This is the fourth of five parts in our project translating information on pre-WWII beliefs in vampires, witches, monsters, demons, death rituals and superstitions in specific villages. This post focuses on modern-day Lesko County. The information was provided by local school officials to the Sanok School Inspectorate in the late 1930s. The original documents and metadata are available online from the Sanok Historical Museum through the Sanok Digital Library.

To learn more about the scope and purpose of this project, see Introduction: Vampires, Witches, and other Terrifying Creatures in the Sanok School Inspectorate Questionnaires 

Part 1: Krosno County

Part 2: Sanok County (minus Komańcza)

Part 3: Komańcza Gmina

Part 4: Lesko County

Part: 5 Bieszczady County

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Olszanica

Wańkowa

The local people believe that after death, the deceased walks and visits their loved ones. Often after death, a person becomes an upiór, comes back to the cottage, and haunts it. To prevent this, they pour a handful of poppy seeds into the mouth of the deceased. The deceased wakes up at 12 o’clock at night and has until 1 o’clock to count those poppy seeds. Because there are many poppy seeds and they cannot manage to count them by one o’clock, they cease to be a upiór. 

If the deceased is believed to return, traditional accounts suggest a relative might attempt to end the haunting through specific ritual movements. This involved tracing a path with clay from the grave to the home at midnight. Upon the figure’s return to the cottage at one o’clock, folklore describes the application of various physical measures or ritual interventions to ensure the spirit remains at rest. Money is often placed under the head of the deceased in the coffin. This tradition reflects the belief that the soul must be ferried across a river in the afterlife, with the coins serving as payment for the passage.

Rudenka

When someone is afraid of a dead person, they take the hands of the dead person and command them to squeeze their own fingers and hands, then they will no longer be afraid, just as the dead person is not afraid.

When they carry out the coffin, no one should leave the house ahead of the deceased, so that the dead person does not return to that house again.

New cottages are blessed with holy water.  Before it is blessed, it is vulnerable to evil spirits.  They protect an unblessed cottage against the entry of an evil spirit in this way: an old woman carries blessed items from the old house and places them in the coals…

…When a bride enters her husband’s house for the first time and does not want his parents to live, then as she crosses the threshold and sees his parents, she says to herself with great comfort: “Neither this one, nor that one, neither dad, nor mom.” Within a year, they die. Some of us are afraid that the bride might cast a spell on them, so when the husband brings the bride to their house, they quickly hide somewhere in the house, because they believe that if the bride crosses the threshold and does not see them, her wish will not come true.

To avoid fearing the deceased and to never see them again, people spit three times beneath the coffin as it is carried out of the house. If the corpse’s eyes are left open, it is believed that someone else in the household will soon die.

Questionnaires without monsters

Orelec, Paszowa, Uherce Mineralne

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Lesko Gmina

Bezmiechowa Górna and Dolna

Old people believe in ghosts and haunted places, they are superstitious, the young do not believe in these things. They do not believe in spells and witchcraft, they do not go to fortune-tellers, they are religious, they like to go to indulgences.

Wola Postołowa

The common people believe in witchcraft and superstitions, such as: that someone can cast an evil eye on another; it is not good if someone sets out on a journey, to the field, or to the market, and is crossed by someone with empty water-pitchers, or by a priest, a hare, or a cat, for they will surely meet with some misfortune. They believe that in certain places something haunts at night or that a wandering spirit attaches itself to you. They believe that certain deceased individuals walk the earth…

…They believe in the inspirations of an evil spirit and the blowing of the wind…

Dziurdziów

a)  A devil in the form of a dog, cat, or ram misleads a person from their path at night—leading them through forests, creeks, and wilderness—until the rooster crows at dawn.

b) At night, when horses graze outside the forest and the shepherds are asleep—the devil comes as the elusive mara—sitting on a horse—and drives the rest of the horses out of the pasture to inaccessible places. At night, these horses cannot be found; the shepherds will only find their horses when the sun shines. 

c) While a person is asleep (especially in the attic), a “miedznich” comes and pins them down with its weight, leaving them unable to breathe; once the person realizes the cause of the pressure, they can drive the “miedznich” away using prayer and the sign of the cross.

d) Moonlit night – białe baby gather in the forest on a sandy road – they dance – they play with the sand like little children – and when they notice a human – they hold hands – they escape into the forest with the speed of lightning – Only the tracks of their feet remain on the sand.

Ghosts. The ghost of a deceased person comes home on the first night after the funeral – that is why candles are kept burning in the house throughout this night – a full small pot of water, bread, and salt stand on the table.The ghost of a mother especially appears very often after death – she comes to her children – feeds them – caresses them, and hums lullabies.Sometimes a ghost comes and calls beneath the window to one of the household members – one must remember not to answer the call – because otherwise, one can die within three days.

A deceased person who had two hearts during their lifetime, an “upiór,” walks after death among their family and acquaintances – causing mischief – To protect oneself from the upiór’s’ attack, one must carefully examine the face of the deceased to see if any red marks are visible, if so – drive a thorn under the deceased’s tongue, and then the upiór will become – harmless.” 

Deceased children after death have a blue-gray or even black body –these are marks from being beaten with whips by angels for the sins of the mother.

Superstitions. a) The rainbow called “smuga” (streak) drinks water after rain from a river or a stream – if a person were there near the water – the “smuga” will drink the blood from them and the person dies. 

b) Funeral participants, returning from the cemetery, wash themselves in a stream regardless of the time of year—so that the soul of the buried one may be free from sin sooner. 

c) After confession and Holy Communion, one is not allowed to wash their hair for 7 days, because God’s grace is washed away. The whole day after confession and Holy Communion, one walks on crutches – it is forbidden to walk barefoot – because one insults Him who entered a sinful body – being Himself most holy.

d) There are “gards” on earth who have a foster child, a little devil in the form of a child- who works for the household and acquires property – but the soul of such a gard is already condemned. The foster child brings prosperity – one must feed them well, but without salt, and plenty to drink. If any food is salty or not tasty, he takes revenge – he plays tricks, e.g., mice carry away the grain or at night he drives the cattle into the forest.

e) A married woman always wears a headscarf so she doesn’t have to have her hair cut; because the “czeperheir” (bat) seeks out a woman without one and entangles itself in her hair. One can only be freed from the “czeperheir” by cutting the hair. For such a woman, this is a disgrace.

