Houses of Demandice

Our Roots

6000 years have passed since the time when the first permanent settlement was created in the area of today’s Demandice. Many Houses came and left the valley of the Bur stream, depending on the resources our region could offer, as well as war happenings which were far from scarce. Perhaps the most severe intervention to the settlement of Demandice was brought by the Turkish occupation which deleted it from historical records. However, at the beginning of the 18th century it was already inhabited by many significant families. The downfall of “Ugria“(Uhorsko) at the dawn of the last century stimulated a huge migration into and out of our village. Another migration came about in the first half of the 40ties after the change of state borders. Currently, many families are gradually leaving – some of them had been living here for decades, even centuries. Many documents and photographs from their lives have found their way to my archives. Thus, I have decided, starting with this very article, to introduce their fates and roots to a broader public. As this is my first attempt, I shall begin with our family – the Ukrops.

The Ukrops

The word “ukrop“ doesn’t ring a bell with most Slovak speakers. Anton Bernolak translated the term as: insculumaqaticum / die Wassersuppe or vizleves which could be literally translated as „water soup“. In our family it is believed that the Ukrops came to Slovakia, more particularly to the region of Dobra Niva by Zvolen, after the battle of “Biela Hora“. After the defeat of the Czechs, some butcher’s family named Ukrop moved out of northern Moravia. There might be something true about this legend, since the Czech language contains words like “oukrop“, “úkrop” or “ukrop” meaning a thin garlic soup.
     Unlike in Slovak, this word is quite prevalent in other Slavonic languages where it exists in many shades of form and meaning. In Polish, ukrop means hot boiled water. This meaning is also carried by the words ‘ukrop’ or ‘okrop’ in Old Russian. In contemporary Russian the word is also used in connection with religion – it refers to a container for keeping holy water warm. Apparently, the cold Russian winter would otherwise turn it into ice way too quickly, before it could be used. Another word with a related meaning would be ‘ukropnik’, which means a teapot. In Ukrainian and Russian, ‘ukrop’ means dill. Bulgarian knows the word ‘okrop’, meaning mulled wine served at weddings. In Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian, ‘krop’ means hot water.
     So how about cooking some hot ‘ukrop’? Years ago, my wife found a witty cartoon-like ‘oukrop’ recipe which she has preserved until today. As a completely natural dish, without need for any special ingredients, it is definitely worth trying. Artificial additives and preservatives you can easily do without.

     In the old times it would be prepared without potatoes which were substituted by bits of dry bread. The water left after boiling potatoes is very much suitable for cooking ‘ukrop’. Pour it over crushed garlic, add a little grease (caraway seeds were already present in the water). Almost out of nothing, you can easily prepare a soup very much favoured even by one of the great Czech poets – Jan Neruda.

From Dobra Niva to Demandice

Dobra Niva (at the end of the 19th century), the agelong "nest" of the Ukrops.

     Although I haven’t yet managed to explore the birth records of Dobra Niva, thanks to the leather-bound books preserved in our family it can be proven that the Ukrops did in fact inhabit this area in the first half of the 18th century. Jan Slavik, the evangelistic priest of Dobra Niva, did mention a certain ‘richtár’ (mayor) Michal Ukrop in his work „Dejiny dobronivskej evanjelickej cirkve, niektoré dávnejšie deje kráľovského výsadného mestečka Dobronivej a okolia“ (History of the Evangelistic Church  in the royal town of Dobra Niva). Michal Ukrop held the office of „richtár“ (mayor) in the years 1760 – 1763. The author also does mention him later in the book, when he stood up for liberating his successor and other town jurors. These were summoned to Zvolen Castle by the House of Esterhazy and imprisoned there for not giving consent to exploiting inhabitants of Dobra Niva and Sása by local nobility. As a result of his actions, Michal Ukrop himself also ended up in prison with the rest of the town officials. They were only released upon signing whatever the Esterhazy-s wanted them to sign. When I was getting married to a woman from Sása at the very same castle, the Esterhazy-s did no longer rule these lands. And thus, despite being descendant of the heroic ‘richtár’, I did not find my bitter end in jail there. But neither did I leave the castle as a free man.
     The Ukrops of Dobra Niva continued to grow and prosper. The house was divided into several branches. One of them was represented by the family of my grandfather Jan Ukrop – ‘the Ukrops of Hladkov’. ‘Hladkov’ was the name of their homestead in the northern end of ‘Velka strana’ (The Large Side). As we can infer from various birth and christening certificates, it was the homestead where my grand grandfather Jan Ukrop joined the ‘Hladky’ family by marrying Maria Hladka.

