A false priest: crime and power relations among Ukrainian immigrants in Serra do Tigre (Mallet-PR, early 20th century)

Abstract

Our documentary base was initially produced in the Municipal Court of the Judicial Term of São Pedro de Mallet, in the district of União da Vitória, Paraná, based on a police investigation from 1928. The investigation’s defendant is “the false priest” Nicolau Ziombra, who, for the Archbishop of Curitiba, was a swindler and exploiter of popular faith. He was also accused of being constantly inebriated, causing disorder, charging for activities, embezzling church funds, persecuting public teachers and prevent- ing burials, including of children, in the cemetery next to the church. The legal narrative is intense, almost 300 pages long and engages the reader in every moment of the plot, making it possible to understand the power relations at a local level between churchmen, shopkeepers and different groups of Ukrainian immigrants around the control of spaces considered vital, such as the church and the cemetery. Our aim is to analyze, based on a criminal case, the power relations that were evident in the clashes over control of the church in Serra do Tigre, in the district of Dorizon, in the municipality of Mallet-PR. Through the use of the Judiciary, we seek to understand the strategic use made of this resource to strengthen the positions and dominance of ethnic groups in local disputes for the control of certain spaces.