Halyna Kotsur
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor
оf the Department of Archival Studies and
Special Branches of Historical Science,
Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv,
Kyiv, Ukraine
E-mail: kotsurh@knu.ua
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-4677-9003
DOI: 10.17721/2522-4611.2026.53.5
REPRESSIVE POLICIES OF THE TOTALITARIAN REGIME AND FORCED
COLLECTIVIZATION IN THE POSTWAR BUKOVYNIAN VILLAGE
(BASED ON ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTS)
Тhe purpose of this publication is to introduce into scholarly circulation documents preserved in the State Archive of Chernivtsi Oblast (hereinafter referred to as DACHO), and which reveal the specific features of the establishment of the Stalinist totalitarian regime in the region after the Second World War. First of all, in a Bukovinian village during the famine of 1946-1947. The documents reflect the features of the "okolhospnennya" of peasants through total collectivization. The methodology is based on general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis. Scientific novelty: for the first time, archival materials from the postwar period on "dekulakization", grain procurement, and repression of peasants are introduced into scholarly circulation; the information potential of the documents has been determined, and commentary on them has been provided.
For the first time, we are publishing documents from DACHO for 1947. From them we learn about Sovietization and the repressive mechanism of that time. All the attention of the party and Soviet authorities was focused on monitoring the implementation of state obligations imposed on the peasants, namely, food deliveries, grain procurement plans. The plans imposed by the central authorities, without taking into account the specifics and capabilities on the ground, had to be implemented. This was closely monitored by representatives of the Communist Party bodies, the prosecutor's office, courts, departments of the MGB, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs assigned to the villages. We encounter information about resistance, anti-Soviet, anti-collective farm sentiments of the peasants.
The documents demonstrate that in the postwar years the Soviet authorities directed their primary offensive against the wealthy part of the Bukovinian peasantry. This was, foremost, forced collectivization, confiscation of land, farm equipment, livestock, tax pressure, unaffordable grain procurement plans, unreasonably high grain delivery rates, forcible withdrawal of food, intimidation, threats, arrests, deportation to Siberia, and arbitrariness on the part of Party and Soviet activists.
Distortion of the truth, at all levels of government there were praises of the successes of collective farm construction, achievements in various branches of agriculture, and the flourishing of the Bukovinian village.
Archival documents reflect the content of Sovietization and the establishment of the collective farm system in the territory of the Zastavna district of Chernivtsi Oblast. They demonstrate the true state of affairs, show the general picture of grain procurement, the impossibility of implementing plans due to the famine of 1946-1947, crop failures, and repressions.
An important document concerns Osadchuk Dmytro Mykhailovych, a resident of the village of Tovtry, Zastavnа district, Chernivtsi region, who was sentenced to five years of imprisonment in corrective labor camps in remote regions of the USSR for failing to fulfil the grain delivery plan. Using the example of D. M. Osadchuk, we can trace the fate of thousands of Bukovinian peasants during the collectivization period.
Conclusions. The published archival documents deepen the understanding of the postwar period of the history of the Chernivtsi region, provide new information about the coercive policy of the Soviet authorities to destroy individual peasant farms, provide information about the grain procurement campaign and the tax press, help to understand the scale of repressions against Bukovinian peasants, the causes of the famine of 1946-1947.
Key words: information, analysis, totalitarian regime, forced collectivization, repression, Bukovinian village, Chernivtsi region, Zastavna district, Tovtry, D. M. Osadchuk, grain procurement, harvest, famine, peasant.
Received 4.08.2025.
Revised 24.09.2025.
Accepted 15.10.2025.
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