Fairy tales: “Boginki” once lived in mountain caves; when the household members went out to the fields to work, these beings would enter the homes, beat the older children with old brooms, and drink the milk left on the stove for the little ones. Sometimes they would take a quiet infant and leave their own screaming child in its place. They also used to go to the fields to steal peas; one could catch them by leaving a single boot among the plants. The goddesses would slip both feet into it—rendering them unable to flee—and when the farmer arrived and beat them, they would weep and beg for forgiveness. At night, these goddesses would wash their laundry in the stream by the forest.

Legends: 

a) In ancient times, grains had very long ears –Once, a mother who had a surplus of bread used it to wash a bench–God became angry and began stripping the ears of grain with His hand – When the Mother of God saw this, she grabbed God’s hand – begging Him to leave at least enough for the birds and small creatures – God granted the request – which is why today the ears of grain are so short. 

b) The Legend of the Shrine: Beyond Mount Gniwka in the forest (owned by Count Krasicki), a small shrine used to stand next to a beech tree, which fell into ruin over the years; for a long time, there was no shrine there. One day, a woman from Twierdza was walking to Dziurdziów to visit her brother. She noticed a grey-haired old man sitting under the beech tree. Approaching with fear, the old man told her: “Go, woman, to Count Krasicki and tell him to build a shrine here.” After saying these words, the old man vanished. The woman shared her vision with Count Krasicki, who shortly after placed a holy icon on that beech tree and promised to build a proper shrine soon.

c) The Tale of the Thief: There was a notorious thief in these parts nicknamed “Twardochlib” (Hardbread). One day, a gendarme caught him while he was cooking meat. The gendarme forced him into a cow’s hide and paraded him around the neighborhood, where he had to publicly confess his thefts to the local people.

Hoczew

In this local area, there are many roadside crosses and shrines. Their origins vary; some crosses are connected to stories from the time of the abolition of serfdom. – These crosses are specially protected and decorated with flowers and wreaths. They must not be touched, and underneath some of them, documents decreeing the abolition of serfdom are said to be buried. Crosses were also erected at the site of tragic accidents, e.g., death by lightning strike, the appearance of a vision, a ghost, etc. 

Chapels, on the other hand, are built by order of a supernatural force: some father or grandfather dreamed that the Mother of God came to him and told him to build a chapel on that very spot. Immediately after such a dream, the chapel was built, and subsequent generations carefully protect and decorate them. In general, belief in ghosts, apparitions, and post-mortem spirits is very deeply rooted here. They believe that the deceased can appear or punish their loved ones. Immediately after death, they dress the deceased in garments specially kept for death in a chest. A man is dressed in trousers, a shirt, and shoes. They place a handkerchief with a coin (10 groszy) in his hand so that he has something to pay his way with in the next world.

They put the body into the coffin only just before it is carried out of the house; they also give the deceased a cap and a cane decorated with a ribbon. Girls are dressed in wedding attire for the coffin, and a small coin is also given. In the evening, neighbors gather at the cottage of the deceased man or woman and recite funeral prayers from prayer books. Boys and girls sing funeral songs. These evening services and prayers are called a “pogrzeb” (funeral)…

…They also believe that some women take away cows’ milk. A cow suddenly stops giving milk, and they rush with a roar toward the barn of that housewife who allegedly took her milk, and roar demands to return the milk, thereby exposing the woman who took this milk from her. Vigilante justice over such a witch is sometimes very severe.  They also believe in a kind of demon you can breed yourself: You take a chicken egg and the master of the house carries this egg under his arm for six weeks. A devil hatches, and if you give him food and drink, he brings happiness and wealth in the home…

… No fairy tales or legends have been noticed in this locality.They tell each other stories in the evenings, about upiory and ghosts. They willingly recount adventures they have experienced,either their own or those of their neighbors.

First Communion 1935, Hoczew

First communion 1933, Hoczew

Forest Festival 1934, Hoczew

Średnia Wieś

An interesting and funny tale circulates about one of the local homesteads. Years ago, an old man is said to have lived in this homestead. He raised a devil for himself by carrying a chicken egg under his armpit for a long time. This little devil was said to be a great friend to his guardian. He protected him from misfortunes, helped with work, and even entertained children in the old man’s family. Before his death, the old man gave this devil to his children. And so the horned one lived in the homestead until recently, taking care of the old man’s descendants. Lately, he has become a great prankster, tormenting all the neighbors around. Namely: he would take various pieces of their underwear and clothing, tear them into narrow strips, and store them in his master’s attic, where he would allegedly see the master. The householder finally grew tired of this, because his neighbors would suspect him of theft; so he spread the word that he wanted to get rid of the devil and would gladly sell him.

After some time, with the help of a middleman, a wealthy gazda from the mountains in the vicinity of Cisna, approached the devil’s owner, declaring that he wanted to buy the devil (true fact). After some bargaining, again through the middleman, the for the devil was agreed upon for 60 złoty–whereby the middleman made 20 złoty. It was packed tightly into an old pot, and the satisfied buyer drove away.

