It could have been my imagination and sensitivity as a child, but there was always some sort of competition between my grannies.
Granny Dimitra, my Dad’s mother, was the town girl – just because my parents would take her to the city to stay with us during the winter and then drive her back to the village come March. So, she had developed some city manners that a villager like my other granny did not have. Granny Kirana, my mom’s mother, was the “educated” one. She always was boasting about it, carrying a small piece of pencil in her pocket, as though a pencil alone could write. Don’t recall exactly, but she probably had two grades of school, vs Dimitra, who had only one. Or something like that. They were both born in the late 19th century, when education wasn’t exactly a societal priority.
They both used to sing a lot and sang well. Granny Dimitra was a participant to all kinds of local, regional and national singing competitions. She was even invited to sing for Bulgarian radio, but this was too far fetched even for a town girl she thought she was. OK, folk singing that is. Granny Kirana on the other hand, would remember very old songs passed along by word of mouth through the generations. None of them was written and she had them all in her head. To the point when some folks from the national radio (hey, there was no TV at the time) would realise that there is a wealth of wisdom and history that would be lost with my granny’s generation and began touring from village to village, listening to the folk singers like my grannies and transcribing the words. Again, it was before recorders, and all the technology we know today or even yesterday. I had the feeling that my granny Kirana was composing at least part of them, filling the gaps, memories inevitably lost with time and emotional events of life and death, love and hate, and mainly struggle and survival, which was the life in a village before and after capitalism, socialism and to current days.
They both had rough lives, yet granny Kirana’s one was way more dramatic and sensational. I don’t recall my grandpas. One had left long before the war that brought communist rule to the country, the other, having worked in the mines, died when I was about 3 years old. So, both grannies lived alone in their respective houses – Dimitra at the upper end of the village and Kirana at the lower end of it. I seem to remember granny Dimitra telling me the story of how she carried the heavy stones of which the house was built at the beginning of the 20th century, while her husband was making money in the mines far, far away. I also remember the endless stories full of hate of how my grandpa Stanyo had left my granny Kirana with two little children for work as a farmer in Hungary, never to return. The truth was that he had been working there every summer since he was a teenager, bringing money home. The truth was also that after he married granny Kirana, who was engaged to his older brother at the time, he continued working in Hungary and bringing home money to build the house and many other things. And the truth was that he wanted the entire family to follow him to Hungary. However, granny Kirana, who had never been outside the village, refused each and every spring when he was leaving her again to work the land and take care of the family alone. Then the war came and no one could move around.
My take on all this is that my granddad simply could not return. The iron curtains fell, the world was divided and movement between countries in the Eastern part of Europe wasn’t easy. It was a tragedy for many. I was the only one from the family, who actually visited the place he used to live, with a hope to find him, for the sake of my mom. All I found was a teeny tiny farmers house at the end of Nagykanizsa, Hungary. He had died a few years earlier, a neighbour told me. He had always wanted to go back to his wife and children. Then with wars and all, he gave up and began living with another woman and her son. The tiny shack and the poverty they lived in was just shocking. This is all he had and the son of his second wife lived in fear that one day my mom and uncle would find this house want part of it. One day I may write more about the story of love and hate of my granny Kirana, that was full of drama and small village bickering. This I remember only from my mom and my granny telling me (both versions were different of course).
Granny Dimitra was not that emotional. Her life was more or less regular for those in a village at the time. She, as many others, had struggled to build the house, her husband working away to make money. However, one thing I remember she was so passionate about, is the way they took away her land, hard earned, and her only cow! She was even OK about the land. But the Cow!
After the Russians brought communism to Bulgaria the land was nationalised, as was everything else, following the soviet kolkhoz (co-operative). Every village had a kolkhoz – all land and animals were brought together under a central management system and the villagers became employees of the kolkhoz.
That it would happen was inevitable. However, the politicians created the impression that people would vote for it. The older generation of my grandparents, having lived their adult lives under somewhat democratic system believed in the voting process. The younger generation, the generation of my parents had to follow the rules they were given by the communist leaders. They had no choice and they knew it.
So, the time came for voting “for” or “against” the cooperative. Poor grannies, all of them… No one who had spent their lives building what they had would want to voluntarily give it away. No matter how little it was. And in a village like that it was laughably nothing! But would you?
The voting was of course in the newly renamed community centre. There was a big table covered with a red table cloth which hung to the ground. There was a shoe box, cut on the top, where the ballots would go. Little did the villagers know that that box was also cut at the bottom and was set over a hole in the table. Under the table there were two young men, ordered to check every vote. One of them was my dad.
The drama unfolded after and my granny would never forget or forgive this. My dad would tell the story, saying – “I could not believe my eyes. My mother, my loving mother, would vote against!” He wasn’t alone of course and had to report her to the officials. My granny on the other hand would fume – “I can’t believe my son would be under the table. They betrayed us. They took my cow! I had worked all my life. His father worked in the mines to save some money to buy this cow! And they dared to take it.”
By that time granny Kirana had nothing left. No cows, little land and no husband either. Just two grown up children. So, she was OK with the cooperative.
The reported result was – 100% voted for nationalization. The reality was 90% voted against. And the officials knew exactly who they were! And of course, when voting, not that there was a choice, but we knew someone might be hiding under the table. And most importantly, no matter what the results were, they’d be reported as a great victory for the dictator in power.
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