Between Kosiv and Kuty There Is a Bridge Where Baal
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Kosiv Between Kosiv and Kuty קאָסעוו .Pol. Kosów, Ukr. Косів, Yid There is a bridge Where Baal Shem Used to stroll… A Hasidic song Among the Hutsuls ¶ Kosiv is the fortalice, fortified noblemen’s residence centre of the Galician Hutsulshchyna smaller and less imposing than the real region, named after the Hutsuls, an fortress. The Kosiv fortalice dominated autochthonous people of the Carpathian the town and served defensive purposes mountains, cattle breeders and crafts- during the invasions of the Tatars and men, whose folklore has been nurturing Turks as well as during the attacks of and is still nurturing Hungarian music, other noblemen who sought to conquer Romanian folklore, Polish art, and Kosiv and include its lands under their Ukrainian literature. Kosiv is a moun- rule. ¶ When Kosiv and its surround- tain town, situated on the edge of the ing lands became part of the Polish- Ukrainian Carpathians in the valley Lithuanian Commonwealth, the town of the Rybnytsia River, a tributary of acquired a status of the “crown lands” the Prut. To the north, rising above it, (królewszczyzna) possessions. In the is the Town Hill (432 m). ¶ The first 1579 tax register, the name “Koshov, mention of Kosiv dates back to 1318, oppidum” (Koshov, a town) was used when it was part of the Principality for the first time, along with the name of Galicia-Volhynia. A century later, “Koshov, villa” (Koshov, a village). That Lithuanian Duke Švitrigaila Algirdaitis document lists Kosiv as a private town (son of Algirdas) granted the ownership owned by one Michał, whose last name of the villages of Kosiv, Berezovo, and and rank in the feudal hierarchy remain Żabie (Zhabie, now Verkhovyna) to his unknown. This private town near Stary “faithful servant,” a Moldavian boyar (that is, Old) Kosiv together with four named Vlad Dragosynovych. This event nearby villages formed a distinct Kosiv is reflected in a document of August district. ¶ Kosiv prospered thanks to 31, 1424, composed in the Ruthenian the salt trade, which made it a tempt- (one of the official languages of the ing target for raiders. In 1740, it was Grand Duchy of Lithuania), a form of attacked by a gang of Oleksa Dovbush, High Medieval Ukrainian. ¶ In the 17th a rebellious outcast who lived from century, a wooden fortification was built 1700–1745 and who entered Ukrainian at the top of Town Mountain. It was a folklore as a champion of poor people’s Kosiv, a panorama of the town. Photo by J. Jaroszyński, collection of the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) rights. In 1759, the nobleman Tadeusz town, called up a private army to defend Dzieduszycki, the then owner of the Kosiv against such raids. „ Once, the Baal Shem Tov – the Besht – asked Dovbush a question: ¶ – How much longer do you plan to be a robber? Look, you have so much goodness and love for all creation in you; can’t you settle down somewhere, work the land, build a house, take a wife, have children, raise them and just live, as God commanded? Why do you sin so? […] ¶ And Dovbush began to excuse himself: ¶ – What else can I do, holy man? I grew too big and too healthy, and I was the only pride and joy of my mother, a widow. In our mountains, no one knew how much evil there was out there. In our mountains, as you know, there are no masters, we do not know what an overseer’s knout or whip is, our backs are proudly erect, and we are free like eagles. The forest is ours, we cheerfully hunt bears and deer; the meadows are ours, our sheep graze on them; you can hear the pipes, flutes, and bagpipes that the shepherds play to while away the time on long sunny days. ¶ Then recruiters and commissioners came to conscript us, cut off our long curly hair, put us in tight uniforms, and took us far from home, to Vienna, beyond the deep Danube, where even ravens would not find our bones. They brought us to Kolomyia, where we were guarded by soldiers. We talked long into the night, girded our loins, and then we attacked the guards, tied them up, and ran away back to our mountains with their weapons. From then on, we have been fighting them and their laws. Fighting to the death. The fight is hard, and our life is bitter. ¶ Translated from: Dov Ber Horowitz, Dobosz (Dovbush) in: Wunderleche mayses, Warsaw 1923 According to a late 18th-century census, families, and seven Roman Catholic ¶ Kosiv Kosiv comprised nearly 250 Greek families. With the First Partition of Catholic families, more than 110 Jewish Poland (1772), Kosiv was incorporated into the Habsburg Empire. Under form an independent community. Only Austrian rule, in addition to the salt in the 18th century, a Jewish cemetery industry, other crafts developed: carpet was established, indicating the grow- weaving, wood-crafts, and ceramics. ing independence and prosperity of the From 1850, Kosiv became a weaving local community able to negotiate its centre, with its own Weaving Society own privileges with the town owner – and a School of Weaving established and pay for them. Hoping to increase in 1882. ¶ After the outbreak of World their revenues, the Jazłowiecki and War I, Kosiv found itself under Russian Dzieduszycki families, the town owners, occupation (1914–1915 and 1916–1917) issued trade and residential privileges and was subject to pogroms and pil- encouraging Jewish merchants and laging. In November 1918, it fell under craftsmen to settle in Kosiv. Gradually, the rule of the West Ukrainian People’s the town centre became home to Jewish Republic, and after May 26, 1919, came merchants and Jewish leaseholders of under Romanian occupation. In August, salt refineries, mills, landed estates, and 1919, along with the surrounding towns, inns. ¶ In the second half of the 18th Kosiv was incorporated into the Repub- century, the Hasidim, Jewish pietists and lic of Poland. ¶ In the interwar period, mystically-oriented religious enthusi- a number of Ukrainian associations and asts, settled in Kosiv. They joined the political groupings were established old-generation pietists, called today the in Kosiv – both legal (e.g. the Society “small-case hassidim” – ascetic Kab- of Stone Cutters, the boy-scout “Plast,” balists who had here their own koyz, and the Ukrainian Women’s Alliance) an exclusive prayer and study house for and illegal (the OUN, Organisation of members of the pietistic elite. Among Ukrainian Nationalists; and the CPWU, the town’s residents there were old and the Communist Party of Western new religious enthusiasts, such as Rabbi Ukraine). Other organisations were also Nachman (d. 1746), Rabbi Baruch ben active, including the Polish Society of Abraham (d. 1782), and Rabbi Mena- Friends of Hutsulshchyna, the Jewish chem Mendel (d. 1825). Between 1790 “Merkaz Ruchani” (Spiritual Center) and and 1942, the town rabbis were mostly the Maccabee Sports Club. Kosiv had of Hasidic descent and relatives of Rabbi guest houses that could accommodate Yaakov Kopl Hosid (Yaakov Kopl ben as many as 3,000 people a year, and Nechemia Feivel, known as “Hasid from eventually it became a mountain health Kolomyia,” d. 1787), a disciple of the resort. It was precisely this transforma- founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, tion that, in 1938, led to the failure of (known as the Besht), who had a beauti- the salt refinery, which had earlier been ful voice and also served as a hazzan the driving force behind the economic (synagogue cantor). ¶ As the legend has development of Kosiv. it, in the 1720s, the founder of Hasidism, Baal Shem Tov, lived in solitude in a cave The Jews of Kosiv ¶ Most likely, by the lake near Kosiv. For seven years, Jews settled in Kosiv as early as the 16th he prayed and meditated there, but also or early 17th century, but they did not carried out hard physical work – he cut wood, prepared charcoal which his wife a living. This episode is reflected in an was selling in nearby villages to make old Hasidic Yiddish song: Fun Kosew biz Kitew Between Kosiv and Kuty Iz a brikele faranen There is a bridge Awu der Bal-Szem, awu der Bal-Szem Where Baal Shem Szpacirn iz geganen… Used to stroll… Fun Kosew biz Kitew Between Kosiv and Kuty Iz a tajchele faranen There is a river Awu der Bal-Szem, awu der Bal-Szem In which Baal Shem Zich tojwlen iz geganen… Would perform ritual ablutions… Fun Kosew biz Kitew Between Kosiv and Kuty Iz a weldele faranen There is a forest Awu der Bal-Szem, awu der Bal-Szem Where Baal Shem Af hisbojdedes iz geganen… Went to be alone and pray Fun Kosew biz Kitew Between Kosiv and Kuty Zajnen fejgelech faranen There are birds Awu der Bal-Szem, awu der Bal-Szem That Baal Shem Lernen szire iz geganen… Visited to learn songs… One of the Hasidic legends in Sefer baal Shem Tov) hassidim established Shivchei haBesht (Hebr.: Book in their own prayer houses (kloyzn), where Praise of Baal Shem Tov, 1814) tells of they used a kabbalistic prayer book of a meeting in the mountains near Kosiv the safed Kabbalist Isaak Luria (known between the Besht and the infamous as Arizal). There were three suchkloyzn bandit Oleksa Dovbush: one day, the in Kosiv. Later in the 18th century, the great tzadik helped Dovbush escape Beshtian Hasidim settled in Kosiv and from Hajduk soldiers by showing him established a dynasty of tsaddikim a path through a mountain gorge. The which also gave rise to an important grateful outlaw presented him with Vyzhnytsia Hasidic dynasty (which a pipe, which the Baal Shem Tov is said emerged in the nearby Vyzhnytsia).