After some time, however, the devil enthusiast arrives back in Średnia Wieś and announces with regret that the devil has escaped him. Nobody could help him with this, however, because the devil could not be caught a second time, and he settled contentedly back in his old place.To this day, they say, the farmer lives with the devil and does quite well for himself. Only he and his family are pale, as if lifeless, of a gloomy disposition; and his sons are mentally dull (though they went to school). The father does not go to church, and everyone predicts a miserable end for him, because “once someone falls into the devil’s claws, they will never break free from them.”

People here also believe that upiórs (vampire in Rusyn) live among them. This upiór cannot be recognized during his lifetime because he is just like any other person; however, they maintain that he has two hearts and harms ordinary people. After death, however, upiórs must do penance within their homestead for as long as it takes for the family to make some offering to God, or order a Holy Mass for his soul.

There are still “płanetnicy” among the inhabitants here, who rule over weather changes, direct hail and great storms. When one of them dies, and God does not allow another to appear, then great hailstorms and tempests prevail.

The majority of the population believes that this year’s hail was so destructive only because a month ago an old farmer died, who, according to everyone’s belief, was a “płanetnik.”

Despite these superstitions, the local people are devout, claiming that one must not anger God, nor irritate the devil. 

Questionnaires without monsters

Łukawica, Postołów

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Solina

Bereska

The local population believes that on the first night after the funeral, the soul of the deceased comes back to ask for help, which is why they place bread, salt, and water on the table. The items remain there until morning, after which they are given to the poor.

They put poppy seeds into the coffin. They believe that the deceased returns, so to prevent them from having time to come back, they give them poppy seeds. The deceased counts them from the evening, and before they can finish counting, midnight passes, causing them to stay in the grave.

They place water and a cloth on the windowsill, believing that the soul of the deceased comes to wash itself. It is a local custom during the first week to offer a Holy Mass for the soul of the deceased, so that the soul from the other world does not return.

They believe that a cat crossing the road portends misfortune and failure. If someone walking is crossed by a person carrying an empty bucket, they also predict misfortune and failure. Seeing a priest walking or driving past, when going on some business to an office etc., portends misfortune; to reverse this, they throw straw onto the bare ground. A passing Jew portends good luck. On Christmas, boys are the first to walk among the cottages, and as “pobażnicy” they bring good luck for the whole year, whereas the arrival of a girl is not welcomed, because it portends bad luck.

After Christmas Eve, they extinguish a candle; if the smoke from the flame turns toward the door, someone will die, but if it whirls around the candle, it portends a wedding.

Christmas celebration, Bereska, 1936

Easter in Bereska

Festive attire, Bereska

Nativity play “Szopka krakowska,” Bereska, 1936

Festive attire of the youth in Bereska

A girl in national dress, Bereska

Myczków

There are very many divinations and superstitions among the local people. On long winter evenings, it is not the threads of fairy tales or legends that gather everyone by the fireplace to listen, but rather fears of ghosts and spooks flow from the mouths of old people. If someone dies, a bowl of water and a handkerchief are left on the table in the room for the night, so that the little soul can wash itself; and it has happened–this one and that one has seen it–the bowl has moved and the handkerchief too, and they believe it. Everyone believes in this. They like to chat about it in the evenings.

A child was born stillborn. They buried it and forgot it. After six years someone spoke of a ghost appearing under the windows of the cottage. It was the soul of that child, demanding baptism, so one must throw it a piece of linen cloth and make the sign of the cross over this little soul, and it will stop returning because it will become a little angel in heaven.

Zawóz

In the “olden times”, when people drank vodka by the cupful, stories arose about ghosts and terrors created by the alcohol-clouded mind. Today, they no longer believe in this. Only beliefs in upiory persist. An “upiór” is a dead person who had two hearts. He walks after death and terrifies people, most of all his family. To prevent this, a harrow tooth is driven into his skull. Since the upiór only walks until midnight, poppy seeds are poured into his mouth. Before the upiór can sort through the poppy seeds, midnight passes, and he no longer has time to walk.

They believe more in superstition. For example, if someone dies in the village, nothing can be sown, because then that crop will also die. You also cannot sow during a new moon, because just as the moon is empty, the ear of grain will be empty too.The days of the week are divided into “men’s” and “women’s”. There are two women’s days: Wednesday and Saturday (they also include…). Women’s days are not lucky. For example, broad beans planted on a woman’s day will never grow!…

…Several dozen years ago, a great number of “reptiles” could be found here. They could be encountered everywhere: in the barn, in the stable, even in the hallway. Because of this, the fable “of the king of snakes” has survived to this day. Such a king has a diamond of immense value on his forehead. Sometimes the king goes to the river to bathe, and then he takes off the diamond. Many a brave soul has already tried to steal the diamond. However, the snake-king always noticed it in time. At his whistle, all the snakes would gather and kill the brave soul.

Bukowiec

If a deceased person has feathers under their armpit or if their body does not stiffen after death, they are considered an upiór. A harrow-tooth stake is driven into such a deceased person’s head, and poppy seeds are poured into their mouth. When the coffin is carried from the house to the church, poppy seeds are scattered along the entire path to prevent the upiór from returning home; for if it tries to come back, it must pick up every single seed, and by the time it finishes, the rooster crows, forcing the dead to return to the grave. An upiór’s grave can be recognized because on the very first night after the funeral, upon leaving the grave, he leaves a hole. When the procedure with the poppy seeds and the harrow peg has not been performed, they drive a peg wrapped in straw or hay into this hole in the grav.. According to belief, a stillborn child will wander the earth for seven years; to prevent this, a band made of new linen—sprinkled with holy water—is placed on the child, and they are given a name and some money. Then, the “mułuchid” will no longer haunt the living, for upon rising from the grave, it will find its name and return to its resting place.

