Articles --> Żuławy

The catalogue structure

The first section of an entry includes a current name of a settlement (the previous or second names are in parenthesis) present in the Spis miejscowości w Polsce (List of Polish towns and villages) or on a 1:100000 topographic map prepared by the Państwowe Przedsiębiorstwo Geodezyjno - Kartograficzne (National Geodetic and Cartographic Office) in 1981, published in 1988. Currently, some names (especially those with segment PGR or numbers I, II, III, etc.) are not officially recognized, but are still in use. Many small settlements are not listed, and residents simply use the old name. Some settlements have multiple names (official and customary). . The village name is followed by the name of gmina (district), then the name of a voivodeship: Pomorskie or Warmińsko-Mazurskie, and the Żuławy region: Żuławy Gdańskie, Wielkie Żuławy Malborskie, Małe Żuławy Malborskie, Żuławy Elbląskie, Żuławy Szkarpawskie and several villages located in Mierzeja.

The second section includes the historical name used until 1945 according to the 1:25000 Topographic Map from 1909-1911. The name (always German) is accompanied by an acronym TK and names of historical maps (Gotho, Endersch and Schrőtter), which include a given settlement (in parenthesis). If a village names on the Topographic Map and the earlier maps are the same, the names of the three maps are included in a common parenthesis; if names are different, they precede the name of a map, which includes a given name. Absence of a map name indicates that a given village was not included in that map. Those three maps were selected for the purpose of this catalogue due to the fact that the dates of their completion coincide with the colonization period in Żuławy; at the same time, they are among the most accurate and reliable cartographic sources.

The third section includes a brief description of a settlement, which is limited to its foundation date, basic data on village area and population, and information regarding the Dutch colonization. The inclusion of a village in the Dutch colonization was indicated by providing the recorded size of Mennonite population (Mennonites not necessarily were Dutch, the same as Dutch not always belonged to the Mennonite denomination) living in a given settlement. Currently, this is the only available source providing information on the actual structure of the village population. Based on archival materials of Adalbert Goetz, Bert Friesen, and partially Horst Penner published in the internet, the author selected 3 important events in Mennonite history: year 1776, when names of Mennonite landowners inhabiting a given village before the mass emigration were included in the Special Consignation list, 50 years afterwards, year 1820, following the migration and the Napoleonic Wars, and 1868 when Mennonites were sighing a petition to the Prussian government. Including this last event was to provide a short list of Mennonite surnames from the 2nd half of the 19th century and confirm the long-term presence of Mennonite in a given village. Some entries in the Słownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego (Geographic Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland) provide some statistical data on population; the historical note includes only general numbers related to Mennonites.

The section 4 briefly describes the spatial layout of a village. This publication makes use of the B. Lipińska classification due to its clarity.
The section 5 presents the condition of the cultural landscape of a settlement. The author took account of preserved spatial elements, building types, and village vegetation. In some cases, the author made comparisons with the B. Lipińska catalogue - the only existing publication (1980s) that includes a list of historical buildings in the Żuławy. The comparison between the current data and the numbers provided by Lipińska shows the pace of devastation of historical sites in a given village. The existence of a railway line or its fragments in a village was regarded irrelevant to the colonization. Waterway and drainage networks in the Żuławy are in good condition, or at least are detectable, which was indicated in the description. Apart from a short note regarding the field layout detectability, its analysis was not included due to the fact that it is impossible to compare its stages.

The section 6 provides a description of buildings in a given village, which are related to the Dutch colonization; those are primarily Dutch homesteads, houses from Dutch homesteads, and sometimes, accompanying farm buildings. This section also includes descriptions of Mennonite churches, which still exist or have been destroyed since WWII or after, and cemeteries. Descriptions of individual gravestones were not included; they are a subject of a separate study. Only several most important and detectable names have been mentioned. For the same reason, the author did not include gravestone inscriptions.
Descriptions are as brief as possible and include only individual features of a building, such as: its construction material, structure, number of axes, and layout. Descriptions of brick cowsheds were left out because they occur in three basic types and the majority of them date from the beginning of the 20th century; picking out their differences would provide too much information.

The catalogue also includes layouts of some buildings, if available. Their selection was based on their reliability and a possibility to be reproduced. Many drawings from 1980s are quite rough, and sometimes show inaccurate number of axes or are simply illegible. The catalogue sporadically includes reproductions of drawings from documentations or publications, providing they present particularly characteristic buildings or sites.

The majority of the presented photographs were taken during the field survey in 2006; in a dozen or so cases, pictures come from the earlier documentation or were taken by the author before 2006. The selection of archival photographs was dictated by the fact that a building no longer existed, was modified, or it was impossible to take a clear picture.

The section 7 includes a short list of sources with only the most essential publications, which are directly associated with a given settlement. In addition to the Słownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego and B. Schmid, this section also lists the essential study of B. Lipińska with literature references to studies by H. Bertram, W. Quade, Geisler, Szafran, and A. Piątkowski. Studies of A. Goertz, B. Friesen, and M. Warchoł, which are available in the interned, have also been mentioned.