I found this travelogue of Danish author Hans Scherfig’s 1950 trip to the USSR. I think it will be of interest to people here so I have translated it. The illustrations are by Scherfig himself.

This chapter is about the Ukrainian countryside. Although reconstruction is well underway the destruction and trauma of the war is still present. The delegation visits a collective farm and Scherfig notes similarities and differences from the Danish countryside, including the rich cultural life in three village they visit. Home ownership is also explained. Finally the delegation says goodbye to Ukraine and flies back to Moscow.

Travels in the Soviet Union

Table of Contents

Chapter 9

The countryside surrounding Kiev is flat and not particularly fertile. We did not see the famous Ukrainian “black earth.” We drove by car through a landscape that might remind one of the Tisvilde[1] region, with pine forests and bogs and sandy plains. The main road was broad and paved; now and then we passed through villages with whitewashed houses with thatched roofs and neat gardens with fruit trees and flowers and carefully carved picket fences. The village street was sometimes a couple of kilometres long. In many places in the fields one could see that there were installations for artificial irrigation.

— Can you own your house in the Soviet Union? — we asked.

— Yes, there are millions of people who have their own house. —

— Who owns those houses we see here? —

— The people who live in them. —

— Does it occur that factory workers have their own houses? —

— It is not uncommon, especially in smaller towns. —

You would never know it now, but this land has been ravaged by war. The Germans burned the houses, the schools, the dairies. They carried off the machinery and the cattle, they dragged women and children to Germany to toil for the master race. They murdered and tortured wherever they advanced. It was here in Ukraine that the strapping free-corps men[2] were to be granted land after theit victory and become the progenitors of a new Germanic nobility. It is with revulsion you recall that there were a quite a few Danes among them, and that they set off with the warm recommendation of the Danish government[3] and were seen off with a stiff salute by the Danish general Gørtz[4] at their departure. Some of the returning members of the master race have been awarded compensation from Danish courts for tort and unjustified detention[5]. They will be able to offer their expertise when a new volunteer corps for Korea is to be equipped[6].

We see people in the fields; there are many women with headscarves and bare legs, and there are many children. It is impossibly truly to imagine what these people have experienced. Families were torn apart. Men and women lived in the forests and fought as partisans; thousands of children lived in earthen dugouts and have only recently experienced what it is like to live in houses. Every single family has its dead to mourn; every single person has experienced things they cannot speak of. Outwardly everything seems normal and ordinary. The houses are rebuilt, the fields are in order; this year the harvest will be better than last year, next year better still.

Ukraine 1950

We pulled up in a village and got out to have a look around. So this is what a collective farm looks like. Not barracks and communal housekeeping. It is an ordinary Ukrainian village. People have their own houses and their private lives; they simply hold in common what makes practical sense, it is the Danish cooperative system at a more developed stage. There are three to four hundred houses in the village with just as many families, altogether perhaps a couple of thousand people. Before 1917 the peasants were tenant farmers and laboured for the lord of the estate. Then the estate was divided among them, and later it was found to be practical and economical to work the land together. It is no model farm; the soil is very sandy, and there is a good deal of marshes. The collective owns six thousand hectares of land in total. The leader of the collective is elected by the peasants at a regular general assembly, and ever so often they meet to discuss operations.

I am no expert on agriculture, and the production figures they presented us with meant nothing to me. The plant expert, Professor Gabrielsen, explained that the yield per hectare was not impressive compared to Danish farming, but one must remember that we were not visiting the richest soils. The farm buildings looked like those of a large Danish manor. The stables were clean and in good order; there were five to six hundred cows of various breeds; there were black pigs and white pigs and spotted pigs; I cannot remember how many horses there were, but they were terrifying when the whole herd came galloping into an enclosure where I sat peacefully smoking my pipe. There was a mill and a sawmill and greenhouses and a pumping station, of which they were evidently very proud, and a plant for artificial irrigation, and they explained that they were reclaiming the marshes while at the same time using the pumped water to irrigate the large fields. Wheat, maize, millet, sunflowers, potatoes, cucumbers and tomatoes were grown. Cattle stocks had been larger before the war, and mechanisation more advanced.

The land is cultivated as on a large estate, but everyone takes part in planning operations. The yield is distributed among the individual peasants in such a way that they receive part in kind and part in cash. Each family has private disposal of an acre[7] of land and utilizes it in very different ways. Some kept pigs or cows of their own; everyone kept chickens. Some had only fruit trees on their plot, some had mixed gardens, some grew sunflowers in particular, and many had rows of beehives. Whatever their private plots yielded, they sold on their own account in the marketplace at Kiev.

