Having completed the memoir of of Divin, the first author, A. A. Gapanovich, shares his personal thoughts. First, his motivation and how life events frustrated his efforts for a long time:
I decided to write something about myself after having finished writing my memoir.
From a young age, I had the desire to write down all the thoughts that I had heard from my parents and other, older people. Their stories about the past have always interested me. I was interested in the history of our town, Divin; I wondered how my ancestors lived in the olden days. I wanted to tell about the difficult time of 1915, when we were forced to flee Divin, deeper into Russia, away from the horrors of war; the time we became refugees without homes and land. And of the return from being a refugee back to our homeland.
I lived for many years with these thoughts, but I could not take up this task for different life-related reasons. The reasons varied and were independent from my own efforts, but the desire to create this work was always there.
Finally, an opportune time arose. This was the time of my old age; there was an opportunity to take up that which I harbored in my mind for many years of life. And my way of life, experience and expertise gave me even more material for my historical recordings.
A brief auto-biography, starting with his family:
I, Alexander Arsenyvich Gapanovich, was born on September 22, 1901 in the town of Divin, to a poor peasant family.
My parents –father and mother– were both born in the town of Divin. They spent all of their lives engaged in agriculture. When my father got married, he received his share of land from the land of his father, which was 1/6th part of his father's land.
Our family was nicknamed Lyashi. We had this nickname from the name of our great-grandfather. He had the name Ilya Tarasovich Gapanovich. In 1861, he was released from serfdom and received a plot of diverse land in Divin, along the Ratnensky Street.
And since my great-grandfather's name was Ilya, and people called him simply Lasch, all our family, to this day, is popularly called the Lyashi. In olden times, our family bore two last names. It was written in this way: Krachko –also known as– Gapanovich. With time, people began to simply write Gapanovich. My working life began at the age of 7 years. In the summer I began to graze my parents’ cattle. In the winter, I attended school. My education ended in the fifth grade in the seven-year school of Divin.
World War I:
{
80} The year 1915 came. The First World War began. My mother, Anastasia, having taken us, her three children, fled Divin to the central Russian regions, as a refugee. My father, Arseny Timofeyevich, was at that time in the United States earning money as an expat. In our first refugee winter in 1915, we lived in Central Asia, in the Fergana province. At the beginning of 1916, our family moved to the Tula region, in the Odoyevski district, in the village of Luzhnoe. Our relatives lived there; they were also refugees.
From March 1917 to September 1918, I worked in the city of Tula at the veterinary office. There we administered rabies vaccinations for different rabid animal bites.
On October 14th, 1918, our family returned from being refugees to our native land, Divin. There we started a new life; we began to rebuild our ravaged farm and work on our land.
In April 1922, I was drafted into the Polish Army. I served in the city of Warsaw in the First Division as a common soldier. My service ended in May of 1924.
From 1924 to December 1939 I worked in agriculture in Divin; I held a variety of posts.
World War II:
From December 15th, 1939 to June 22nd, 1941, I worked as a bookkeeper in the Divin Rural Farm Supplies Department. From December 1st, 1941 to March, 1943, during the German occupation, I worked as a cashier in the tax department of the Divin magistrate. Then, I worked once again in agriculture until the liberation of our Divin from the German occupiers. From August 1944 to December 15th, 1944 I worked in the Divin District Military Commissariat as a clerk.
From December 15th, 1944 to April 1947, I worked as a bookkeeper in the Divin post office. I retired from there for health reasons.
From December 1st, 1949 to October 3rd, 1959, I worked in various positions in the Divin village soviet [council]. I was a secretary, bookkeeper, and most recently, the last seven years, I worked as the head of military records.
Currently I am a retired pensioner, disabled, of the second group.
I have my own house in the village of Divin at the address: Brigadier Lane, house number 5. I live there with my family, consisting of three people: myself, my wife and my daughter. I continue to work on the house and on my garden plot.
The village of Divin, 1971.
| Notes: the second group: presumably, a designation of degree of disability. |
