"Гречаники" - антисовєцька народна пісня | "Hrechanyky" - Ukrainian anti-communist folk song

виконання: Тарас Компаніченко
   • Тарас Компаніченко - "Гречаники"  


Українська народна пісня про колективізацію і голодомор.


Ukrainian folk song about collectivisation and holodomor.

*hrechanyky - buckwheat pancakes, ukrainian traditional dish

*village counsil - local village authority in USSR

*collective farm (or kolkhoz) - state-controlled form of farms in USSR, forcibly introduced in the end 0f 1920s and begin of 1930s instead of private farms. Formally it was in collective ownership, but in fact it was state-owned.

*'working day' - moneyless form of payment to workers of collective farms in 1930s-1970s. 1 'working day' usually was salary for 1 day of work, but not necessarily: many people got less, also salary for some type of jobs could be 2 'working days' per one day if work required specific qualifications. People couldn't spend it as they wish, collective farm should pay them with a certain amount of products for each 'working day' in the end of the year.

*'poor commitee' - Commitee of Poor Peasants - pro-soviet organisation of peasants, who supported collective farm system because they didn't want to work and earn money themselve. This peasants received land in the early 1920s, but lost it due to irresponsibility, inability to work and manage their property. Such people blamed their more successful fellow villagers for their own problems, and soviet authorities used these sentiments to promote the collective farm system.

*5-year plans - centralized statewide economic plans, which was used in USSR in 1920s-1980s. Plan system was ineffective, there wasn't any 5-year plan, which was fully implemented. Trying to implement the plans, the soviet authorities did not count on people's lives, especially in Stalin's times.

*Taras - Taras Shevchenko, famous ukrainian writer and painter, who lived in XIX century. Shevchenko became important symbol for ukrainian nation. He is mentioned in this song because he criticized system when peasants was a slaves of lords in russian empire. Collective farm system in USSR in fact was the same slavery, but there was state and party instead of lords.