History of Costești and Canadian Emigration
- The Golden Era (1772): The village was first recorded in a Russian military census as a proud, wealthy community of răzeși—free, self-governing peasants who owned and farmed their own ancestral lands.
- The Loss of Freedom (1800s): Over the next century, corrupt legal codes and predatory estate managers (arendași) slowly stripped the villagers of their rights, forcing them into a brutal system of debt-labor and corporate “neo-serfdom.”
- The Great Escape (1900–1906): Facing a crushing 95% illiteracy rate and total land monopolies by the ruthless Fischer Trust, thousands of desperate families chose to flee the country. They slipped past strict federal checkpoints to homestead the prairies of Western Canada or work the dangerous Chaudière lumber mills in Ottawa.
- The Explosion (1907): For the families left behind, decades of bottled-up fury finally reached a breaking point. On February 21, 1907, a local contract dispute ignited the bloody Romanian Peasants’ Revolt, bringing a brutal military clampdown straight to the village doorstep and cementing Costești’s place in modern history.
English translation of the article “COSTEȘTI (II)” (from Monitorul de Suceava) https://www.monitorulsv.ro/costesti-ii_0b8a41/
The Rumeanțev census of 1772–1773 records Costești as a freeholder (răzeș) estate with “60 – the total number of households,” consisting of: 1 priest (Maftei), 2 teachers (Dănilă and Mihălache), 3 ruptași (Vasilie Coman, Pătraș Dratfa and Arsenii Gavrilescul), 1 umblător (Vasilii Săndulescul), 2 Jews (Nosin and Aizik), 2 widows (Marie and Acsinia), 33 cavalrymen (călărași), and 16 taxpayers (birnici).
The călărași of Costești were: Dumitraș Coțic (chihai), Dumitraș Coval, Vasili Hrinciuc, Ion Dolinschi, Grigoraș Sculici, Vasili Coțic, Ion Chisăliță, Ioniță Sănduliac, Ștefan Coțic, Ion Coțic, Tănasi Coțic, Manoli Măsâian, Toader Chiriiciuk, Enachii Sculeș, Ion Ungurian, Ion Sin Petro, Vasili Băndac, Ion Crurca, Ion Cecală, Ion Gavriliuc, Georgie Mănăilă, Costandin Mangur, Ion Oricsuc, Irimie Șerban, Toader Vezârco, Ștefan Cedaș, Ion Tomica, Andrieș Șfedul, Ștefan Honciar, Costăn Hrihor, Ștefan Antonescul, Giorgie Coțic and Vasilie Țopa.
The birnici were: Simion Săverin, Toma Mirăuță, Ștefan Zet Ego, Ștefan Zina, Grigoraș Pântescul, Enachii Pântescul, Alecsa Sin Lui, Simion Brahă, Vasili Ciornohuz, Toader Măsăian, Ion Masciuk, Acsenti Mangăr, Ștefan ungurian, Toader olar, Mihalachi Chersân and Severin sin popii.
In 1782, before the imperial (Habsburg) commission for the delimitation of properties in Bukovina, the Tudan lineage (neamul Tudan), represented by Iuon, Toader, Maftei and Dumitraș Tudan, declared that it owned one quarter of the village, part inherited from the ancestors and part purchased from Iuon Calmuțchi. The Noșa lineage owned another quarter of the village, purchased from Iuon Calmuțchi. The Popescul lineage inherited one quarter of the village, of which Iuon Mitescul (son-in-law of Iuon Calmuțchi) had purchased two and a half odgoane, that is 55 stânjeni. The last quarter of the village of Costești belonged to the Pobrata monastery.
Captain Iuon Mitescul was the son of Gheorghie Mitescul and of Ioana, daughter of the armaș Toader Holban, grandson of Gavril Mitescul and great-grandson of Pavel.
On 26 December 1796, Niculai Grigorcea and his wife Maria (Volcinschi) gifted to their son Ilie portions of the village and estate of Costești.
In 1843 the Church of Saint Michael in Costești, built in 1785, had 1,799 parishioners, was under the patronage of Udalricus von Cinski, and was served by the administrator-priest Grigorie Sarnawski. In 1876 the patron of the church (which then had 2,478 parishioners) was Anton Ritter von Kochanowski de Stawczan (i.e., of Stăuceni), the parish priest being Leon Palievici. In 1907, under the patronage of Victor Sarnawski, the parish priest of the church in Costești (dedicated to the two Holy Archangels) was still the same Leon Palievici, born in 1833, ordained priest in 1861, parish priest since 1866; the cantor, from 1902, was Eusebie Popovici, born in 1874.
