Gammalsvenskby

thumb|The former Swedish church in Gammalsvenskby. St John's Lutheran parish church has been rebuilt and serves as an Orthodox church today

Gammalsvenskby (; ; ) is a former village that is now a neighbourhood of Zmiivka () in Beryslav Raion of Kherson Oblast, Ukraine. It was briefly known as Verbivka () prior to being integrated with Zmiivka. Gammalsvenskby is known for its Estonian Swedish cultural heritage.

Zmiyivka also includes three former villages settled by ethnic Germans: The Lutheran villages of Schlangendorf and Mühlhausendorf and the Roman Catholic village of Klosterdorf. In the nineteenth century, the whole region, and large parts of southern Russia, contained villages settled by Germans belonging to various Protestant faiths, particularly Lutherans and Mennonites, as well as Roman Catholics.

In April 2022, Russian military forces reached Gammalsvenskby as part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. After the Ukrainian liberation, Russia has repeatedly targeted the civilian population in Gammalsvenskby with bombings, including use of white phosphorus munitions.

History

Resettlement of Estonian Swedes and founding of Gammalsvenskby

thumb|Dagö, Estonia|200px|left

The population of Gammalsvenskby traces its origins to Hiiumaa (Dagö) in present-day Estonia, once a part of the Duchy of Estonia. Under the Treaty of Nystad, the island was among the territory ceded to the Russian Empire in 1721 at the end of the Great Northern War.

A few decades later, a portion of the peasant population in conflict with the local aristocracy, answered Catherine the Great's 1762 ukase calling for settlers in Novorossiya on territory newly conquered from the Ottoman Empire; today this land is in Southern Ukraine. Enticed by promises of new fertile land along the Dnieper, about 1,200 people departed Dagö on 20 August 1780, and trekked overland to Novorossiya, arriving on 1 May 1781. Only about 400 Swedes remained behind in Dagö. While some sources call the Estonian Swedes' migration an outright expulsion from their Estonian homeland, other accounts stress the fact that these poor and oppressed serfs were given what may have seemed like a generous offer.

Regardless of the impetus, the outcome of this mass migration was disastrous. Of the 1,200 villagers who left Estonia, only 900 made it to Novorossiya. While the Swedes and Germans were sometimes rivals, they were never enemies and the two communities cooperated when times were bad.

Despite this, the people of Gammalsvenskby maintained their traditions, Church of Sweden Lutheran faith, and old Swedish dialect. At the end of the 19th century, some ties with Sweden were re-established, with the Ukrainian Swedes viewed as a "lost tribe" that preserved older Swedish traditions, such as writing in runes and maintaining an older form of the Church of Sweden's liturgy. The new parish church of St. John opened in 1885. For a time, before the revolutions that followed World War I, visits from Sweden became frequent, and some villagers subscribed to Swedish newspapers.

Despite this, there were efforts by Russia to better integrate the Ukrainian Swedes with the Russian Empire. The original settlement plans exempted Ukrainian Swedes from conscription into the tsar's army, but this changed by the end of the 1800s and 130 men from Gammalsvenskby were inducted into the Russian army during World War I.

Relocation attempt to Sweden

thumb|Caricature of the Gammalsvenskby returnees published in the Swedish Communist newspaper [[Folkets Dagblad Politiken, August 1929. The picture portrays the settlers as entertainers, being put to display at a community fair in Ljungby.]]

During the Russian Civil War, Gammalsvenskby was largely held by the Red Army, although the village did come under artillery fire from the White Army under General Anton Denikin. After fighting moved away from the villages in 1921, villagers sought aid from Sweden, including writing to Archbishop of Uppsala Nathan Söderblom. In 1922, the Swedish Red Cross led an expedition to Gammalsvenskby to provide aid and guidance in developing the region and its farmland. Under this plan, two new Swedish villages, Nysvenskby ("New Swedish Village") and Svenskåker ("Swedish Field"), were established in part to preserve their right to the land. The neighboring German villages similarly established additional outposts, Friedenheim and Neuklosterdorf.

