Transcarpathian Tragedy

Two Czech novels written about Transcarpathia have become world classics: Nikola Šuhaj the Outlaw by Ivan Olbracht and Hordubal by Karel Čapek. Both have been translated into a dozen languages and adapted for stage and screen. The Transcarpathians alone remain in the dark. Having highly artistic works about ourselves, we are too lazy to even read them. But it seems that the stories don’t get old as the decades wear on.

In the autumn of 1931, Czechoslovakia was consumed by a household murder in Subcarpathian Rus’. Newspapers reported that a car showed up in the small village of Barbovo near Mukačevo that summer and Jurko Hardubej, who had just returned from America after working there eight years, got out. Fate had been kind to him: he came back with a lot of money. Hardubej brought his things in a valise which could have fit the entire village. Of the entire village, only his wife did not show much interested in Hardubej’s return – because she had entered into a compromising affair with a 23-year-old work boy named Vasyl’ Manjak while her husband was away. Jurko Hardubej threw the boy out of the house.

During the night of 27 October 1931, Polanja Hardubej and her beloved killed her husband. As he slept, they stabbed him in the heart with an awl, the kind used to braid baskets. To cast blame on someone else, they cut a hole in the window with a diamond and said that a criminal had entered that way. They also hid money (45,000 crowns) to make it look like a robbery.

The trial, held in the provincial capital Užhorod, found a huge resonance throughout Czechoslovak society. The jury found both of the accused guilty: Vasylj Manjak was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison; Polanja Hardubej was convicted of aiding Manjak and sentenced to 12 years.

The story made a huge impression on the renowned Czech writer Karel Čapek, known throughout the world for his short stories and his novel War with the Newts. For four weeks after the trial, he wrote a novel based on the Hardubej case which he called Hordubal.

He explained the name to his brother like this: “The surname Hardubej had to be changed, since the case was in appeal….It’s a strange, difficult work and there is something oppressive about it.” The novel was serialized in the popular newspaper Lidové novini, and in 1933 it was published as a book.

Hordubal was acclaimed not only in Czechoslovakia. The prominent Russian writer Andrej Platonov wrote an enthusiastic review in which he compared the figure of Polanja to heroines of classics of world literature, such as Lady Macbeth and Madame Bovary. The novel was published three times in Ukrainian: in 1959 in L’viv, in 1972 in Užhorod and in 1987 in Kiev. In the late 1990s, the Transcarpathian Provincial Ukrainian Musical and Dramatic Theatre brought Hordubal to the stage. The play was strong, and surprisingly, topical. People identified to problems of earning a wage and the family dramas connected to that, as well as to the description of the Transcarpathian village which has never been so well done. [ed. the novel was also turned into a film, Hordubalove (The Hordubals) by Martin Frič in 1937.]

“That was my father ”

Unbelievably, no one has been interested in what happened to the Hordubal cast of characters. Speaking to the villagers, our newspaper is the first since the war to try to find out what happened after the “Transcarpathian tragedy” of 1931.

The village of Barbovo (now called Borodivka) even now is sparsely settled. There are just about 100 houses. And 70 years ago it was even smaller. It was then that Jurko Hardubej – the “American” who brought back so many dollars and attracted everyone’s attention – was murdered. The village elders still remember this resounding affair and willingly talk about it. Unfortunately, there are only a few eighty year olds who were around at that time. In 1931 they were nine or ten. And their recollections are rather spotty and contradictory.

A big surprise awaited us in Barbovo. Stopping at a random house, we struck up a conversation with an elderly man. When we asked if he knew about the murder of Jurko Hardbuej in 1931, the old man pushed his cap up from over his eyes and said, “Yeah, I know.”

And after a long pause, he added, “that was my father.”

We almost fell over. Čapek’s book doesn’t mention a son, only a daughter named Hafija.

“Hafija is a couple years younger than I am,” says the 80-year old Jurko Hardubej Jr. He agrees to invite us into his yard, but then reneges. It’s clear that this story is a stone in his heart, and he doesn’t want to talk about it.

“I was just a young boy, a schoolchild. I don’t understand a lot about it either,” he says, avoiding our questions. We turn our attention to the house, which is small by today’s standards.

