Section Four: The Undelivered Letter

Shown below are 3 Xeroxed pages of my Grandfather's returned letter to his parents that our mother Marjory originally passed down to me and my siblings. The letter never reached Grandfather's family in Russia.  And then he lost touch with them.

It took me a few years to find someone to translate this low-quality Xerox of Grandfather's letter.  Through information I found on the internet, I was able to hire the Reverend Jan Dus of the Czech Republic to roughly translate the letter for me. 

But the letter continued to hold surprises.   Thanks to Belle Zvolanek who loaned me the original letter to scan, I learned that each page had writing on the reverse side.  The digital scans of Grandfather's original letter appear after the translation by Reverend Jan, who added footnotes to his translation of all six pages (in parentheses):








1917, 25 October
Dear parents and brothers and family
(There is a word that means family, even though a word family is not used. I suppose it represents brothers, sisters and parents but it could also mean cousins.)
My greetings to you dear parents and brothers. First, I would like to tell you I am Thanks to God alive and healthy. I wish you all the best and I bow low and I kiss you all in
(Unreadable – probably a name of place – village or town.) ... I announce you I obtained your letter May 25, 1917 (It is hard to read year, it is probably 1917.) and I thank you a lot for the letter. I learned how you live and what you do in Russia at your place. Dear parents I don´t know why you cannot obtain my letters I wrote and sent to you ... ( Another unreadable word, probably name of place but different than in note 2.
Page 1B
I (This is not a beginning of this sentence, it is a continuation) wrote two letters to you, but as you write in your letter from August 20, you didn’t receive my letter yet. I ask now to respond and I also ask Eduard (I believe I read it correctly even though one letter is missing) and cousins (Cousins or relatives) to write something. I ask also to lend my letter to all and ask to write to Josef how I live and work. I think I saved my life thank to God..... (There are several unreadable words. I think he meant he saved his life by leaving Russia.) I will write again. Dear parents, I am also sending you my photographs to remember me and I ask you to give them to all relatives and also 
Page 2
I ask you to give one photograph of my girl to Antonie Kopernicka ... and tell them I would write them with big pleasure. (It is hard to read and understand this sentence. It is not clear if Antonie Kopernicka is a name of the girl or the name of the person to which those photographs should be given.) I also wrote them two letters but I don´t know if they obtained them. I ask you to lent those letters and photograph(s) to all of them.  (To all relatives probably.) I ask you to write a letter to Antonin how I live in America.
Page 2B
you live and I ask you to write me if they (There is really a plural)  got married or not and how is Milka (I hope I read it correctly) doing I.P.D. (This is something I don’t understand and I don’t know what those letters mean. If it is written in Russian then those letters are I. P. and last one written a bit lower is not Russian D. It is regular Latin, Czech alphabet „D“. I never saw in these letters proper writing of Russian letter D. In other words in all letters when writing capital D, writer always uses D as we know it.)  I ask you to write me how your children grow. Dear parents, I think of you and Russia a lot. I recall how I lived there and grew up there, where I walked .... (One unreadable word)  I will never forget about the village I grew up in. I will never forget anything until the end of my life. .......... (There are two lines I don’t understand fully. It is about people and how he (writer) is thankful to God for all)
Dear parents, with a great joy, I ask you not to forget about me as I can promise I will never forget about you. Dear parents I ask you to write and
Page 3
I also ask you to write a letter to brother Ivanovi Zvolanek and I will ask them not to forget about you. (I don’t understand to whom this is exactly addressed.) So I will write you here (my address) and you write as I write here
Mr. John Zvolanek
Du Bois, Nebraska
That’s all.
Good by, your brother Vasilij J.Z.
(Vasilij J.Z. – Vasilij is unclear, J.Z. probably means John Zvolanek, or I.Z meaning Ivanovic Zvolanek)
I am Thanks to God alive and healthy and I kiss you all and I wait for your response.
(Rest of those last two lines is unclear.)
Page 3B
Dear Parents:
I write with a big pleasure and ask to write how you all live and who is staying in Masterskaya* (I believe I read it correctly. It is probably name of a village or part of village.) (*Denise's note:  Masterskaya could mean workshop.  However, Jahubec is located in the Cherkasskaya oblast region, so perhaps he's asking about people living in the region.) ........ and I also ask to pass my greetings to ... (There is just a letter or abbreviation – I cannot detect it.) Tell him I am really thankful to him I have gotten trained by him and I also thank you, dear father, for what you have taught me so I can work somewhere now and make a little bit of.... (One word is unreadable. It is not word money.) Hereby Godbye Godbye

In describing his efforts to interpret the letter, Jan Dus says:
Yes, the letter is in Russian or Ukrainian. (I am not able to tell. There are some words that are certainly not correct Russian, but I am not able to tell, if it is Ukrainian or if it is his Czech influence in his Russian.) It is not easy to read, because of the script.
The language of the letter is not pure Russian. I do not know if I am right or not, but I would bet that it was written by someone living in Ruthenia. (= The western part of nowadays Ukraine that used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before WWI.) - Some time ago I was translating several letters from Ruthenia and the language seems very similar to me. - Just a bet.
Reverend Jan also had an interesting historical perspective about this letter, which helps explain why it was not delivered. The letter arrived during the Russian Revolution!

The first page contains just greetings to his family and assurance that he is alive and of a good health. What makes the letter special is the date. He wrote it on October 25th, 1917 = ten days before the communist revolution in Russia!


UPDATE 4/9/2010:
Below are the high-quality digital scans of the 1917 letter.  When I compare the 6 pages to the 3 Xeroxed pages I had been working with, I'm so grateful that the New Jersey Zvolaneks allowed me to scan all of Grandfather's original documents!