On 22 July 1929, the Swedes of Gammalsvenskby who had received an exit permit were brought downriver to Kherson on two steamers. From there, the Swedish Red Cross brought them on the cargo ship Firuzan to Constanța, Romania, where the overland journey began. They travelled by train through Hungary and Austria to Germany, passing through Sinaia, Brașov, Lőkösháza, Budapest, Vienna, Passau, and Stralsund on the way to Sassnitz. From there, they took the ferry across the Baltic Sea to Sweden. Instead, the government took a very paternalistic approach towards the Gammalsvenskby emigrants, requiring them to apprentice with established farmers to learn Swedish agricultural practices. Some emigrants also joined the Communist Party of Sweden in hope of reflecting their loyalty to Soviet authorities.

Soviet repression, Holodomor, and World War II

thumb|left|Memorial to the 16 men and one woman from Gammalsvenskby who were killed or disappeared in the Stalinist purge of 1937–1938.

In total, around 250 villagers chose to return to Gammalsvenskby. With the support of the Communist Party of Sweden, they established a minor collective farm called Röd Svenskby (Red Swedish Village).

With the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the German army arrived in Gammalsvenskby on 25 August 1941, where the soldiers were welcomed as liberators.

In 1951, after the exchange of territories by Poland and the Soviet Union, around 2,500 people were relocated to the area from the Drohobych Oblast villages of Lodyna, Dolyshni Berehy, and Naniv. Due to the resulting increase in population, the four villages were united under the name Zmiivka. With this migration, Zmiivka became home to the largest Boykos (Ukrainian Highlander) diaspora in Kherson Oblast, making up nearly 80% of the villagers. The newly relocated populace was officially prohibited from celebrating their traditional holidays, such as Vertep during Christmas. To make matters worse, the locals among whom they were settled considered the newcomers to be anti-Soviet nationalists.

In 1955 the Kakhovka Dam was constructed on the Dnieper, creating the Kakhovka Reservoir. This submerged part of the village along with several islands and fishing waters. On 6 June 2023, the dam was destroyed while it was under control of the Russian forces during the Russian invasion in 2022.

Since 1991

Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, contacts with Sweden and Canada were re-established, and in the 1990s the Church of Sweden, Gotland Municipality, and other Swedish organizations lent economic support and led relief efforts. Chumak, a Swedish-owned producer of oil, ketchup and canned food, was established in the nearby town of Kakhovka. In early October 2008, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia visited Zmiivka and Gammalsvenskby as part of a state visit to Ukraine.

, the village had only around 108 people who share a Swedish cultural heritage. Only a few of them still speak the local Swedish dialect fluently and German is often used instead. However, the Swedish heritage is reflected in Zmiivka's emblem, which incorporates the Swedish national symbol (the Tre Kronor), as well as a blue cross on a yellow field, which inverses the Swedish flag's colors. On 15 April 2001, Gotland signed a sister city agreement with the village. Tourism from Sweden remains an important aspect of the village's economy and an impetus for preservation of the Gammalsvenska dialect.

The whole of Beryslav Raion is now heavily Ukrainianized due to the resettlement of many people from western Ukraine in the region, including to the local villages of , , and .

Russian invasion of Ukraine

During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Gammalsvenskby was occupied by Russian troops, who later destroyed a monument dedicated to Ukrainian independence in the village. During the 2022 annexation referendums in Russian-occupied Ukraine, the Russian occupiers shut off the internet and mobile communications in the village, and the population of Gammalsvenskby refused to take part in the balloting. People reportedly locked themselves in their homes, refusing to open their doors, although some people did manage to vote no.

During the 2022 Kherson counteroffensive, the village was about southeast of the frontlines, and it was reported that the population was hoping for liberation by Ukrainian forces. The village was liberated by the Ukrainian army on 11 November 2022, following Russian troops' withdrawal to the left (east) bank of the Dnieper. Russian drones have also targeted individual civilians walking the streets, as well as humanitarian aid cars. Due to the constant bombings, and lack of electricity and water, many residents have fled to neighbouring villages. Due to Gammalsvenskby's close proximity to the Kakhovka Dam, its destruction created another water supply threat for the village.

On 11 November 2023, exactly one year after the liberation of Gammalsvenskby, it was reported that 80% to 90% of the village had been destroyed and that only about 200 people remained, mostly elderly or ill. In June and July 2024, Russian drones destroyed two churches in Gammalsvenskby, one of them being the local Swedish church. In December 2024, it was reported that Russian drones were laying anti-personnel mines disguised as leaves around the village. In September 2025, the village's population had declined to just four people.

Gammalsvenska dialect

References

External links and further reading

The Svenskbyborna Society in Sweden
Svenskbymuséet museum in Roma, Gotland
History of Gammalsvenskby