A housewife whose cows milk well is a witch–she knows her way with cows. You must not show her butter or milk from another cow, or she will steal that cow’s milk. On the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, witches go around stables and steal milk from cows. On this day, witches also make butter. On Ash Wednesday, women are not allowed to enter someone else’s house, because they would steal milk from the cows and eggs from the hens. On this day, women and girls stay at home. In order for cows to breed well and milk well, on October 1st on “Pokrow”, cattle are grazed all day, and they do not milk cows because they dedicate the milk to the Mother of God. Anyone whose cattle do not breed well makes a promise that they will not consume milk on any Monday. This promise is made during confession.                 

On the eve of the holiday, i.e., on the eve of the annual holiday, they place nettles, an axe – a hatchet, and a plowshare into the stable. In this way, they protect themselves against witches. Then the witches then have no access to the stable. Witches deliberate, meaning they gather for “evening parties” where three borders meet. There, on windy nights, upiory fight each other.  

As for the piety of the local people, one must acknowledge their deep reverence for all things sacred. They pray and attend the cerkiew, frequently receiving the sacraments—though this applies mostly to the older generation, as the youth are of a different spirit. Yet, this piety is strangely intertwined with curses and imprecations—invoking God’s wrath or lightning strikes, or calling down monstrous curses upon others—using epithets like “you spotted viper” and other names too foul to mention. They attribute natural phenomena—such as winds, storms, hail, and lightning—to God’s punishment for sin; for instance, they believe hail causes damage when a young woman buries an illegitimate child, as the rain and hail must wash those children out of the earth…

… Old folk say that 200–300 years ago, a morowica and a morawiec—representing the black plague—passed through the village. They came to the river and asked a farmer named Drozd to carry them across the water. As Drozd was carrying them across the river, they felt as heavy as the world itself because they held dominion over the entire world. Once they were on the other side of the river, they ordered Drozd to light a candle every year through the entire Christmas Eve night. The morowica went into an empty house in the forest, where she began to dance with the morawiec and sing: “Let there be no terliczyk, let there be no tendiawa, so that all the children will be ours.” Terliczyk and tendiawa are herbs that protect against the plague. To this day, Drozd’s descendants light a candle on Christmas Eve.

This same Drozd did not want to believe that Easter is the greatest day of the year. On Easter Sunday, he went out into the field to plow with oxen, and there he, along with his oxen, turned to stone. This stone can still be seen on the border. As a punishment, all of his descendants still light a candle on Easter night, from Sunday into Monday. 

Terka

The local population of the village believes in upiórs and witches. An upiór is recognized by the fact that when he dies, he has feathers under his armpit, while an upiór’s grave can be recognized by the fact that the magical being, leaving the grave on the first night after the funeral, leaves a hole in the grave. Immediately after death, a harrow tooth must be driven into the vampire’s head, and poppy seeds must be scattered during the procession to the cemetery, because if he wants to return, he must gather all the poppy seeds. A witch is usually what they call an old woman who has highly productive milk cows. You must not show her milk or butter, or she will steal the magic. In this village, there is one such woman considered to be a witch, and they say she goes at night to crossroads, or where three borders meet, and there she fights with other witches. The next day, this woman is weak and has bruises on her body. 

No work should be started on a Monday, because it will not succeed, and it will have to be repeated throughout the entire week. Crop failures occur when Polish and Rusyn holidays coincide in the same year.

When cattle produce little milk, the farmer makes a vow that he will fast from milk every Monday. Children are generally breastfed for a long time, usually up to 2 or 3 years. A child should not be weaned at any other time except when the beeches are budding.

At Christmas, if someone from the household goes out into the yard, walks around the entire house three times while touching the corners, and looks through the window, they can see who will get married, die, etc. this year. The local people are pious in their own way. They attend the church and take part in feast days, sometimes in distant villages. Despite this, religious morality remains low. People consider all natural phenomena to come from God’s will. Everything is generally seen as a punishment for sins. For example, hail only destroys crops when girls bury illegitimate children. Rain must wash away the bodies of these children. People say prayers daily, but often distort them in their own way. 

There is a story about a “wątkopak” (kupaku). A woman was washing clothes “in the dead” at the stream and a wątkopak arrived, a huge beast that devoured people. It said that it would eat this woman when she finished washing.She was very scared and washed for a very long time. Out of fear, she turned into stone and remained there at the stream as a large stone, which people still show each other to this day.

Rajskie

If a mother has a small child that dies unbaptized, it returns to the mother after 7 years to weep under the doors. This phantom is called ‘maluchid’. So that such a child does not haunt, a linen band is placed on its chest, a coin is placed underneath, it is sprinkled with holy water, and it is given a name. When the child returns after 7 years to haunt, it finds its name and returns to the grave.

They believe that inside every toad a witch is hidden by spells, and every toad can spoil a cow’s milk. If someone were to cut off, for example, the leg of a toad in which a witch resides, then that woman will be missing a leg. Witches wander most before the feast of St. George and before the feast of]the Most Holy Virgin Mary; they wander through stables and steal milk, which is why farmers guard the stables by sleeping in the yard. So that the cattle will give milk well, on “Pokrow” cows stay out in the field the whole day without being milked; the milk from this day is offered to the Mother of God. There are cases when someone’s cattle do not thrive well, then the housewife swears to the priest during confession to always fast with the whole family on Mondays, and they keep to this. 

…According to their view, all natural phenomena come from God; God also sends a good harvest, misfortunes upon people, such as diseases, etc. Lightning strikes where girls bury illegitimate children.

Questionnaires without monsters

Bóbrka, Górzanka, Myczkowce, Polańczyk, Solina

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Baligród

Żernica Wyżna

The soul of the deceased returns home for an entire week, and during this time, a bowl of water must be left out because the soul washes away its sins at night. If a father or a mother dies, it is forbidden to strike even a single corner in the cottage for a whole year.

