How We Celebrated the 1st of May

"On the first of May speakers will come to Kossava, there will be something," ran like a whirlwind through all the surrounding villages. Wherever you went, whether to a circle of old men, a circle of women, or a circle of young people, talk of the First of May could be heard everywhere. In every village, after the greeting, people asked: "Well, how will they celebrate the first of May?"

Despite the fact that the first of May fell precisely in the very busiest moment of the spring work, the people nevertheless dropped everything and made their way to the little town. Most went on foot.

From early morning the little town began to fill with people (it happened to be a market day, and for that reason the police did not drive the people out of the town). On everyone's faces one could read expectation, but nobody tried to show that he was waiting for anything. This was because the police spent the whole day searching for "unreliable" people.

From the morning the lads and girls began to gather in little groups of 4–5 persons, as always. The gendarmes drove off all these groups as soon as they saw them anywhere, to the commandant and the "cooler."

By noon all the people were frightened by the arrests, but in spite of all this they did not disperse until the very evening, still waiting: any moment now the speaker will come! But they waited in vain. In a heavy, oppressed mood the people began to disperse to their villages.