In 1820, the landowner Yagmin finally conquered our Diviner ancestors and conscripted them to serfdom. They were forced to work from the sun’s rise until its set, for no one but their owner.

Aside from the fact that everyone worked for their nobleman, he also assigned two people for the work of every Catholic, daily. There were quite a few Catholics living in Divin by that time. Local landowners doled out the best lands for the Catholics; arable and grassy lands. Lands given away were those which had previously belonged to the Divin royal court. Up through our time, in Divin, preserved are tracts named The Palace, where the Garden Street currently runs through.

Only the Jews, as well as those few which waited on the nobles with pleasure – the Panskiy [noble] henchmen–  did not work as serfs.

Thus, the Pleban priest of the Divin Catholic Parish received 11 peasant households, for permanent work, from the landowner. These people were now no longer serfs but worked permanently for the priest. Through the present, the people have kept the nickname Plebanites, from the word Plebania. This was the name of the place, in which the Pleban priest, minister of the Catholic religion, lived.

In the time of serfdom, for the landowner, a peasant was not a person, but was like a personal possession or livestock. The landowner had the right to sell him, lose him in a game of cards, exchange him for animals or for whatever he {26} wanted. Landowners sold and exchanged their peasants between themselves. They could do this in different ways: by the single person or in families. On a whim, they separated husband and wife, children from parents. In short, as was said, they were sold wholesale and retail, they did what they wanted.

Our grandfathers and great grandfathers lived in such inhuman conditions, working until their seventh sweat, with their whole family for their noble, in the field and at his winery. Peasants were exhausted from bad food and its shortage. They shivered from the cold in the winter, not possessing warm clothing and shoes, continuing to work in various poor weather conditions, for their owners. For all of their efforts and work, they were often beaten with rods at the stable. Even pregnant women were subjected to this punishment. From the stories of our elders, this was done cruelly. Small ditches were dug out in the ground. Pregnant women were laid stomach-down when they were disciplined with rods.

The gentry invented different methods of torture for their serfs. This was their pastime, the gratitude of the gentry for the hard peasant labor. All life and future of a peasant family depended entirely on the whim and arbitrariness of the nobles; for us in Divin – from Yagmin’s whim. Without his consent one could not marry a son or daughter.

A young woman, having gotten married, right after the wedding at the church, or from the groom’s house, after the wedding, was taken by the gentry’s haiduks [male servants or attendants] to their estate. There she was rid of her virginity by the Pan [nobleman]. The Pan held the bride with him for a week and more, according to his desires. Meanwhile, he said:

After this, the Pan sent the bride home, to the family of her husband. In this way, every girl-bride was returned from the Pan to her husband’s family without her virginal honor.

When ponds were built, all of the work was done by hand, including the digging of the land. Not only men, but also women conducted this difficult work. Men dug and women carried out the earth to the shore in bags and baskets.