My Father’S Fathers

By Barbara Grivna

Dear Readers,

My Fathers Fathers is a composite of historical and archaeological fact, personal oral and written histories. These are woven together with my remembrances and hypotheses to narrate the history of my ancestors as nothing else exists to explain me. That said, combining and establishing theories is the work I put my mind to for the past three years. So please dont contact me to correct my inaccuracies or blunders. I acknowledge them and have embraced them. The scientific, historical, and archaeological information is all true as far as I can comprehend it. There really have been millions of tribes, thousands of dynasties, mass migrations, and countless wars since the Neolithic period, far too many to cite or explore deeply.

I could not have written this book or found many illustrations without using the entries in Wikipedia.org. They are, in my estimation, one of the greatest boons the computer has provided us. I know people say it is not always accurate and I found different versions of events on other websites. When compared, they often offered additional information or a different view of affairs, but for my purposes they hung together. I urge you to support Wikipedia if you use their site because they always seek to upgrade their information and for this they should be rewarded. A list of all the sources I consulted containing information relevant to this paper would be virtually endless, so I have listed some of the principal authors and titles. I am greatly indebted to them all.

If you wish to start exploring your genetic history, it will lead you to many exciting places. I recommend you begin your search by consulting Shannon Bennetts article in Family Tree Magazine entitled DNA Demystified: Genetic Genealogy for First Timers, p. 42, December 2012. The magazine is published by F+W Media, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio.

My cat Sassy always helped me edit the information I wrote by watching the words appear on the computer screen or lying on my lap and pawing the pages as I tried to make sense of what I was trying to say. What would I have done without her?

Keep reading and be well.

Sincerely,

Barbara Grivna

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479790388

Barbara Grivna

Barbara Grivna enrolled in doctoral studies at the University of Pittsburgh and holds a master’s of public health degree in planning and administration and a bachelor’s in art history. During her entire life, she has been interested in the arts, music, linguistics, archaeology, biology, and especially classical history. Growing up as a child of first-generation Slavic parents she discovered in her twenties that this background brought great richness to her life, one she needed to explore further. It took her many years to accumulate the information and documents presented here. With the assistance of her brother and a great deal of research, she was able to do so. She reacquainted herself with the Orthodox Church, which is filled with beauty and spirituality. Barbara also collaborated with newly discovered relatives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Having served as the director of the Venango Museum of Art, Science and Industry and the West Overholt Museums in Pennsylvania, she was able to indulge her many interests. Upon retirement, Barbara traced her ancestral roots from the prehistoric to the present era. This book narrates her journey through the ages. She invites you to join her on this trip.

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Copyright © 2013 by Barbara Grivna.

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Rev. date: 04/08/2013

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Words of Thanks

Introduction

About Front Cover

My Grandparents

Appendixes

References

About the Author

Ownership of Thirteen Loose Pictures

This book is dedicated to my father Andrew Grivna and mother Mary Astarb Grivna, who were loving and good parents to me and my brother, Drew. They gave us a taste for life and its wonders.

Everything, says Jordel of Hemerlane is connected to everything else. Time imposes no limitations on this rule. Everywhere is connected to every-other-when. Tit floweth from tat, tut floweth from tit. Past, present, future are not disparate things but a continuum, a recoiled helix of interconnections which time no longer serves to sever than does distance. Here and there are not separate. Now and then are not divisible. Everything burrows through the myriad wormholes of reality to become a part of everything else. Time and space are coiled like some unimaginable DNA, pregnant with both possibility and certainty.

—Sheri S. Tepper, Sideshow, published 1992, Bantam Books

The centripetal force on our planet is still fearfully strong, Alyosha. I have a longing for life, and I go on living in spite of logic. Though I may not believe in the order of the universe, yet I love the sticky little leaves as they open in spring. I love the blue sky, I love some people, whom one loves you know sometimes without knowing why. I love some great deeds done by men, though I’ve long ceased perhaps to have faith in them, yet from old habit one’s heart prizes them. Here they have brought the soup for you, eat it, it will do you good. It’s first-rate soup; they know how to make it here. I want to travel in Europe, Alyosha; I shall set off from here. And yet I know that I am only going to a graveyard, but it’s a most precious graveyard, that’s what it is! Precious are the dead that lie there, every stone over them speaks of such burning life in the past, of such passionate faith in their work, their truth, their struggle and their science, that I know I shall fall on the ground and kiss those stones and weep over them; though I’m convinced in my heart that it’s long been nothing but a graveyard. And I shall not weep from despair, but simply because I shall be happy in my tears, I shall steep my soul in emotion. I love the sticky leaves in spring, the blue sky—that’s all it is. It’s not a matter of intellect or logic; it’s loving with one’s inside, with one’s stomach.

—Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

FOREWORD

A fter reading Barbara’s incredible monologue, I sincerely hope and believe you will feel, as I have, the passions and dreams of these amazing people.

Robert Wesley Miner

WORDS OF THANKS

D uring my life, I have been influenced by a great many sources, including my family, the books I’ve read, my work at the museums, social and personal friends and conversations, letters, e-mails, colleagues, scholars, and the Carpatho-Rusyn Society in Pittsburgh. I’ve been profoundly marked by many people and count these connections among the greatest joys of my life.

For having the stamina to read through my work I wish to thank Melissa Otto, Aaron Grivna, Andy Perlstein, Zach Rothman, Demeter Kokosh, Robert Miner, Barbara Paull, Vonnie Gerson, Olivia Rothman, and those who have read chunks of it along the way. As a friend told me recently, the subjects that fascinate me excite my sensuality, and after pondering his statement, I concluded he was right. Every time I read or become involved in my favorite interests, I get excited and have a warm glow inside. I just have to tell someone about my new discoveries whenever I find them. I become obsessed and must share.

I also thank Cindy Bunce for assisting me with the book and a myriad of computer problems.

My greatest gratitude goes to my brother Drew Grivna, who has supported me throughout my long endeavor to finish this book and my cousin Demeter Kokosh, who is a font of Slavic knowledge. I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

To all the others, I say thank you, one and all.

INTRODUCTION

T he line of recorded history stretches through my mind. By visiting a different era each morning (my obsession), I hear stories of the ages whispered in my ears. My forefathers came from ancient Indo-European stock, from peoples known as Slavs, Ruthenians, Ukrainians, Austro-Hungarians, and Carpatho-Rus’. I’ve spent half a lifetime unraveling their genetic landscape, material, and cultural history. Today their tales and rituals inhabit my consciousness. Their history awakens distinctive feelings, smells, sounds, and tastes within me, as well as the desire for knowledge. My inherent belief is that all living things are interconnected. What I want to know is this: How did the lives and cultures of these ancestral groups affect the person who I am today?

You might question the strength of this search for my heritage, but what could be more important than knowing where we come from? In this quest, we learn how our heritage shapes us and how we perceive the world, our memories, our dreams, even our physical strengths and vulnerabilities. By studying genetics and history, we can explore alternative hypotheses about ourselves and how we are defined. What I have selected to write about here, for me at least, answers the question of how life’s experiences, acculturation, genetics, and cultural evolution have converged to create who I am. My interest in my origins is not only for historical analysis but also to further my personal goals and enlighten my family. I have included information on tribes, cultures, languages, countries, religions, currency, geography, empires, music, songs, and countless conflicts, the impact of which I can feel in my bones and acknowledge in my brain. I end with the brief tale of my grandfather Pavol Grivna, who emigrated from the village of Becherov, Slovakia, in 1893. He sired my father Andrew Grivna, who in turn sired my brother Andrew (Drew) and me. Pavol is listed on the 1900 census living in McKeesport, Pennsylvania.

My heritage sings through my veins. My body resonates to the extraordinarily deep-bass male voices in Blessed Is the Man, an Eastern Orthodox chant, intoning who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, alleluia. I thrill to Kalinka, a drinking song which evokes snow-covered hills, whirling-dancing figures, unfaithfulness, a small red and sour berry, and a Russian girl’s beautiful name. As if in a dream, these melodies inspired and nourished my passion to master the piano and listen to music my entire life.

ABOUT FRONT COVER

T his photo is of the author Barbara when she visited the famous medieval Bohemian town of Kutna Hora located in the Czech Republic. The town was founded in the thirteenth century. While here she visited the gothic church of Saint Barbara and the famous Sedlec Ossuary and learned that King Wenceslaus II issued mining codes that related to the extraction of silver that had been an occupation here since the ninth century. When the guide learned her name, he presented her the keys of the city and named her mayor for the day. This picture is of her holding the keys up for all to see. Barbara’s maiden name Grivna means ingots of gold and silver. She was thrilled to receive this honor.