The school in Costești, with four classes, had been functioning since the autumn of 1860.
On 5 July 1941 a few Ukrainian villagers, former members of the LANC, drove the Jews of Costești into a field at the edge of the village near the house of Honceriuc; Romanian soldiers then executed 105 people. The rest (up to the total of approximately 420) were sent on the martyr’s road to the camps in Transnistria.
Footnotes [1] ACAD. ȘT. RSS MOLD., Moldova în epoca feudalismului, VII, I, Chișinău 1975, p. 444 [2] Schematismus der Bukowinaer, Czernowitz, 1843 p. 20, 1876 p. 71, 1907 p. 143
English translation of the early history of Costești (the material that corresponds to “COSTEȘTI (I)”) https://dragusanul.ro/povestea-asezarilor-bucovinene-revazuta-costesti/
COSTEȘTI. Half of the village of Costești was donated by Constantin Movilă Vodă on 7 January 1608 to the Pobrata monastery. The other half was confirmed on 15 January 1617 to the children of Dumitru and Antimia Lența: Marca, Anghelina, Magda and Miron. From these descendants of Lența several freeholder (răzeș) lineages branched out, which over time obtained the division of their shares in the village into increasingly smaller portions.
On 10 June 1650, Vasilie Lastiuca received a confirmation from Vasile Lupu Vodă for the Paholcea share in Costești, which had been pledged for only 10 gold coins (galbeni).
On 28 July 1651, Nastasia, granddaughter of Ilea from Berbești, sold her small estate in Costești for 20 zloți to Vasile Dumitrașcovici.
In the same year, on 14 September 1651, Isac Cocoranul (son-in-law of Bogdan Lența) and Ion Tudan disputed possession of one-quarter of the village of Costești before the Princely Council (Divanul Domnesc). Isac Cocoranul ultimately won the case. On 23 February 1663 he left that quarter of the village to his sons Constantin and Săcuianul.
(A parallel note records that on the same day, 14 September 1651, Isac Cucoranul argued at the Divan over the fourth part of Costești with Ion Tudan, who appeared alone at the one-week deadline set by Vasile Vodă and lost the case.)
On 11 May 1706, Gavrilaș Frunză and his wife Gafița (daughter of Andronachi Vlad) left to their children Ioan and Maria (wife of the deacon Nicolai Borșan) the shares of estates inherited from Frunză’s grandfather Andronachi Peletiuc, “in Vilavce, in Carapciu, in Costești, in Comărești, in Budiniță and elsewhere from my father-in-law Andronachi sin Simion Vlad in Banila Moldovenească and from my mother-in-law Nastasie, daughter of Vasile Căzăcescul, we also having shares of estate in Berhomete, in Lucavăț, in Panca and in the mountains, in the district of Suceava, and in Vaselev, in the district of Cernăuți.”
On 25 October 1717, Ilie Catargiu inherited the quarter of the village that had belonged to Dumitru Calmuțchi.
On 20 August 1719, “Axana, granddaughter of Mstițchi” sold to Ion Otrublenca (son of Vasilie Zahariciuc and therefore grandson of Zaharie) her share “of estate from Căbești and from Comărești, which share of estate is toward the part of Ion Otrublenca, which he inherited from his mother Vasilca, daughter of Ionașcu, granddaughter of Gribincea and of Ionașco… and I have also sold him a clearing (laz) that my father Miron Purcel cleaned, which clearing is above the Lucov of Gribincea, then goes to the border of Costești and across the border of Costești, above the clearing that Bohatir bought from my father.”
On 25 July 1729, Mihai Racoviță Vodă confirmed to Mihai and Gheorghe Lența, “sons of Niculai Lența, maternal grandsons of Ion Lihacinschi, great-grandsons of Vasilev Dumitrașcovici… the shares of hereditary land, purchased land and donation according to the deed they have for the village of Costești.”
On 12 January 1740, after the death of their only 23-year-old son Constandin “by sudden death from the plague, he being with us in Galați,” Iordachi and Catrina Cantacuzino donated to the Sucevița monastery, “for the forgiveness of his sins and of theirs… the seventh part of the village of Costești… all together with those villages called Malinești that had belonged to his maternal grandfather the vornic Boul.”