Newly constructed one family house on collective farm in Ukraine, May 1950

Outwardly it didn’t look very different from what we are used to in the countryside back home. But people live in completely different way; their attitude is different, their relationship to their surroundings is different. The peasant selfishness and common envy, which is not altogether unknown in a Zealand village, would find it hard to survive where the good of the individual and the good of all are tightly linked. Fellowship and solidarity are essential to collective enterprise; I do not think Danish farmers can truly comprehend these notions, cooperative movement and communal county fairs notwithstanding. To my amazement I heard that this fellowship also extended to other collective farms. The village had been debating whether to lend a hand to a neighbouring collective that had not done so well, and had resolved to put some of their own reserves at the neighbour’s disposal.

Besides all this, there is a cultural life unknown in the countryside back home. The village has itself a sizeable club house. Here there are a theatre, a cinema, an assembly hall, and rooms for the youth. There is a well-stocked library, reading rooms, study chambers, and hobby workshops. At the theatre, good artists from Kiev or other cities perform occasionally, but it was first and foremost used for amateur performances. Most of the villagers are musical; they have an orchestra and a choir, and as dancers they are all artists. There was also a small studio for amateur painters and sculptors. There was an excellent kindergarten and a nursery, such as one would hardly encounter in a Danish village. There was a polyclinic and a small hospital, where people could receive the first treatment before it was decided whether they were to be admitted to a central hospital. No fewer than three doctors were employed at the collective farm; moreover, there was a dentist with an assistant. The school was a large building and followed the same curriculum as in the cities. The village has electricity and a small radio station, the purpose of which I did not entirely understand, but which was apparently used as a kind of relay system.

Dancing in the street, May 1950, Kiev

We asked if we could see how a family lived, and were invited in by a young couple who had just been given a house of their own. It was a two-storey brick building with a veranda and balcony. There were four or five rooms, and a very large kitchen with a tiled stove. The furnishings were exceedingly modest; these people had lost everything in the war, and the living room held nothing more than a table, a bench, and a few chairs. I noticed, too, that the family kept a small library. Everything was clean and scrubbed, and the familiar smell of soap hung in the air. Large white starched lace curtains hung at the windows. On the walls were photographs and paper flowers. In a long box lined with white paper stood another arrangement of handmade paper flowers. The remaining rooms contained beds. The family had three children.

— Is this your own house? — we asked the man.

— Yes, we have just finished building it. —

— How much does a house like this cost? —

— 22,000 rubles. —

— How do you come by such a sum? —

— The state provides an interest-free loan, to be repaid over ten years. We have already paid half, as it happens. —

This was unquestionably one of the finest houses in the village. There were older houses with thatched roofs as well, and I peered into a few of them and found that even in the old houses everything was spotless and tidy. Everywhere there were the starched lace curtains and paper flowers; in one place I noticed religious pictures on the wall.

We spent half a day at the collective farm, and then we made our way back to Kiev, where there was still much for us to see. We visited a school; we saw factories, among them a very large confectionery factory where they were so fussy about hygiene that we had to be fitted with white coats before we could walk about and look at the treats. There was time for museums as well, yet what I preferred was to drift about the city, watch the crowds, make small purchases in the shops, and sit in peaceful ease at a sidewalk café. I also slipped away from a big concert held for a composers’ congress. To leave this city was a matter of regret. I will always long to go back. I will remember the gardens and the lovely girls, and the old waiter at the hotel who was so full of friendly attention and fatherly concern for our nutrition that we bade him farewell as we would an old friend.

At the farewell party we were together with some Ukrainian writers, who asked us to send their greetings to Martin Andersen Nexø[8], who is as beloved in Ukraine as in Russia. Our host, who is a professor at Kiev University and took part in the war, spoke for Denmark and for peace and friendship between our countries, and the Danes spoke for Kyiv and Ukraine, and all our speeches ended in the wish for a state of open borders and free exchange between our countries, so that we could get to know one another. If many Danes had the the opportunity to see what we have seen, it would not be possible to maintain the delusions and lurid tales about the Soviet Union which a small circle believes it profits from.

Then we flew back to Moscow and with heavy hearts we watched as Kiev’s green gardens and the gleaming Dnieper disappeared into the haze. We had a small supply of confectionery from the factory we had visited as provisions, but it was only a meager comfort. Evald Rasmussen and I, who hold corresponding views regarding air travel, stuck together, and when the plane bucked unpleasantly or flew into a thundercloud, we bolstered each other with memories of travel on the ground. Three more long flights still awaited us.

