Boiany

Boiany ( _uk. Бояни, Romanian: Boian) is a village in the Chernivtsi Oblast (province) of western Ukraine. It is located in the Novoselytsky Raion (district) close to Sadagura in the historic region of Bukovina.

It was the ancestral estate of Ion Neculce, chronicler of the history of the Principality of Moldavia in the 18th century.

History

According to legend, the village was founded by a forester raising oxen ("Boi" in Romanian) in a glade. In the Middle Ages, trade route linking Cernăuţi (now Chernivtsi) with Iaşi passed through the village. The village is first officially attested in a document dated April 8, 1528 by Petru Rareş, ruler of Moldavia.The Boian estate is given as a wedding gift to Ion Neculce's mother, Catrina Cantacuzino, together with Cernauca and 21 other villages. Upon Neculce's flight and exile in Russia, the estate was confiscated and given to another nobleman, but in 1720 Neculce was granted permission to return to Moldavia. He then proceeded to sue the new owner and managed to convince the court to return the Boian estate to him.

Monuments

The village has a bust of Ion Neculce and a monument to the victims of Communist oppression.

Emigration

Due to poor economic conditions, some villagers started immigrating to Canada in the late 1880s; by 1913, at least 983 people had left the village. Many of them settled in the province of Alberta and founded a village with the same name, Boian.

References

*Michael Toma. "Never From Eagle Hill". 1985 (about the Boian in Canada)

External links

* [http://www.cv.ukrtel.net/boian/ISTORIE/neculce.htm Cronicarul Ion Niculce si Boianul - o dragoste reciproca] -- part of Boianul din Bukovina, an excellent Romanian-language website with lots of detail about history, customs, monuments and emigration