MY GRANDPARENTS

B ecause my grandparents were immigrants and spoke a language I didn’t understand, they were alien to me. They never told me about their lives before coming to America, or what it was like to be an immigrant. As time went by, I longed to know more about them. I learned from Slavic friends that, similarly, their parents and grandparents hadn’t told them about their lives in Europe. Where had they come from? Why did they come? I learned that Baba and Zedo immigrated to America from what was known as Austria-Hungary in the late 1890s to seek a better life, but I knew nothing of the lives they abandoned. With study, I have learned more about them as a people than as individuals. Now I’d love to hear their voices. I’d want to tell them my tales and listen to theirs in front of a roaring fire, while eating chunks of pumpernickel bread liberally buttered and salted.

As a young child, I wondered why my surname, Grivna, was so dissimilar from those of my friends, with names like McDonald, Spiers, and Baker rather than a Slavic name like mine. In my twenties, I found myself reading a linguistics book, The Story of Language, written in 1949 by Mario Pei, a noted Italian-American linguist and polyglot. In that book I learned that a grivna had been an ingot of gold or silver in Kiev. Aha, a shining moment!

Pei received his doctorate from Columbia University in 1937, later joining the faculty. His doctoral dissertation focused on Sanskrit, Old Church Slavonic, and Old French. With Pei as my inspiration, I began studying the history of the Kievan Rus’ and the Varangians, fierce bands of nomadic peoples who settled in Eastern Europe. Here, they mingled with aboriginal Slavs who, at that time, lived in the area demarcated by the Neiman River, near the Baltic Sea and Dnieper River, which courses from Russia through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Since then, I have learned so much more about my peoples and the tribes and countries that touched their lives. In the process, I have met my goal to know myself, my ancestors, and how I was influenced genetically and historically by my fathers’ continuing existence throughout time.

Amazingly, the oldest surviving archaeological artifacts from Eastern Europe, the region of interest in this paper, appear quite early, circa 270,000 BCE, the Early Paleolithic Era. They were found near Novnad Vohm. Others can be found in Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria, and on the steppes of Russia.

Ancient tools located near Thrace and the Balkans were said to be of Scythian or Kurgan origin, as noted in archaeological reports.

image%201.jpg

Kurgan Burial Mounds (Wikipedia)

Archaeologists at first could not determine the boundaries of early Slavdom because tribal custom called for burning the dead and leaving no artifacts. People of this era who lived in what are still Slavic regions are known for their distinctive burial mounds. The mounds may be poignant reminders of a deep regard for the dead, or simply a way to eliminate the smell of decomposition. The so-called kurgan mounds were most likely built by the Sarmatians, a coalition of Iranian nomadic tribes, and the Scythian-related peoples. The word kurgan is of Turkic origin. The Celtic peoples may also have had an influence here. The R1a haplogroup of the Scythians, who lived in a perfect place supposedly known as Eutopia, was originally dominant until cut in two by other related tribes.

Jordanes supports the Kurgan hypothesis by acknowledging the existence of Sarmatians and Scythian tribes in this period. He was familiar with the geography of Ptolemy, which included the entire Balto-Slavic territory in Sarmatia and, on the other hand, that this same region was known as Scythia.

image%202.jpg

Wikipedia

During the Iron Age, as practices changed, these people buried their dead. The distinguishing features of Slavic graves in this period are ear chains made up of a number of twisted bronze strands, pearls entwined around the body, wooden pails with iron hoops, urns, and earthenware of a distinctive shape, having curves in the clay incised with undulating and linear ornamentation (Sylvia Willer, Danish archaeologist).

Anthropologists were then able to distinguish Slavic graves and materials from others found nearby. Indo-European named settlements could be pinpointed on the shores of the Baltic, and along the Elbe and Oder rivers. Settlements also existed along the Dneiper and were found because of these in-ground burials. After the Ugro-Finnish population moved out of this area, these burials could also be distinguished from Scandinavian graves because they included thrown pottery vessels, attributed to the work of the Slavs (Clarke and Ambrosiani).

In antiquity, many tribal groups traveled throughout the territory of modern-day Ukraine, carrying their Indo-European language stock, skills, and pagan religions with them. Scythians and Sarmatians are but two of these nomadic travelers. I believe the Scythians are my founder population; I will not argue this point for their art work on the torques is similar to that of the torques worn by the inhabitants of Kiev later in