Original Danish text

Rejse i Sovjetunionen

  • Hans Scherfig, 1950

IX.

Landet uden om Kiev er fladt og ikke særlig frugtbart. Vi så ikke den berømte ukrainske »sorte jord«. Vi kørte i biler gennem et landskab, som kunne minde om Tisvilde-egnen med fyrreskov og moser og sandede sletter. Landevejen var bred og asfalteret, engang imellem kom vi igennem landsbyer med hvidkalkede stråtækte huse og pæne haver med frugttræer og blomster og sirligt udskårne stakitter. Landsbygaden var sommetider et par kilometer lang. Mange steder på markerne så man, at der var anlæg for kunstig vanding.

— Kan man selv eje et hus i Sovjetunionen? — spurgte vi.

— Ja, der er millioner af mennesker, som har eget hus. —

— Hvem ejer de huse, vi ser her? —

— De mennesker, som bor i dem. —

— Sker det også, at fabriksarbejdere har egne huse? —

— Det er ikke ualmindeligt, især i mindre byer. —

Det er ikke mere til at se, at landet her har været hærget af krigen. Tyskerne brændte husene, skolerne, mejerierne. De bortførte maskinerne og kvæget, de slæbte kvinder og børn til Tyskland, for at de kunne arbejde for herrefolket. De myrdede og mishandlede, hvor de rykkede frem. Det var her i Ukraine, at de raske frikorpsfolk skulle have haft jord efter sejren og blive stamfædre for en ny germansk adel. Med ubehag tænker man på, at der var en del danske imellem dem, og at de drog afsted med den danske regerings varme anbefaling og hilst med stram honnør af den danske general Gørtz ved afrejsen. En del af de hjemvendte herremennesker har fået erstatning af de danske domstole for tort og uforskyldt varetægtsarrest. De vil kunne stille deres erfaringer til rådighed, når et nyt frikorps til Korea skal udrustes.

Vi ser folk på markerne, der er mange kvinder med hovedtørklæder og bare ben, og der er mange børn. Man kan ikke rigtig forestille sig, hvad disse mennesker har oplevet. Familierne blev splittet. Mænd og kvinder levede i disse skove og kæmpede son partisaner, tusinder af børn boede i jordhuler og har først fornylig prøvet, hvordan det er at leve i huse. Hver eneste familie har sine døde at sørge over, hvert eneste menneske har haft oplevelser, som de ikke kan tale om. Udadtil ser alting normalt og dagligdags ud. Husene er bygget op, markerne er i orden, i år vil høsten blive bedre end i fjor, til næste år bedre endnu.

Vi stoppede op i en landsby og gik ud og kiggede på tingene. Sådan ser altså et kollektivbrug ud. Det er ikke noget med barakker og fælles husholdning. Der er en almindelig ukrainsk landsby. Folk har deres egne huse og deres private liv, man har bare det fælles, som er praktisk, det er det danske andels-system på et mere udviklet stadium. Der er 3-400 huse i landsbyen med ligeså mange familier, ialt vel et par tusind mennesker. Før 1917 var bønderne fæstere og gjorde hoveriarbejde for en godsejer. Så blev godsets jord fordelt imellem dem, og senere fandt man så ud af, at det var praktisk og økonomisk at drive jorden i fællesskab. Det er ikke noget mønsterbrug, jorden er meget sandet, og der er en del mose. lalt ejer kollektivet 6000 hektarer jord. Lederen af kollektivet vælges af bønderne på en almindelig generalforsamling, og med passende mellemrum mødes man for at diskutere driften.

Jeg er ikke landbrugskyndig, og de produktionstal, man opgav os, sagde mig ikke noget. Planteeksperten professor Gabrielsen forklarede, at afgrøden pr. hektar ikke var imponerende, sammenlignet med det danske landbrug, men det må erindres, at det ikke var de fede egne, vi besøgte. Avlsbygningerne så ud som på en stor dansk herregård. Staldene var rene og ordentlige, der var 5-600 køer af forskellig race, der var sorte grise og hvide grise og plettede grise, jeg kan ikke huske, hvor mange heste, der var, men de var skrækindjagende, da de i flok kom gallopperende ind i et indelukke, hvor jeg sad fredeligt og røg min pibe. Der var mølle og savværk og drivhuse og en pumpestation, som man åbenbart var meget stolt af og et anlæg for kunstig vanding, og man forklarede, at man kultiverede moserne, samtidig med at man brugte det oppumpede vand til overrisling af de store marker. Der blev dyrket hvede, majs, hirse, solsikker, kartofler, agurker og tomater. Kvægbesætningen havde været større før krigen og mekaniseringen mere fremskreden.

