Wild Field is a personal memoir by Grigori Efremovich Tsygutkin. relating to Agricultural Colony #13 (Nadezhnaya, also called Der Vilner) and his own memories of it from the first half of the 20th century (at least as far as Book 2: Colonists is concerned).
The agricultural colonies of the southern Ukraine form part of the pre-history of the agricultural face of the Zionist movement, notably the branch that developed in Argentina around 1900 (with an influx of colonists via Mariupol). They are also one of the major subjects of an idiosyncratic and highly nationalistic study in two volumes by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, titled (in English translation) Two Centuries Together Solzhenitsyn focuses on what he considers to be the failures of the project, from the point of view of the aims of Russian nationalism; all would agree that it was a challenging project.
Our interest is primarily in the leading role taken by one branch of the Konovalov family in the development of the colony, and the leading role taken by the development of the colony in one branch of the Konovalov family: see our overview.
Here we give a little detail about G. E. Tsygutkin's text. We encountered this text first in the form of excerpts in Pavel Berhnhtam's history of the Chervin family; the Chervins and Konovalovs were closely intertwined in the history of the colony, in fact.
We have posted the text in Russian and English in pdf format.
The memoir is said to be a personal account written from memory in the period 2010-2014. He comments on family visits in 2008.
Grigori gives the following account of the origins of the Tsygutkin line.
The very first Tysgutkin was Mendel, born ca. 1810-1811, based on arrival at the colony age 14 or 15. His allotment passed to his eldest son Girshe.
From Girshe it passed, first, to Girshe's oldest son, Dovid-Meyer, who emigrated to Argentina in 1912. This would be to the colonies at Entre Rios supported by the Baron Rothschild, which attracted many from the Mariupol area at this time. (Including a very large Chervin line with similar backgrounds.)
On Dovid-Meyer's emigration the land allotment passed to the second son Efraim Tsygutkin, the father of the author of the memoir. So this is the situation in 1912.
The sources for the memoir are disussed in the last pages, followed by the tale of the end of the colony and some post-war events.
I promised my heirs to write memoirs about my childhood, boyhood, youth, coming of age and the years that followed, right up to the emigration to blessed America, where we were received as dear guests and provided with everything.