Kramatorsk. The Noble Nest of the Korshuns

Neglected and ruined estates, forgotten names and the tragic fates of their owners. Ruined family houses in which people grew up and lived who served their Motherland and their people faithfully and truly. On the northern edge of Kramatorsk, in oblivion and desolation, amid the thickets of an abandoned park, the mansion of a noble family gleams white and forlorn — the house in which the eminent microbiologist, the talented scholar Stepan Vasylovych Korshun, lived and worked.

Kramatorsk. Donetsk region. The Korshun house. Late 19th c.

In 2018 it was 150 years since the birth of S. V. Korshun — the organiser of the mass production of vaccines and prophylactic serums, the founder of a scientific school of immunologists, and the author of more than 80 scholarly articles.

Stepan Vasylovych Korshun (1868-1931) — microbiologist, hygienist, doctor of medical sciences

In the 1990s, on house No. 10 on Sakhalinska Street, a memorial plaque testified: "Here, in this country, lived, created, healed, taught and died while saving others, Doctor Stepan Vasylovych Korshun. 1868-1931". The plaque was torn off by metal thieves and has not been restored on the solitary house.

Kramatorsk. The Korshun family estate. Late 19th c.

The history of this noble nest was gathered by local historians grain by grain. At the end of the 19th century Yelyzaveta Yuriivna Korshun, the wife of a Cossack colonel and the mother of six children, bought 1,100 desiatinas of land in a picturesque locality where the Bilenka River washes virgin steppes with rock outcrops at the surface. A two-storey house was built for the large family.

Stepan was the eldest; besides him, three more brothers and two sisters were raised in the family. Heorhiy was a chemist. Mykola and Vasyl were twins, Socialist Revolutionaries, who distributed leaflets and took part in acts of terrorism. In the family home, in the years 1900-1906, the Kramatorsk underground held their gatherings. Mykola was executed for taking part in the attempt on the life of Lieutenant General Rennenkampf. One of the sisters, Maria, chose the profession of midwife.

Kramatorsk. The Korshun house. A memorial plaque about the revolutionary events of the early 20th c.

After finishing the gymnasium, Stepan entered the medical faculty of Kharkiv University, where his qualities of leadership took shape. During his student practice in the Izium county, the young doctor was struck by the sufferings of children dying of diphtheria. In his final year he took part in fighting the cholera outbreak in Sloviansk and was in charge of the ward in which the gravely ill lay. Even sitting the state examinations did not make the selfless student suspend his noble mission.

Having received his diploma with distinction, Korshun devoted his life to bacteriology and the struggle against epidemics. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries there were no effective means of treating dangerous diseases. In the years of the revolutions and the First World War, along with great loss of life, chaos and ruin, typhus, dysentery, cholera and other rampant pandemics raged. On a mission to Germany and France, Korshun worked together with foreign luminaries, Professor Emmerich and the future Nobel laureate Professor Ehrlich, visited hospitals and shelters, and studied the engineering intricacies of laying out water supply and sewerage systems.

On his return to Kharkiv, Korshun defended his doctoral dissertation. The results of the research the young scientist had carried out at the Pasteur Institute in Paris were published in Europe and Russia. His active scholarly work and high standing led, in 1914, to Korshun's appointment as director of the Kharkiv Bacteriological Institute. These events coincided with the outbreak of the First World War. The director, together with the institute's staff, made every effort to develop and obtain anti-tetanus and other vaccines and to supply them to the army.

In the years 1917-1922 the Civil War raged across the territory of the Russian Empire, together with cholera and typhus. Vasyl Stepanovych went on working at inventing preparations against dangerous infections and increased the production of vaccines. In 1919 he refused an offer to evacuate to Serbia together with his wife and his laboratory, continuing to give help both to the Reds and to the Whites. Such non-partisanship in medical and scholarly work could not go unnoticed by the Red commissars, and Korshun was removed from the post of rector of the Kharkiv Medical Institute, which he had held for a few months.

After a search and a summons to the GPU, the scientist was forced to leave Kharkiv and to move, at an 'insistent request', to Moscow. Directing a newly created institute, Korshun turned it into a research centre in which more than 40 kinds of medical preparations were produced. In a short period the structure of the institute was improved, professional staff were formed, and its scientific potential grew.

The years of the first political repressions in the USSR set in. Fifty of the greatest scientists were tried in the 'microbiologists' case', which was kept especially secret. There is a version that S. V. Korshun, arrested in 1930, refused to work on the development of bacteriological weapons, for which he was declared the head of a terrorist organisation and sentenced to be shot, the sentence being commuted to 10 years' imprisonment. The other accused, who did not strike a bargain with their conscience, received various terms. Those who agreed worked in a special prison under conditions of particular secrecy. In 1931, in Butyrka prison, the talented scientist, professor and doctor of medical sciences took his own life; the place of his burial is unknown. In 1953 the 'wrecker' microbiologists were rehabilitated, but Stepan Vasylovych's wife did not live to see that event by a single year.

After the Second World War the Korshun house — since the best goes to the children — was given over to an orphanage. Later, and up to the ruinous 1990s, a factory kindergarten, 'Fialka', was housed in the building.

Kramatorsk. The Korshun house. The factory kindergarten

At present the building is in private ownership and is used as a workshop or a warehouse.

Kramatorsk. The Korshun house. Sakhalinska Street, 10

The sight of the manor house and the park around it stirs a very sad mood.

In 2010, in a print run of 300 copies, O. O. Chelny's book 'Microbiologist Stepan Vasylovych Korshun: The Fate of a Scientist and the Microbiologists' Case' came out. In 2016 the street named after the 17th Party Congress — which won fame as the 'execution congress' (of its 1,966 delegates, 1,108 were shot as enemies of the people) — was renamed Stepan Korshun Street. The Korshun house and the Bantysh estate in Komyshuvakha are two surviving noble mansions of the Kramatorsk area that need the protection of historical memory.

The address of the Korshun house: Sakhalinska Street, 10, Kramatorsk, Donetsk region. Drive along Oleksa Tykhy Street in the direction of Sloviansk; at the northern edge — a turn to the right.

Coordinates: 48°46'7"N 37°35'25"E

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This story is also available in Ukrainian: Краматорськ. Дворянське гніздо Коршунів