Stężnica

Regarding the deceased, they believe here, for example, that if a hen were set on eggs in the year a household member died, it would be hard for the deceased to lie in the grave, as they would feel a heavy weight on their chest.They also do not plant garlic in the year of a household member’s death, because it would not grow for seven years. A small bowl of water is placed on the window sill so that the soul of the deceased can bathe.

Rabe

The population is very superstitious and suspicious. After a husband’s funeral, they wash their hands and faces in a stream, and in winter with snow. At home, they touch the stove with their hands. To prevent the deceased from coming back, they throw poppy seeds into the grave. If there is a flood, they say that a woman buried a child in the ground and the water must wash it out. If there is no rain, they throw poppy seeds into the stream, and this is supposed to bring rain. If someone’s breeding of cows or sheep does not go well, whoever they bought them from gave them with an “evil hand.” They will not bring butter to another village, or their own will run out. They put nettles into the hearth so there will be no mice in the house. When a child is born, they put an object into its hand so it will love working later on. They wash the bathwater depending on the gender—if it is a boy, they use peas so he will have curly hair, and if it is a girl, they use rye. Superstition is encountered here at every turn…

…There are few legends and fairy tales. Barely one legend is known. In the forest, there is a stone, and around it an anthill. The elders say that a very long time ago, on Easter Sunday, an orphan girl was pasturing sheep and spinning flax. God punished her in such a way that He turned the girl into a stone and the sheep into the anthill’s mounds.

Questionnaires without monsters

Kołonice, Mchawa, Nowosiółki, Roztoki Dolne, Zahoczewie, Żerdenka, Bystre and Łubne

School in Nowosiółki

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Cisna

Dołżyca

People believe that there are witches who take away butter and milk from cows, and on St. John’s Day, they weave wreaths of yellow flowers and put them on the cows’ heads. It is then that the witches enter among the cows and take away the milk—these witches are called ‘bosorkyni’. From the stable, she will take a piece of the threshold or a piece of coal. The witches dress in black skirts, a white blouse, and a white headscarf tied under the chin. They go into the stable and into the field—they say there are six ‘bosorkyni’ in this village. They know the appropriate herbs…

…They believe that the dead walk—that people have two souls—and that they haunt the living; even now, the soul walks and haunts. In one room in this village, there is said to be a presence that strangles women—it has already strangled four—and every year a corpse must appear in that room; someone is bound to die there, and the walls of the room must not be washed for a full year.  They mourn for a year and are not allowed to go to weddings, sing, or wear fine clothes.  

Smerek

The spiritual culture of the local people lies entirely within the richness of their songs (kołomyjki), fairy tales, and parables. These reflect a person’s worldview, formed on the basis of self-generated principles. When characterizing the general worldview of such a person, it is difficult to find an appropriate scientific term to define it. In any case, it is based on idealism, rarely breaking away from it, except for moments of fearful fatalism. Conservatism, lack of activism, and indifference in certain areas of life—these are the terms that would approximately define the worldview and character of the man of the mountains. In the field of folk creativity, there have been preserved until now songs, fairy tales, a wide stock of imagination, not very rich phrases or comparisons, but deep in terms of sentimental feelings. I will give a few such songs just as an example, heard directly…

… On this, one could conclude the illumination of the worldview of the mountain people regarding the manifestations of life, reflected in the examples of the above kolomyikas.

And now we shall proceed to new sources. These are customs and traditions, beliefs and superstitions. Belief in the afterlife is authentically closely linked with the belief in spirits. The appearance of the spirits of certain people is firmly established here, although real details to confirm them are lacking. But before we move on to discussing them, we shall return to the local funeral custom. 

If a family member dies at home, the oldest member immediately notifies the local priest “paroch” in the meaning of a parish priest. Next he goes to the church servant; the sexton, who gives him light from the cerkiew and announces the death of a community member by tolling the bells. From the moment of death until the time of the funeral, the residents of the house affected by the tragedy of death are required to walk without hats, which they strictly observe. The bell-ringer, announcing a person’s death, strikes only a single bell. Upon hearing its sound, no one makes the sign of the cross, because otherwise, their hand would wither. Once these first formalities are taken care of, they proceed to dress the deceased. The deceased is bathed in a large wooden vat or tub, washing the body with a wet cloth and soap (soap being an item almost never used in daily life). — Next, they dress him in a white shirt, tied at the neck with a narrow ribbon called “ołonecza”, and pull white linen trousers, “gacie”, over the lower part of the body. On the feet, they pull white stockings, purchased in town or sewn from homemade linen. The dressed deceased is laid on a bench under the window, after spreading a linen sheet beneath him and folding another under his head. Candles burn at the head on both sides. The poor, who cannot afford this, take small jars of butter from the cerkiew—donated by people—and these substitute for candles. In front of the deceased’s head, they place a cross with the Crucified Christ. As a sign of mourning, they do not sweep the rooms for as long as the corpse lies in the cottage. After making the coffin—which is mostly done by the masters of the house themselves—and after digging the grave at the cemetery (this task is performed sequentially, cottage by cottage), they proceed to the funeral. Into the coffin next to the deceased, they place various of their favorite objects. Little boys are given small wooden axes, little girls a wreath on their head and a handkerchief in their hand (a symbol of marriage). Infants are given money in their hands so that they have something to ransom themselves with in heaven. When nailing the coffin lid, they cover it with a piece of linen cloth, which then becomes the property of the parish priest. To the church banners, they tie strands of linen yarn so that the deceased does not walk naked in the afterlife. At children’s funerals, instead of yarn, they give white handkerchiefs symbolizing innocence. When carrying the coffin out of the room, it is struck three times against the threshold as a sign of farewell. On the road, they place the coffin on a sleigh, from where it is pulled by oxen or horses all the way to the cemetery. Upon moving from the spot, they pour a bucket of water behind the coffin, symbolizing the tears of the household members. While moving towards the cemetery, and even before that, the household members, or hired people, express their laments for the deceased. These wails are called “jojkania.” As an example, I will quote a short excerpt from these laments. Most often, such laments are led by two people, competing to find the most painful expressions. Here is an example.   

