Czech settlers in Volhynia (Volhynian Czechs)

Significance

The Volhynian Czechs are one of the largest and best-documented Czech communities abroad. Hofman describes them as the most numerous and, nationally, best-preserved group among the 1945–1950 re-emigrants [VCH01]. The topic matters for this site because it covers almost 80 years of shared life of Czechs and Ukrainians on one territory: from land purchases after the abolition of serfdom to the departure of 1947. It also explains why communities in Czechia trace their origin to Volhynia.

History

Beginning of the emigration. Sources date the beginning differently. Hofman ties it to an advertisement in Národní listy in February 1868 [VCH01]. The Ukrainian article names first settlements of the “Czech Brethren” as early as 1859 (Pidhaitsi and Pohorilttsi in Dubno county) [VCH02]. The Encyclopedia of Ukraine lists Liudhardivka (1863) among the principal Czech settlements [VCH03]. According to Hofman, the reasons for leaving were poverty, shortage of land, Germanisation pressure and the consequences of the 1866 war; cheap land, freed after the abolition of serfdom (1861) and the suppression of the January Uprising (1863), was the attraction [VCH01]. Hofman names František Přibyl and Josef Olič as organisers [VCH01]. According to press estimates, almost 16,000 people moved to Volhynia in 1868–1880 [VCH06; VCH08]. Settlers were promised religious freedom, self-government, tax exemption and freedom from military service [VCH02; VCH08]. The Ukrainian article says Alexander II signed the regulation “On the settlement of Czechs in Volhynia” on 10 July 1870 [VCH02]. In 1870, according to the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Czechs were allowed to become Russian subjects [VCH03].

Farming and settlement. Colonisation was fastest in the first decade: more than a hundred villages were founded or settled in ten years, later only a few a year [VCH01]. The 1897 census recorded 27,670 people of Czech origin in the governorate [VCH02]. At the turn of the 20th century Czechs made up, according to Hofman, about 0.95% of Volhynia’s population, almost entirely in the countryside [VCH01]. They grew hops and developed brewing [VCH02]. The Encyclopedia of Ukraine says almost all Volhynian Czechs converted to Orthodoxy, though some stayed Protestant [VCH03]; the Ukrainian article gives over 66% Orthodox in the 1897 census [VCH02].

Schools and associations. Teaching began in cottages; according to Hofman, 31 Czech schools with 1,417 pupils operated in Volhynia in 1890 [VCH01]. The Ukrainian article gives 19 schools with 733 children for 1875–1878 [VCH02]. After the tsarist privileges were abolished on 8 October 1887, schools were Russified and turned into parish schools [VCH01]; the Ukrainian article also describes a change of policy in the 1880s [VCH02]. In the Polish part, the Czech School Matice was founded in Lutsk in 1923 and ran thirteen private schools [VCH01]; the Ukrainian article adds that a Czech secondary school operated in Lutsk in 1928–1939 [VCH02]. In the Soviet part there were 25 Czech state schools in 1936, but in 1937 teaching in the mother tongue was banned in minority schools (except Jewish ones) and teachers were persecuted [VCH01].

Wars. In the First World War Volhynian Czechs took part in forming the Czech Druzhina [VCH02; VCH03]. The Peace of Riga in 1921 divided Volhynia between Poland and the USSR [VCH01]. On 13 July 1943 the Germans burned the village of Český Malín [VCH02; VCH06]. In 1944 thousands of Volhynian Czechs joined the Czechoslovak Army Corps [VCH02; VCH05].

Re-emigration 1947. The agreement on the right of option and resettlement was signed in Moscow on 10 July 1946, as also confirmed by a document of the Czechoslovak Provisional National Assembly [VCH04; VCH01]. The right to move belonged to families headed by a Czech (or a Czech widow) living on the territory of the former Volhynia Governorate [VCH01]. The first transport left Dubno on 30 January 1947 and the whole transfer took 109 days [VCH01]; the first transport reached Žatec on 8 February 1947 [VCH06]. The community wanted to settle compactly around Žatec and Podbořany, but in practice families were dispersed over 64 districts [VCH01]. The Union of Czechs from Volhynia was founded in Žatec [VCH01; VCH02]. About 1,000 women married to non-Czechs stayed in Volhynia [VCH01]; another estimate says about 10,000 Volhynian Czechs remained there [VCH05].

Later. In 1991–1993, 1,812 “Chernobyl compatriots” from Mala Zubovshchyna, Malynivka and Korosten moved to Czechoslovakia (outside the historical borders of the Volhynia Governorate, so the 1946 agreement did not apply to them) [VCH01; VCH07].

Czech/Ukrainian link

The Czechs lived in a mixed environment: according to Hofman, Ukrainians made up about 70% of Volhynia’s population at the turn of the 20th century, and Czechs generally spoke Ukrainian, Polish and Russian [VCH01]. The Ukrainian article says Czech settlers brought advanced farming methods but warns against exaggeration in memoirs (“Czechs taught Ukrainians to farm”) [VCH02]. The self-name “Volyňáci” still includes Ukrainian words in Czech [VCH02]. In Czechia the community is commemorated, for example, by Volyňských Čechů street in Žatec and a plaque at the railway station unveiled in 2017 [VCH06].

Discrepancies in the sources

• Start of emigration: 1859 [VCH02], 1863 (Liudhardivka) [VCH03], 1868 [VCH01; VCH06]. The difference may depend on whether individual “Brethren” settlements or the organised movement are counted; this is an inference, not a statement in the sources.
• Organisers’ names: Hofman gives František Přibyl and Josef Olič [VCH01]; the Ukrainian article gives Yosyf Pryzhybil (Йозеф Пржибіл) and Volodymyr Olich (Владімір Оліч) [VCH02]. The names need checking in archival or biographical reference works.
• Number of re-emigrants 1947: 33,070 [VCH01]; 33,077, of whom about 800 non-Czechs [VCH05]; “almost 33 thousand” [VCH02]; “forty thousand” [VCH06]. Hofman does not count the Corps soldiers (over 7,000 who stayed in Czechoslovakia) or forced labourers in Germany [VCH01]; the sources do not explain how the 40,000 figure was derived.
• 1944 volunteers: at least 10,526 [VCH05]; almost 11 thousand [VCH02]; 12,000 according to the explanatory report on the 1946 agreement [VCH04].
• Length of the transfer: 109 days from 30 January 1947 [VCH01]; February–April 1947 [VCH02].
• Český Malín: 374 Czechs killed [VCH02]; “four hundred people” [VCH06].
• Total numbers: 35–40 thousand in 1946 [VCH04]; about 40,000 in 1939 [VCH01]; Encyclopedia of Ukraine — 65,000 at the start of the 20th century for all Ukraine including Crimea and the south [VCH03]; English-language article — over 100,000 “at its height” [VCH08]. These refer to different territories and years.
• Departure of Germans: 1940 [VCH01]; 1939 [VCH05].