"U Hladkov"
My father, grandfather and great grandfather were all born in this homestead
 

     The Ukrops were farmers. Their peaceful life was severely disturbed by the First World War. It took lives of many: Jan, Michal and Pavel Ukrop from Dobra Niva and Pavel Úkrop from Dačov Lom, who was quite likely also part of the family. Uncle John Ukrop would never forget to visit the Ukrop aunties of Dačov Lom whenever he came over from Canada. Grandfather Jan was a bit luckier – he returned from Russian captivity.
     Together with his multiple offspring, consisting of five sons and one daughter, he decided to relocate the family residence to ‘dolniaky’ (as our area was commonly referred to) at the beginning of the 1920-s. On 14 January 1923 he left Dobra Niva and became inhabitant of Demandice. Here, together with several farmers, he bought some property of the Winkler family. Their mansion became the first family dwelling of the Ukrops in Demandice.

The Winkler Mansion at the beginning of the 20th century. Jan Ukrop and his family settled down in its eastern wing in January 1923.

 

     In the 1930-s, Jan Ukrop built some farm buildings nearby the mansion and later attached a residential part. The latter was already financed by his son Jan who left Slovakia together with his brother Stefan in the end of the 1920-s to search for work in Canada. Unfortunately, Stefan passed away at the age of 24 and left his wife Maria and daughter Anna behind. The WWII also affected our family. My father served in the Hungarian army for four years – he lost the best years of his life there but he did survive. His brother Martin, who belonged to the toughest men in the village, was recruited in the first round and that was not very common indeed. Unfortunately, in 1944 he perished somewhere in the eastern front as a soldier.

This photograph was taken in 1935 by uncle John when he first came over for a visit from Canada.

 

     In Demandice, our family continued to earn their living as farmers. After the war and founding of the ‘farmers’ cooperative’, my father worked in agricultural purchasing until his retirement. Stefan Ukrop followed in his footsteps and moved to Hontianske Tesare. In the local cooperative, uncle Juraj worked as an accountant and his son Jan even became head of the cooperative.
     Younger family members scattered into many schools and later found their jobs outside the village. The daughter of Stefan Ukrop Lubica Nejezchlebova studied economics and is currently employed in diplomatic services. After her mission in Prague and Geneva she is now located in Brussels. I have studied law and worked as a university teacher, legislative advisor at the Ministry of Justice, General Director of the Section of Legislation and External Affairs of the Ministry of Interior as well as Secretary General for the Deputy-Prime Minister for the Area of Legislation. Currently I am concluding my career in the Office of the President of the Slovak Republic. My son Milan occupies the position of methodologist in a private language school and the other son Lubos is a programmer in Vienna. Richard, the son of Lubica Nejezchleb also works there in the banking sector. Zdenka, the daughter of my sister Bozena Alfoldiova has studied mass media communication and is currently working in Bratislava at the Headquarters of the Slovak Red Cross. The grandson of Martin Ukrop – Lorincz has been holding the position of mayor of the neighbouring village Santovka for the past 10 years.
     Thus, there are no more Ukrops left in Demandice nowadays. After ninety years in the village the only remainder of our presence is represented by the Gafrik family. They are descendants of Jan Ukrop’s daughter Anna. Our branch of the family is to be continued by the only male heirs Milan and Lubos.