Jorden dyrkes som på et stort gods, men alle er med til at planlægge driften. Udbyttet fordeles mellem de enkelte bønder på den måde, at de får en del i naturalier og en del i rede penge. Hver familie råder privat over en tønde land og udnytter den på meget forskellig måde. Nogle havde private grise eller køer, alle havde høns. Nogle havde kun frugttræer på deres jordstykke, nogle havde blandede haver, nogle havde især solsikker, og mange havde rækker af bistader. Det, de får ud af deres private jordstykke, sælger de for egen regning på torvet i Kijev.

I det ydre så det hele ikke så forskelligt ud fra det, man er vant til hjemme på landet. Men folk lever på en helt anden måde; indstillingen er en anden, forholdet til omgivelserne er en anden. Den bonde-egoisme og almindelige misundelse, som ikke er ganske ukendt i en sjællandsk landsby, vil vanskeligt kunne eksistere under forhold, hvor den enkeltes vel og helhedens vel er nøje forbundet. Kammeratskab og solidaritet er en nødvendig forudsætning for den kollektive drift; jeg tror ikke, at disse begreber er forståelige for danske bønder trods andelsbevægelse og fælles-dyrskuer. Jeg hørte med forbavselse, at dette kammeratskab også omfattede andre kollektivbrug. Man havde netop i landsbyen diskuteret, om man ikke skulle hjælpe et nabobrug, som ikke havde klaret sig så godt, og man havde vedtaget at stille nogle af kollektivets reserver til rådighed for nabo-kollektivet.

Dertil kommer et kulturliv, som er ukendt på landet hjemme hos os. Til landsbyen hører et anseeligt klubhus. Her er teater, biograf, forsamlingssal og lokaler for ungdommen. Der er et velforsynet bibliotek, læsestuer, studieværelser, hobbyværksteder. På teatret optrådte lejlighedsvis gode kunstnere fra Kijev eller andre byer, men først og fremmest blev det brugt til amatørforestillinger. De fleste i landsbyen er musikalske, og man havde et orkester og et sangkor, og som dansere var de allesammen kunstnere. Der var også et lille atelier for amatørmalere og billedhuggere. Der var en udmærket børnehave og en vuggestue, hvad man næppe vil få at se i en dansk landsby. Der var en poliklinik og et lille sygehus, hvor folk kunne få den første behandling, før det blev afgjort, om de skulle indlægges på et centralsygehus. Ikke mindre end tre læger var ansat ved bruget, desuden var der en tandlæge med assistent. Skolen var en stor bygning og havde samme undervisningsplan som i byerne. Landsbyen har elektricitet og en mindre radiostation, hvis opgave, jeg ikke ganske forstod, men som vistnok blev brugt som en slags forstærkeranlæg.

Vi bad om lov til at se, hvordan den enkelte familie boede, og vi blev inviteret indenfor hos et ungt ægtepar, som lige havde fået deres eget hus. Det var et to-etages murstenshus med veranda og altan. Der var fire eller fem værelser og et meget stort køkken med muret kakkel-komfur. Indboet var meget beskedent, folkene havde mistet alt under krigen, og bord og bænk og nogle stole var opholdsstuens hele møblement. Jeg lagde også mærke til, at familien havde en lille bogsamling. Der var rent og skuret, og man mærkede den sædvanlige duft af sæbe. For vinduerne var der store hvide stivede blondegardiner. På væggene var der fotografier og papirblomster. I en langagtig kasse, beklædt med hvidt papir, var der også et arrangement af hjemmelavede papirblomster. I de andre værelser var der senge, familien havde tre børn.

— Er det Deres eget hus? — spurgte vi manden.

— Ja, vi har lige fået det færdigt. —

— Hvad koster sådan et hus? —

— 22.000 rubler. —

— Hvordan skaffer man sådan en sum? —

— Staten yder et rentefrit lån, som vi skal afbetale på ti år. Vi har forøvrigt allerede betalt halvdelen. —

Dette hus var utvivlsomt et af landsbyens bedste. Der var også nogle ældre huse med stråtag, og jeg kiggede ind et par steder og så, at der også i de gamle huse var meget rent og sirligt. Alle steder havde man de stivede blondegardiner og papirblomsterne, et enkelt sted så jeg, at man havde religiøse billeder på væggen.