First Mourner: Oh, mother, our mother, why did you die to us so soon.

Second Mourner: Oh, mother, my mother, who are you leaving us to?..

First Mourner: Oh, dear mother, when will you return to us?..

Second Mourner: Oh, dear mother, what will we do without you?..

First Mourner: Oh, our little dove, our dove! Why didn’t you tell us that you were going to die!?..

Second Mourner: Oh, why didn’t you manage to let us know,

First Mourner: Oh, will we see you again at the Last Judgment!?…

Second Mourner: Oh, will we see you, dear mother, in the Valley of Josaphat… etc.

And now about the details related to life beyond the grave. As I mentioned previously, the spirits of the deceased wander here. These spirits are good and bad. The latter cause harm to people, and they can even kill. The first procedure aimed at driving them away is to say prayers over the grave and sprinkle the rooms with holy water. If this does not help and the spirit continues to terrorize the household members, one must dig up his grave and cut off his head, placing it between his legs, or drive an iron stake into the head. It is easy to understand that a person can be driven to such barbaric actions only by a panic fear of spirits.  Besides spirits, they also believe in evil forces. These can manifest in the form of the devil, or his power incarnated in a human being. A witch (bisurmanka) is the only power that can steal a cow’s milk, curse a family, or bring down natural disasters upon them, such as diseases, hailstorms, and floods.  Herbs play a major role in such practices. Poisonous herbs, which bring illness or madness upon a person, are known only to a few. Therefore, such people evoke general fear and admiration among the masses… Medicinal herbs, of which many grow in the mountains, do not, however, have enthusiasts who would utilize them for the benefit of human health. They say that sorcerers go to gather herbs (mostly harmful ones) on St. John’s Night to the so-called “Rjabu Skała”, which is located in the area. How much truth there is in this is difficult to investigate, because so far no one has caught anyone engaged in such magical practices. Many magical and fortune-telling practices and methods are preserved with special care. Betrayal of these secrets would threaten serious consequences for such a person.

Therefore, it is understandable and clear that bringing them to light and including them in this questionnaire is currently impossible. Perhaps, when the people realize their “ridiculousness” and “ineffectiveness,” they will speak about them on their own without being questioned about what is now difficult to extract. 

Questionnaires without monsters

Buk, Cisna, Łopienka, Solinka, Strubowiska, Żubracze

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Images are found within the questionnaires, themselves, and are in the public domain. Please credit the Sanok Digital Library, not this site. Route maps from Google, vintage Galicia map from polona.pl, translations by Google.

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By Leo Filipczak

On my last trip to Poland, Piotr took me to the parish church in Mrzygłód to look through the baptism, marriage, and death records for Roman Catholics from Liszna, my ancestral village. Until the 1930s, when a church was built in Liszna, Roman Catholic villagers crossed the river to Mrzygłód for mass. 

Many genealogists will recognize these vital records as the type indexed (and sometimes scanned) on Geneteka.  With these indexes, a lot of us have been able to push our family trees back into the late 18th century.  However, the following story illustrates why it is still worth a visit to Poland (if you can) to go through the books yourself and/or enlist the help of a professional like Piotr.

Paging through the Book of Deaths, I spotted this curious-looking document: 

It is an explanation for a missing death record for a peasant named Jan Chrycyk (Rycyk) from the beginning of the 19th century. 

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Regarding the omission in the burial register concerning Jan Chrycyk—formerly a serf within the estate of the village of Liszna (the domain of the undersigned proprietor)—the following is hereby formally recorded: In accordance with a judicial inquiry conducted jointly by the Village Council of the aforementioned Liszna Estate, it is established that Jan Chrycyk—formerly a serf and countryman—departed this life more than thirteen years ago, during the tenure of the Reverend Father Piątkowski, Parish Priest of Mrzygłód. Having lived out his days, he was laid to rest in the new cemetery situated beyond the town limits. He is survived by his lawful wife and several children. The widow, together with her offspring, has since moved to the estate of the village of Wojtkówka, a hereditary property of the honorable Laskowski, a court bailiff. This formal attestation is hereby confirmed not only by the Liszna Estate Administration but also by the Village Council—affixed with the official Village Seal and the personal signatures of the Council members—at the Liszna Estate, on the 10th day of August, 1827.       

Alexander Filipczak wojt X

Szymon Filipczak vice-wojt X

Jan Klucznik juror X

[signed] S. Medynski

Petrus Warkolewicz gerens administrator ecclesia Paroch: Mrzygłódensis  

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I had known that Szymon and Alexander Filipczak, the wójt (mayor), were prominent members of the village from another document, A History of the Village of Lishna, Sanok County (1928), by Ivan Fylypchak (Iwan Filipczak).  

The History is written in Ukrainian, a language I cannot read.  I can’t read Polish either, but at least I recognize most of the letters.  Still, when you hit a wall like this, you have to plow through.  Luckily, it’s easier than ever to read documents in other languages.

If you have the Chrome browser, you can use Google Lens and Google Translate:

Now, internet translation is never 100% perfect and will never be as good as trained, professional translators.  However, most of us do not have the money or time to work with professional translators.  Internet translation combined with the occasional double-check from a bilingual person can get us pretty far these days–a lot farther than it could twenty years ago.

Anyway, it seems Ivan Fylypchak dug up another early 19th-century document with my great-great-great grandfather’s name on it.  In this one, Szymon teams up with the wójt, Lesko Filipczak, to challenge the village lord’s refusal to support the Greek Catholic Church in neighboring Olchowce. “Lesko” is one of the many nicknames for Alexander, and Semyen and Szymon are the respective Ukrainian and Polish versions of Simon.  Therefore, these are likely the same two men in the letter to the Roman Catholic parish regarding the death of Jan Chrycyk.  