In the world

In 1995, there lived 139 bearers of the surname ‘Ukrop’ in Slovakia. Alongside ‘Ukrop’, the surname ‘Ukropec’ is also quite common. In comparison, there are only two ‘Ukrops’ and five ‘Ukropová-s’ in the Czech Republic. What is more interesting though, is the amount of Google search results for ‘Ukrop’ on the internet – there are 4,960,000 entries.

Jan Ukrop (in the middle) and his family during a Sunday picnic. On the right, you can see Stefan Ukrop and his wife (both wearing a hat).

 

     At the end of the 19th century Slovakia was unable to provide work and sufficient standard of living to all its inhabitants. Thus, hundreds of thousands of them decided to emigrate and try to make a living abroad. For the folks of Dobrá Niva, the USA and Canada became the most popular destinations. My grandfather Jan Ukrop had two brothers: Juraj and Stefan. Both of them immigrated to the USA in search of employment. While Juraj eventually returned home, Stefan decided to stay. He had no children and died in America together with his wife.
     My grandfather, on the other hand, had five children. It was no easy task to maintain such family. His sons Jan and Stefan immigrated to Canada in 1927. Stefan married Mária Kocmanová from Kamenný chotár and they had a daughter called Anna. He died in Canada in 1931. Jan married Berta Moravská from Santovka and they also had a daughter - Berta. He earned his living by working on a farm and eventually managed to establish his own shop which kept him busy until the time of retirement. He lived in Oshawa and afterwards in Windsor. He never returned to his home country, except for a couple of visits. Both Jan and Stefan had no sons, so the Ukrop family in America only continued through their daughters Berta and Anna. Berta got married and moved to the USA while Anna stayed in Canada. Our family is still in touch with both of these branches, the most recent contact being the visit of Justin Fantauzzo,  the great-great-grandson of my grandfather Jan Ukrop, in Slovakia. His grandmother Anna Ukropova, the daughter of Stefan, was actually born in Demandice in 1930. 

Uncle John Ukrop (on the right) was a keen organizer of Slovak compatriotic events. He played the violin, as we can see in this photo, and also performed as an actor in theater.

     The most economically successful branch of the Ukrops are the descendants of Stefan and Anna Ukrop, who came from Dobra Niva. They immigrated to America in 1900. Actually, they were about the same age as my grandparents. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet managed to explore their family relations in detail. Just like many of their countrymen, they also earned their living as farmers and workers in the industrial centre of Pittsburgh. Their son Joe Ukrop opened his first store in May 1937. When he died in Virginia in 2002, the Ukrop’s chain of supermarkets already included 27 stores.

     Their existence was brought to my attention by one employee of the Non-profit Organizations Centre in the USA which I happened to cooperate with at the end of the 90-s. To one of our meetings, she brought a glass of mustard with the label ‘UKROP’s’ on top of it.

The company UKROP's is well-known for its contribution to the community. Among other events, they sponsored the City Run in Richmond (about 60,000 runners participate on a regular basis). They also built and financed the Youth Football Center for 600 children and juniors.

 

     The Ukrops had not forgotten their village of origin. I’m quite certain they had visited Dobra Niva again, as in their stores they would sell biscuits prepared according to the recipe from Dobra Niva. There was a photograph of Dobra Niva on the label which read ‘Good Meadow’ (rough translation of ‘Dobra Niva’ into English).
     It is also possible to come across the name ‘Ukrop’ in South America. In Argentina, there used to be a bookshop of this name. In Russia it is particularly prevalent due to the meaning it carries (‘ukrop’= dill, as mentioned before). Among other things, there is one Russian foundation and a cafe in Petrohrad bearing this name.
     All in all, there isn‘t a lot of Ukrops left in the world nowadays but each of them has managed to earn their rightful place.

To enter the photo gallery click on the picture:

Houses of Demandice The Ukrops