Vi tilbragte en halv dag på kollektivbruget, og så gik turen tilbage til Kijev hvor der endnu var meget, vi skulle se. Vi var på en skole, vi så fabrikker, bl. a. en meget stor konfiture-fabrik, hvor man var så ømfindtlig med hygiejnen, at vi måtte iføres hvide kitler, før vi kunne gå omkring og se på godterne. Der blev også tid til at se på museer, men jeg holdt mest af at drive rundt i byen og se på folk og gøre små indkøb i magasinerne og sidde fredeligt på en fortovscafé. Jeg snød også fra en stor koncert, der blev afholdt i anledning af en komponist-kongres. Det var med ubehag, at man forlod denne by. Jeg vil altid længes tilbage. Jeg vil huske haverne og de kønne piger og den gamle tjener på hotellet, som var så fuld af venlig opmærksomhed og faderlig bekymring for vor ernæring, at vi tog afsked med ham som med en gammel ven.

Ved afskedsfesten var vi sammen med nogle ukrainske forfattere, som bad os hilse Martin Andersen Nexø, som er lige så elsket i Ukraine som i Rusland. Vor vært, som er professor ved Kijevs universitet og har deltaget i krigen, talte for Danmark og for fred og venskab mellem vore lande, og danskerne talte for Kiev og Ukraine, og alle vores taler mundede ud i ønsket om en tilstand med åbne grænser og fri forbindelse mellem vores lande, så vi kunne lære hinanden at kende. Hvis mange danske fik lejlighed til at se det, vi har set, ville det ikke være muligt at opretholde de vrangforestillinger og røverhistorier om Sovjet-unionen, som en lille kreds mener at have fordel af.

Så fløj vi tilbage til Moskva og så med sorg Kijevs grønne haver og den blanke Dnjepr forsvinde i disen. Som proviant havde vi et lille forråd af konfekt fra den fabrik, vi havde besøgt, men det var kun en ringe trøst. Evald Rasmussen og jeg, som har overensstemmende anskuelser angående flyvning, holdt sammen, og når maskinen hoppede ubehageligt eller gik ind i en tordensky, opmuntrede vi hinanden med minder fra rejselivet på jorden. Der ventede os endnu tre lange flyverejser.

  1. The town in Zealand where Scherfig lived ↩︎

  2. Free Corps Denmark, unit of the Waffen-SS consisting of Danish Nazis. ↩︎

  3. During the Nazi occupation of Denmark, the collaborationist government officially sanctioned Free Corps Denmark, the Danish branch of the Waffen-SS. Danish military personnel who volunteered were granted leave and were allowed to retain their rank. ↩︎

  4. Ebbe Gørtz (1886-1976), chief off the Danish general command from 1941 to 1951. In 1942 he appeared at a farewell parade for Danish Waffen-SS Nazis. He later claimed that his appearance was involuntary and happened on orders from the government. ↩︎

  5. Of the roughly 6,000 Danish Waffen-SS volunteers, only 3,300 were convicted by Danish courts for their crimes. Of those convicted, most were only charged with entering into foreign military service and received mild sentences, similar to those handed to Danish volunteers from the Spanish Civil War before WWII. Waffen-SS war criminals who were acquitted would have been eligible for monetary compensation for unjustified detention. ↩︎

  6. When the United States provoked the Korean War in 1950, the Danish government wanted to be seen as a valuable partner by the regime in Washington, but feared provoking the Soviet Union with a military contribution. Over the summer of 1950, an intense debate took place as well as negotiations negotiations between Washington and Copenhagen. Denmark initially offered only medicine and medical equipment, but the Americans demanded more. Eventually a compromise was struck age Denmark sent the hospital ship MS Jutlandia on a mostly humanitarian rather than military mission. ↩︎

  7. Approximation of the customary Scandinavian unit of area “barrel of land” that is still in use when describing farmland. A barrel of land is equal to the area you could seed with a barrel of seed grain. As barrel sizes differed between countries, so did the size of a barrel of land. In a Danish context a barrel of land is approximately 0.55 hectares or 1.3631 acres. ↩︎

  8. Martin Andersen Nexø (1869–1954), Danish modernist writer. Was popular in there people’s democracies and lived a large part of his life in the USSR and East Germany. ↩︎