The lord, Ksawery Medyński (likely the father of the Stanisław Medyński in the letter above), ultimately had to pay. Most of the village, including Szymon, had “polonized” (i.e. gone from the Greek to the Roman rite) by that point, but interestingly, the leadership still felt a duty to the Greek Church.

Ivan Fylypchak also wrote about the name of Liszna, one of two villages by that name in the historic Sanok County.  My ancestral Liszna remains in today’s Sanok County while the other is in modern Lesko County.     

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The name of the village remains disputed. Local residents (now Polish), as well as villagers from neighboring villages, pronounce the name “Lishnia” or Lishna. Only foreign intellectuals distort it to “Lyshnya”. In legal documents from the 15th century, the name is spelled Leszna, Leschna, and Lyeschna, less often Leschnia and Lesznya.  It seems that the second, less frequently used name, only appeared when the scribe in Sanok wrote incorrectly–when it was written Lesznya or Leschnia, and not Lisznya.  We have an analogy to this in the name of the city of Liska, which was then written Lesko. It is noteworthy that the adjective derived from the name of the village, found in the surnames of the 15th century lords, is always Leschczinski or Lyesczensky. We cannot explain what the name Lishna means, or from what origin it was derived. A similar (but not exactly the same) name is found also in the village of Lyshnya in the Lishna Mountains near Tisnaya [Cisna] in the Lisko district. In Drohobych, in the Montenegro Range there is a suburb of Lishniv. There is also Lishni in the Kholm region, Podlasie and Volhynia. There must be some old meaning that is now unclear.

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Ivan suggests the meaning is lost to the ages.  We Filipczaks always want to turn the more fanciful and romantic gears in our imaginations.  Piotr is more practical and thinks there’s an easy explanation for all the Lisznas.  The name probably just means “forest settlement,” a simple derivation of the Slavic word for “wooded”:  leśny in Polish, lisovy in Ukrainian. 

This might explain why the village seal shows a lumberjack and not a farmer.  A Monograph of the Polonized Village of Lishna, Syanok County (1926) by Ivan Fylypchak, goes into more depth on this topic.  Unlike its companion History of Lishna, this document was never published.  The kind folks at the Rylsky Ethnographic Archive in Kyiv sent it to me, but neither I, nor Google Lens, could make much sense of the Ukrainian handwriting.  Luckily, Natalia, a volunteer on Facebook was excited enough about the contents to produce a transcript.   

In the document, Ivan emphasizes certain words and phrases that represent the village dialect, and footnotes them to a glossary.  Because of that, Natalia and I have preserved them in the transcript.  Hopefully, it is still readable.

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Lishnians say they are grain farmers, but they are not able to survive on grain farming. Out of 70 houses, only 10 do not buy bread, they “have adapted to the new”–the rest of the poorer families buy to survive. Six householders are included among the rich, the rest earn money in the forests, or are engaged in small-scale home crafts, prykhovkom khudoby, drobu, sometimes selling Nabil: butter, cheese, or baby chicks, but they do not sell milk. The whole village helps itself most in the following way.  In winter they take logs to the Novak family tartak. Some bring whole beeches and firs in from the forests of their Didich. Novak cuts them into boards, and when they are free from farming activities, they carry them in waves to their homes, ukladaty v syahy, and when they dry out, they take them by truck to Sanok, where they sell them for profit.  With that money, they buy oil, candles, salt, and necessary zalizya in the city, then drink some in the inns and taverns of Sanok. This is how it has been done since ancient times, and this is still the institution today.

Prykhovkom khudoby – Protect livestock, hide for the winter, protect from predators or thieves. Prykhovkom drobu – storage or protection of grain (grain or other food)  Nabil – an old Ukrainian term meaning dairy products. Tartak is a large mechanical device that was used for sawing wood in manors and estates. Usually, such tartaks were part of a complex of economic buildings, which included mills, forges and other production premises. The main function of the yard sawmill was to saw logs into boards and beams for construction and other needs. They played an important role in providing wood for various economic needs of the estate. Didich is the owner of an estate or a large plot of land, usually in a rural area, who received his property as an inheritance from his ancestors. The grandfathers, as a rule, had a significant influence on the development of agriculture, the economy, and the social life of their estates. They were responsible for managing their lands, providing jobs for local residents, and maintaining the well-being of their territories. Didychi often played a key role in local administration and political life. “Ukladaty v syahy” means to form logs or boards into special stacks called fathoms. This method is used for convenient storage of wood so that it is ventilated and does not spoil. Logs are usually formed in the form of uniform stacks, where each row is located in such a way as to ensure proper ventilation of the wood. This prevents the formation of mold and rot, preserving the quality of the wood for a longer period.  Zalizya “irons” is a dialect word used in some regions of Ukraine to denote metal products. It can be anything made of iron or other metals, such as tools, machine parts, household items, etc.

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Ivan Fylypchak mentions elsewhere in his writings how the peasants of Liszna saw it as shameful to have to “Buy Bread,”–in other words, to earn cash rather than support one’s family by subsistence farming.  This seemed puzzling to me.  What’s the big difference?

I’m paraphrasing Piotr here, but his explanation was something like, “A fish swims.  A bird flies.  A peasant farms. What kind of peasant is he, if he can’t feed his children from his farm?”

