REPRESENTATION OF THE RUSSIAN IMPERIAL AND SOVIET ERA THROUGH THE LIFE WAY OF THE YELYSAVETHRAD MERCHANT VOINOV FAMILY

Abstract

The article, based on archival materials and memories of Nadiia Petrivna Saltanova, shows the complex life path of the merchant family of the 2nd guild of the Voinovs, who lived in Yelysavethrad from the second half of the 18th century, and represented a typical example of a relatively rich family of a provincial city, a kind of «middle class». We use the prosopographic method, which comes in handy when creating a collective biography of the Voinov merchant family, a micro-historical approach that allows us to explore the everyday life of a provincial family through the life path of the Voinov family during the Russian Empire of the late 18th – early 20th centuries, in the Soviet period, and at the present stage. Information is provided about fellow registrar Mykhailo Voinov – the first merchant mentioned in the documents who lived in Yelysavethrad, his son Mykola, who inherited his father's entrepreneurial activity, traded in food products, and ran three grocers in the city. Mykola's wife – Nadiia Oleksiivna, who helped her husband in business affairs and after his death in 1888 took over the business. The life path of their children is highlighted: Mykhailo, Serhii, Havrylo, and Vasyl, who helped their mother in every possible way in running a trade in the city, engaged in public and charitable activities. Only Havrylo Voinov had his own family (his mother was a strict woman and forbade her sons to marry in order to conduct trade, in the future the sons never started a family), went against his mother, married a bourgeois Ye. Ya. Stoliarova, separated from family, and after his mother's death, with the funds bequeathed to him, he set up his own shop in 1914. The study shows the attitude of the Soviet authorities towards the “class enemy” – the merchants. Vasyl and Mykhailo were sent to Siberia. Later, Vasyl was able to return home to the city, but in the 1930s he died under unknown circumstances. Mykhailo died on the way to Siberia. Havrylo renounced the title of a merchant, enrolled in the burghers and tried to live inconspicuously. Serhii’s fate was tragic. On the eve of the entry of the Germans into Kirovohrad, his case was sent to a military tribunal for consideration by a guilty verdict dated July 22, 1941 for alleged hostile attitude towards the Soviet authorities, for the fact that in the past he was a merchant of the 2nd guild, a trade deputy, and probably he was shot, in 1995 he was rehabilitated. The Soviet period of the Voinov family is explored through the family of Havrylo's daughter Zinaida, who graduated from the girls’ gymnasium, studied music at the H. Neuhaus school, and lived until 1983. Her granddaughter – N.P. Saltanova, a well-known pediatric urologist in Kropyvnytskyi, left memories of her family. The article highlights her life path in the 1960–1980’s and in modern Ukraine.