciuc, the grandfather of Mihai. We would like to dedicate this translation to the memory of Radu who passed away in 2008. Without his efforts and those of Mihai, his brother Ciprian and especially Mihai’s wife, Georgiana, who prepared the Romanian document for publication, we would all have missed the enjoyment of this important history of Voloca. 5 M ONOGRAF OF THE V ILLAGE OF V O L O C A Translators Foreword This excellent history of Voloca appeared on the web in Romanian in March of 2008. Since, to my knowledge, little in detail has been published in English on the village, it proved a goldmine to me. All four of my grandparents were born in the village (paternal – Ungurian from House 340, Penteliciuc from House 400; maternal - Hlopina from House 427 and Onufreiciuc from House 171) and immigrated to Canada with their parents and grandparents while quite young in the 1899-1910 period. I learned to communicate with them in Romanian but never did learn to read or write the language. Translating what I began to tentatively scan offered a significant challenge. Numerous problems have arisen during the translation attempt. The first is the lack of a solid background and expertise in Romanian. I spoke a local, rural, unwritten dialect (40-50 years ago) and have had little practice since. The second problem concerns the dialect of the language. Ionica has written in the dialect of Moldova – the dictionary available at the beginning of this attempt was printed in Bucharest, much further south.