“Yes, this is my father’s home. It was built with the money he sent from America,” Hardubej says, nodding his head.

Later he tells us that in 1931, it was the most beautiful house in the village. This was the only house in Barbovo which was built of stone and had a tin roof. It was surrounded by wooden houses with thatched roofs.

Jurko Hardubej, in no hurry, cuts beets for the pigs while we photograph the house in which the “Transcarpathian tragedy” played out. He categorically refused to be photographed himself. He answered our questions only with “yes,” “no” or “I dunno.” But little by little we discovered what happened to the Hardubej family.

After the arrest of the mother, the two young children Jurko and Hafija were taken to the orphanage. But then relatives who lived nearby took them in. Their father had left both children a large sum in the bank.

In prison, Polanja Hardubej gave birth to a third child – Marijka, by Vasyl’ Manjak. (Maybe this was the reason for the tragedy.) After the war, when Jurko’s son was taken into the Hungarian army, Polanja was released. For a long time, she didn’t venture into the village, since everyone there held the memory of the deceased. And patriarchic Barbovo never forgave her for what she did to her husband. Polanja and her daughter moved to the Vynogradiv’skyj region, where she bought a bit of land.

Hafija and her husband moved to Bratislava. She still lives there today.

Polanja Hardubej lived almost 75 years. Her youngest, Marija, stayed with her to the end. Marija still lives in the Vynogradiv’skyj region. Her children support her amongst themselves.

Vasyl’ Manjak was released from prison after the war. He married in the next village, Makar’ova. He worked as a shepherd in a collective farm.

Jurko Hardubej Jr. never read Čapek’s book. His grandchildren from Mukačevo brought it once, but when his wife read it, she decided not to give it to him. Why stir up old problems? They never saw the play, either, although it was staged in Barbovo several years ago by the Transcarpathian Ukrainian Regional Theatre.

78-year old Ivan Kalij who lives nearby, showed us Jurko Hardubej’s grave in the old cemetery. In 1931, he was 9 and he was in the same class as Hafija.

“There was an awful rainstorm that night,” the former collective farm brigadier says. ”Dark as anything. In the morning, we woke up and heard that they killed Jurko Šepovo (as the villagers called him). Right away I said that it had to be the boyfriend. But my dad told me to shut up.”

“Everyone knew that Polanja didn’t allow her husband anywhere near her. They slept apart. On Monday, he went to Mukačevo on horseback and bought her a pair of boots. And that night they killed him. This was a big deal in those days. For the Czechs, it was a rarity for a wife to kill her husband. I remember Jurko Hardubej, because he was the father of a kid I went to school with. They had a large property – horses, cows, bulls. He had such a twisted American mustache. He was a tall, long man. They had to get him while he was sleeping to kill him. He was a peaceful, quiet landlord. Polanja never talked much. When she returned from jail, it was as if she were mute.”

Ivan Kalij shows us an iron cross in the old part of the cemetery where the graves are almost disappeared.

“The month after they buried Hardubej, a medical expert came and they dug him up again. He was white as paper. People crowded all around, but the police wouldn’t let anyone near the grave. Many times I went through the cemetery, and I always saw the gravestone and thought ‘so here is that ‘American’ who was killed.’ For a long time, a wooden cross stood on the site. The others around it were always neglected, but this one remained standing. It was obvious that someone was taking care of the grave. And several years ago someone put an iron cross on it.”

Like a hundred years ago, Transcarpathians seek their daily bread in lands near and far. Families left without fathers and husbands for long times at a stretch are often fated to discord. That discord leads to drinking bouts and affairs, and bloody crimes.

This autumn in Transcarpathia a murder took place which was similar to the story in Čapek’s Hordubal. In Velykyj Byčkov, the mother of a small girl ordered the murder of her husband. In the morning, he was found at home with several dozen stab wounds. The death cost all of…50 hryven’.

But if such a story commanded the attention of the entire society in Čapek’s time, all of Czechoslovakia, these days it only goes noticed in the provincial police chronicle. Seventy years ago, it was a sensation. Today, it is commonplace.

The fall of morals continues, and more and more new “Transcarpathian tragedies” are born. Only, new Čapeks do not appear to show evil in all of its deformity in their artistic works.