Isidor Sârbu
Isidor Sârbu, also known as Sîrbu (1887–1980), was a victim of dekulakization in the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR). Of Romanian heritage, Sârbu was born a citizen of the Russian Empire in Corjova, where he spent some fifty years of his life. Before the October Revolution, he had amassed a relatively large agricultural estate and was employing farmhands, leading him to be designated a kulak. Politically and socially marginalized by the MASSR, he sold most of his properties before the land collectivization of 1930. Sârbu was allowed to join the collective farm, and became one of its managers, but in 1933 lost his position and found himself arrested by the OGPU. He received a suspended sentence for theft, was stripped of his remaining property, and then reduced to supporting his wife and eight children as a day laborer.
In 1935, the
Biography
Isidor Sârbu, described in some sources as a "full-blooded Romanian"[1] or "great Romanian",[2] was born in 1887 in the village of Corjova, then part of the Russian Kherson Governorate—and on the Dniester-marked border with Bessarabia Governorate. According to records of his interrogation, he was from a peasant family that, at one point, comprised eleven individuals;[3] he had five sisters and four brothers.[1] He married and established his own farm in 1904, interrupting his agricultural life to perform his service in the Imperial Russian Army, at Chișinău (1905–1909); he was again called under arms during World War I, serving for its entire duration with the Romanian Front.[4] By 1917, his farm stretched over 40 hectares, in addition to which he leased 10–15 hectares; he owned two houses, some ten cows, and 25 sheep, and employed three or four seasonal farmhands.[5] He and his wife Tatiana Negrea had eight living children by 1933; the oldest was a daughter, Olga, born in 1915 or 1916.[6]
Shortly after the war, Bessarabia united with Romania, leaving Corjova on Romania's border with what became in 1922 the Soviet Union; the MASSR was organized on that border territory in 1924. Little is recorded of Sârbu's life during the October Revolution and the Ukrainian Civil War, down to the New Economic Policy of the late 1920s. Branded a kulak by the MASSR government, he had no voting rights in Soviet elections, down to 1928, when he was enfranchised as a serednyak (middle-income peasant). He had by then sold or distributed his property—holding on to just eight hectares of farmland and twelve sheep—, but was regarded as a speculator, and continued to pay a large share of his income in punitive taxes.[7] This period was followed by the collectivization of 1930. During the latter event Sârbu was recorded by MASSR officials as almost a kulak, but opted to enter Corjova's collective farm, possibly for fear of deportation to Siberia. He managed to earn the respect of his peers, being selected as one of the farm's administrators.[8] Despite his efforts at integration, Sârbu targeted by the dekulakization campaign of 1932. Initially prosecuted for theft of collective property in August 1932 (he and one of his sons, Marcu, allegedly burned down some of the crops),[1] he was excluded from the collective farm in February 1933; in April, the OGPU arrested Isidor and Tatiana Sârbu.[9] A tribunal found the evidence against Isidor inconclusive, and he received a suspended sentence.[10]
Sârbu himself reported that the OGPU had confiscated and sold his house in March 1933, leaving the family to bunk into a room in Corjova, rented to them by Dumitru Halippa. This situation lasted to 1934, when the Sârbus moved to the neighboring city,
On January 14, the NKVD commandants of the MASSR sentenced Sârbu to three years in a penal facility at Tiraspol; a model prisoner, he was paroled on April 29—only his interdiction to live in Romanian border was still upheld, for another three years.[14] For a while, he was in the South Caucasus as a day laborer. He fell ill and was again forced by his circumstances to ignore the terms of his release, returning to Corjova in 1937. Arrested by the Militsiya on October 26, 1937, he was released, then rearrested together with his wife on January 26, 1938.[14] The two were ordered to serve terms at the NKVD-run facility in Kherson; Tatiana was sentenced to a one-year term, while Isidor had to serve his remaining two years.[15] Their teen-aged daughter, Olga, was shocked by these news, which, as Sârbu himself noted, contributed to her death in May 1938.[14]
Both Isidor and Tatiana had returned to Corjova in January 1940,
Sârbu's newfound status lasted only until the
Legacy
Sârbu achieved posthumous fame as the maternal grandfather of
In 2012, Voronin discussed his family history with journalist Lorena Bogza of ProTV Chișinău. He "admitted to being Isidor Sârbu's grandson, but denied that the latter had been an anti-communist, or that he had taken refuge to Romania of his own will. [Voronin] claimed that his grandfather wished to make his return to Corjova in 1945, but that he had been labeled a traitor by the Soviets, and only in that context did he prefer to stay in Romania."[19] More in detail, Voronin argued that Sârbu had been sent to Romania with crates of ordnance, and denied that the family had ever been wealthy, other than owning a cart and horses. He also recounted having once met Domnica.[21] Voronin left open the issue of his ethnic background, prompting journalists to argue that his ancestry may be entirely Romanian.[21]
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h (in Romanian) "Bunicul lui Voronin s-a refugiat la Brezoaiele, din calea comuniștilor! Aici își doarme și somnul de veci", in Gazeta Dâmboviței, June 24, 2013
- ^ (in Romanian) Constantin Tănase, "Cu Voronin la o cafea, fără ghilimele, fără ură și părtinire", in Timpul, June 18, 2012
- ^ Cașu, pp. 52, 53
- ^ Cașu, p. 53
- ^ Cașu, p. 53. See also Costaș, p. 38
- ^ Cașu, pp. 55–56, 57, 58
- ^ Cașu, pp. 53–54
- ^ Cașu, pp. 52, 54
- ^ Cașu, pp. 52, 54–55
- ^ Cașu, pp. 52, 54–56
- ^ Cașu, pp. 55–56
- ^ Cașu, p. 56. See also Costaș, pp. 38–39
- ^ Cașu, pp. 56–57. See also Costaș, p. 39
- ^ a b c d Cașu, p. 57
- ^ Cașu, p. 57. See also Costaș, p. 39
- ^ Cașu, pp. 57–58
- ^ Cașu, pp. 52–53, 55, 58; Costaș, pp. 38, 39
- ^ Costaș, p. 39
- ^ a b Cașu, p. 58
- ^ (in Romanian) Interviu. Imaginea jandarmului român care bătea în Basarabia, evocată de Voronin, realitate sau clișeu bolșevic reîncălzit pentru campania electorală? Istoric de la Chișinău: Domnul Voronin uită drama prin care a trecut familia sa persecutată de bolșevici, G4Media, May 19, 2021
- ^ a b c d (in Romanian) Eugenia Pogor, "Vladimir Voronin dezminte: 'Bunicul meu n-a fost anticomunist român. A fost un gospodar'", in Adevărul Moldova, May 29, 2012
- ^ Costaș, p. 38
- ^ (in Romanian) "Opt ani cu Timpul", in Timpul, September 1, 2009
References
- ISBN 978-9975-79-828-0
- ISBN 978-606-609-330-9