On 22 June 1754, Matei Ghica confirmed to the freeholders Văsiian and Tănasie Coval and their other brothers, “freeholders from Costești,” the half of the village previously held by Sandul Brânzanul, mazil of Rohozna.
On 12 July 1758, the brothers Sandul and Toader Brânzanul sold for 12 lei in ready money to Vasile Brahă (who already held a share of estate in the village) the share that had belonged to their mother Măriuța.
On 20 September 1760, Mihai and Anița Lența gave to Alexandro Costriș, for an unpaid debt of 20 lei, their shares in Costești, “which were purchased by my ancestor.”
On 10 January 1768, because the peasants’ huts (bordeie) in Costești had been built next to the fields, Grigore Vodă Callimah, at the request of the abbot of Solca monastery, ordered the vornic Constantin Kogălniceanu to gather all the villagers into the village hearth (vatra satului), where they were to build new huts.
This is the complete early history section that precedes the 1772 census material already translated as “COSTEȘTI (II)”.
Rebellions of 1888 and 1907
To fully understand how the socio-economic structure of Costești deteriorated into the conditions that caused the rebellions of 1888 and 1907, we must examine the 120-year historical trajectory between January 10, 1768, and 1888.
- The Outbreak of War: In 1768, the Russo-Turkish War broke out, and by 1769, the Imperial Russian Army occupied the Principality of Moldavia.
- The 1772–1773 Census: Field Marshal Pyotr Rumeanțev-Zadunaiski ordered a massive, highly detailed demographic and economic census. The primary goal was to log local assets to supply and tax the occupying Russian forces. [1]
- The State of Costești: This census documented Costești as a thriving răzeși (free peasant) estate. Unlike the feudal serfs bound to monasteries or high boyars, the răzeși of Costești owned their land collectively by hereditary right, paid their taxes directly to the state, and fiercely guarded their historic autonomy. [1]
- The Splitting of Moldavia (1812): Following the Treaty of Bucharest in 1812, the Russian Empire annexed Bessarabia (Eastern Moldavia). Although Costești and Botoșani remained on the western side of the Prut River under Ottoman suzerainty, the regional economy was destabilized as traditional trade routes and familial răzeși lands were physically severed by a imperial border.
- The Treaty of Adrianople (1829): This treaty lifted the Ottoman trade monopoly, opening Moldavia to the global grain market. Suddenly, owning arable land became immensely lucrative. High-ranking boyar aristocrats began aggressively using corrupt local courts to sue free răzeși communities, falsifying old land deeds to legally steal and annex communal peasant lands like those in Costești.
- The Feudal Code (1831–1832): Imposed under Russian protection, the Regulamentul Organic acted as the region’s first proto-constitution. However, it severely crippled the peasantry. It legally stripped away the collective land rights of the răzeși, turning millions of free men into tenant farmers on their own ancestral soil.
- The “Clacă” Mandate: The law explicitly bound the peasants to the land, dictating mandatory unpaid labor days (clacă) and heavy crop tithes to the estate holders. By the time the 1848 Revolution swept Europe, the peasant question had become Romania’s single most explosive issue. [1, 2]
- The Great Emancipation: In 1864, Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza passed a monumental Agrarian Reform. It officially abolished serfdom, canceled mandatory clacă labor, and redistributed roughly 30% of boyar estates directly to the peasants.
- The Poisoned Chalice: To pacify the furious aristocracy, the law forced peasants to pay high financial compensation to the old landlords over a 15-year period. Furthermore, the land distributed was heavily fragmented, and the elite retained control of all crucial pasturelands, forests, and water mills.
- The 1866 Agricultural Contracts Law: Following Cuza’s exile, the ruling elite passed a law that allowed landlords to use military force to execute labor contracts. If a peasant fell behind on his 1864 reform debts, he was legally forced back into physical labor agreements.
- The Rise of Absenteeism: High boyars completely abandoned the countryside to live in Western Europe, leasing entire territories to corporate manager cartels (arendași).
- The Squeeze on Costești (1879): The administrative map shifted rapidly. In 1879, neighboring Luizoaia was absorbed by the growing city of Botoșani, forcing local villages to consolidate under new administrative umbrellas. By the mid-1880s, corporate lessors consolidated vast monopolies over these local municipal lands, leaving the direct descendants of the 1772 răzeși completely landless and deeply in debt. [1]
1888: The Precursor Revolt (The Warning Shot)
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- The Failed Land Law: Following the initial 1864 land reforms, a new state law passed in 1885 intended to sell state-owned lands to peasants. Bureaucratic corruption instead handed the best lands to wealthy politicians and arendași (trust managers).
- The Outbreak: In the spring of 1888, desperation boiled over in Wallachia and quickly rippled into Moldavia. Peasants refused to perform mandatory labor, attacked estate offices, and burned debt legers.
- The Military Response: King Carol I deployed the army under General George Manu. The military ruthlessly crushed the rebellion, leaving over 1,000 peasants dead and thousands imprisoned.
- The Fatal Mistake: Instead of fixing structural issues, the government passed minor band-aid laws that temporarily pacified villages but left the core system of exploitative “neo-serfdom” completely intact.
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- Sifton’s Open Door Policy: In Canada, Minister of the Interior Clifford Sifton launched an aggressive campaign targeting Eastern European farmers. Canada offered 160 acres of free land (via the Dominion Lands Act) to any family willing to clear and farm it. [1, 2]
- First Pioneers: Hearing rumors of boundless, landlord-free soil, the first organized groups of Romanian peasants sold off their meager tools to afford steamship tickets. Landmark settlements like Boian, Alberta were established in 1898. [1]
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- Absentee Urbanization: By 1900, wealthy elite boyar landlords had almost entirely abandoned their rural estates to live in luxury in Bucharest or Paris, leaving ruthless arendași (intermediaries) in charge.
- The Behind-the-Scenes Letters: As thousands of displaced Romanians (especially persecuted Romanian Jews fleeing northern Moldavia) sought escape, the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) petitioned Ottawa for western lands. Minister Clifford Sifton fiercely rejected the initiative. In private, highly candid correspondence with his European immigration agents—including William Preston, the Commissioner of Immigration in Europe—Sifton explicitly stated that he “objected to Romanian Jews as immigrants”. Sifton and Preston exchanged directives to aggressively halt any promotions in Eastern Europe that would draw non-agricultural, urban-bound “continentals” who might pool in eastern Canadian cities rather than breaking soil on the western prairies.
- The Influx to Ottawa: Despite these covert federal barriers, hundreds of landless Romanian refugees managed to navigate checkpoints, pass through Atlantic ports, and slip into urban hubs like Ottawa and Montreal. [1, 2, 3]
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- The Industrial Grind: Those who successfully settled in Ottawa bypassed farming to enter the city’s grueling blue-collar industrial sectors. Following the Great Ottawa-Hull Fire of 1900, the capital was in a state of rapid reconstruction. Immigrants found heavy manual labor on the riverfront at the Chaudière Falls lumber mills, dominated by timber barons like J.R. Booth and the E.B. Eddy Company. Laborers worked exhausting shifts handling dangerous timber slides, feeding logs into massive water-powered sawmills, and transitioning factories into the newly booming pulp and paper industry.
- Global Price Collapse: Concurrently, global grain prices fell dramatically due to American and Russian export competition. To maintain profits, Romanian arendași sharply increased land rents back home.
- The Return of “Neo-Serfdom”: Peasants who could not afford to flee to places like Ottawa or the expanding agricultural communities in Saskatchewan (like Dysart, Limerick, and Regina) were trapped in brutal debt-labor contracts (clacă), working up to 6 days a week just to earn food rations. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
1904: The Monopolization of “Fischerland”
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- The Fischer Trust Monopolies: In northern Moldavia (including the Botoșani/Costești region), a powerful, wealthy family syndicate led by Mochi Fischer created an immense agricultural trust.
- Eliminating Competition: The Fischer Trust aggressively outbid local peasant cooperatives, successfully leasing over 75% of all arable land across three entire northern counties.
- Total Dominance: The local peasantry suddenly found themselves with zero choices; they either had to accept the Fischer family’s severely abusive work contracts or face immediate starvation. [1]
1905: Severe Famine and Cultural Outcry
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- The Crop Failures: Severe weather led to an extremely poor harvest, leaving hundreds of thousands of peasant families facing winter with zero grain reserves.
- Art剧烈Imitates Agony: Witnessing the starving masses, the iconic Romanian painter Ștefan Luchian completed his famous masterpiece, Distribution of Maize (Părțirea mămăligii). The painting depicted a crowd of desperate, gaunt peasants waiting in line for meager corn rations, serving as an ominous warning to the upper classes.
1906: The Legal Squeeze—Frank Oliver’s Immigration Act
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- The Legislative Wall: In Ottawa, newly appointed Minister of the Interior Frank Oliver radically shifted Canadian policy by drafting and passing the Immigration Act of 1906. Oliver openly shied away from “culturally alien immigrants from southeastern Europe” who gravitated toward industrial centers.
- Restricting the Cities: To specifically stop immigrants from settling permanently in urban areas, the 1906 Act introduced aggressive mechanisms of restriction and enforcement. It vastly expanded the definition of “prohibited immigrants” and introduced a monetary requirement (landing money), forcing immigrants to possess a minimum cash amount upon arrival to ensure they had the means to reach the western interior. Most crucially, the Act granted the federal government its first sweeping legal authority to deport immigrants within two years of landing if they became an “undesirable” economic burden on municipal resources or charity in eastern cities.
- The Catalyst Contract Delay: Back in Romania, census data revealed that 95% of the rural peasantry was completely illiterate. Leveraging this, arendași managers systematically forged labor contracts. In late 1906, Mochi Fischer stubbornly refused to renew spring leasing contracts, holding out to squeeze higher prices from the desperate villagers.
- A Predestined Clash: The peasants, terrified that they would not be allowed to sow crops for the coming year, began holding secret, angry assemblies across the region. [1, 2]
The Pre-Condition: The Winter Stand-off
- The Provocation: Constantinescu treated the desperate farmers with open arrogance and hostility. He flatly refused to lower the lease rates and insulted the delegation.
- The Assault: Tempers boiled over. A group of furious young peasants lunged at Constantinescu, physically assaulting him. The local gendarmes intervened to protect the manager, but they were quickly overwhelmed by the size of the crowd. Constantinescu managed to break free and fled the scene, escaping into the nearby woods to save his life.
- Scythes (coase) and pitchforks
- Axes and wooden clubs
- Old hunting rifles
- Burning the Records: The peasants marched on the estate offices and manors, systematically hunting down and burning the corporate debt ledgers, land deeds, and exploitative agricultural contracts.
- Targeting the Towns: Columns of chanting peasants began marching down the old rural roads toward the municipal capital of Botoșani and the surrounding outer villages like Costești and Răchiți, gathering thousands of recruits along the way.
- The Garrison Alarm: Troops at the Botoșani barracks were placed on high operational alert. They were ordered to march directly out of their quarters to secure the municipal capital’s perimeters. [1]
- Securing the City Barriers: Specific companies were detached to fortify the entry checkpoints of the city. Their explicit orders were to block and disarm incoming columns of peasants marching from Flămânzi and outer rural sectors. [1]
- The Agafton Barrier Post: A major defensive deployment was ordered at the Agafton city barrier, where a defensive line was drawn to halt an estimated 400 armed peasants attempting to force entry into Botoșani. [1]
- Fixed Urban Patrolling: Two tactical companies were immediately pushed into the commercial core of the city center. [1]
- Preventing Urban Riot Expansion: Local urban underclass groups (mahalagiii) were beginning to capitalize on the chaos by setting commercial storefronts on fire. The military’s orders were to use fixed physical force to clear the streets, prevent arson, and safeguard critical business assets. [1]
- The Proscription on Lethal Escalation: At this exact early juncture (February 22), the sweeping, brutal “shoot-to-kill” field artillery commands later orchestrated by General Averescu in March had not yet been authorized. The soldiers were instructed to act as an auxiliary police force, utilizing rifle butts, bayonets, and cavalry sabers to break up mobs rather than deploying mass live ammunition. [1, 2]
- The Peasant-Soldier Conundrum: The operational execution of these initial orders faced deep friction. The ranks of the 16th Infantry Regiment were largely composed of local, conscripted young peasants from the Botoșani countryside.
- Command Friction: On February 22, garrison officers reported severe internal hesitation among the troops. Soldiers found themselves ordered to suppress and point weapons at their own neighbors, uncles, and brothers who were arriving in the peasant columns. This tension led to several early instances of passive non-compliance, setting the stage for the total collapse of local order that later forced Bucharest to deploy outside regiments by mid-March. [1, 2, 3]