I live in northern Wisconsin, where logging is a popular profession and not particularly stigmatized relative to farming, so that was a new one for me.  The loggers in my hometown (many of Carpathian descent) still like to stop in to wet their whistles after a day’s work.  According to Ivan, it was much the same in Liszna:

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There are two taverns in the village, one at the lower end of the village, the other at the upper end. The first is run by Lemko, the second by Shulim. These are old, respectable (honest) Jews, who have settled here since the time of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. They split their time between farming and tavern keeping.  In the morning, the Lishnyans go in groups to the syagi in the forest. There they chop or cut firewood from the firs in various vertepakh and yaruhakh, and around noon they rest for a short rest near Shulim’s mountain inn. Here the people and horses have a snack before they carry the firewood 9 km. to Sanok. They stay there for a couple of hours until they sell their goods, then they do some shopping, and in the evening they return home and rest again at Shulim’s. Often several dozen lumberjacks will eat there. The horses have another snack, the owners warm themselves by the fire with Shulim or Haidza and weave various stories, telling each other what they heard in the city, and so often their time goes until 12 o’clock at night or even after midnight. It has happened more than once that the horses would get tired of waiting for their masters’ amusement, and start pulling the carts back toward the houses, cart following after cart. More than once the drunken householders of Lishna have had to fly out the door after them.

Phrase “go to the forest po syagi” means a trip to the forest to collect wood. Syagi are special stacks or feet of logs or boards used for storing and drying wood. Yizdyty po syahy – this means going to the forest to collect wood for harvest, further processing and use. Vertepakh – these are dark remote places, often associated with difficulties and danger. Yaruhakh are steep or deep ditches or ravines that are difficult to access.

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I was curious if this practice of hauling logs to Sanok has really been going on since “ancient times.”  Were my 18th-century ancestors farmers who cut trees for extra cash, or were they actually lumberjacks who just dabbled in farming?

We can get a clue from the 1773 fasja, a land tax inventory taken after Red Ruthenia was taken by the Austrian Empire in the First Partition of Poland.  These surveys are valuable to genealogists of the Sanok Lands as they are often the oldest documents on which we can find our surnames.  Indeed, the survey of Liszna, includes two Filipczaks, one being my direct ancestor Mihal (Michał, Myhailo).    

The documents are large charts that don’t reproduce well in a blog post, but they contain data on how much farmland, woodland, and livestock was allotted to each household.  They also state how much each household owed in serfdom or pańszczyzna obligations.  Every year, each serf household owed the landlords a certain amount of days labor on the manor farms and a certain amount of cash.  People often compare serfdom to slavery, but in the American context, it would be more akin to sharecropping or indentured servitude.  

The relative amount of labor versus cash obligations was negotiated between the owner and the peasant.  The owner of Liszna at that time was Marcin Pakosz who also owned the village of Jurowce across the San on flatter, more-fertile land.  In Liszna, relative to Jurowce, peasants paid more in cash and less in farm labor, confirming that Liszna was a place where you work a lot in the woods and might have to occasionally “buy bread.” 

Factoids like this add a richness to the story of my ancestors that I wouldn’t have gotten from only knowing they were peasants and the dates of their baptisms, marriages, and deaths.  It also makes visiting Liszna more interesting as I had the opportunity to walk through these forests.  The logs are now hauled out with modern skidders rather than disobedient horses, but you still see the stacks of drying timber along the sides of the road. 

Lisznians have apparently been hauling logs to Sanok for centuries, which probably contributed to the gradual polonization of a village that was ethnically Ukrainian 500 years ago, but had become almost entirely Polish by the dawn of the 20th century.  Polonization determined the village’s experience of the atrocities of the Second World War.  Several Lisznians deported by the Soviets at the beginning of the war were murdered, as Poles, during the Volhynian Massacres.  However, being Polish meant Liszna was not removed during Akcja Wisła as neighboring Ukrainian villages were.

While on this darker note, it should be mentioned that today Russia deliberately attacks historical and cultural sites in its disgusting attempt to subjugate and erase the Ukrainian people.  While this may not rank up there with bombing apartment blocks and buses, kidnapping children, or torturing POWs, it is still a war crime.  

The 1773 fasja tables mentioned above are held in the Bernadine Monastery in Lviv, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  On March 24th, 2026 Russia attacked the site with Shahed drones.  Thankfully, the section with the archives was not damaged.  

The fasja, with their mix of Latin, Polish, and German abbreviations and arcane feudal terms are beyond the ability of me and my Google Translate, so I relied on Piotr to order them from Lviv and interpret them for me.  However, I have been able to get other records from Ukraine, including Ivan Fylypchak’s memoirs and the Monograph cited above.  When I visited Sambir in October, I asked if it was selfish to bother archivists with trivial genealogical inquiries during wartime.  The universal response I got was that it is more important now than ever to support these cultural institutions.  In Ukraine, preserving history is an act of defiance.

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If you want your family tree to include more than names and dates, but also stories like this, check out our Tips for Next-Level Genealogy.  For more on how to obtain records like these, consider Hiring a Researcher.

For more on the story of Liszna and the life of Ivan Fylypchak, check out Beyond the San, now available from Prixto Press.     

By Leo Filipczak

Around Sanok, Reinfuss is famous for his studies, and especially his photographs, of the Lemko and Boyko subcultures traditionally found in the Carpathians upriver from Sanok.

Several of Reinfuss’ photographs are said to depict a third group, neither Lemkos nor Boykos, but Dolinians (literally: “Valley Dwellers”).  As the Dolinians are almost unknown in English-language scholarship, it is worth asking whether they represent an actual group of people, or if Reinfuss created them.

The Dolinians seem to first appear in Reinfuss’ 1936 article DOŁY SANOCKIE: the Rusyn People from the Sanok Area.  To see it in the original Polish follow this link:

https://mbc.malopolska.pl/en/details/kuryer-literacko-naukowy-mieczyslaw-dabrowski-8731/

As the original version is now in the public domain, we will reproduce it here in translation.  Afterward, I will follow up with some thoughts on the complicated nature of identity in Carpathian genealogy.  

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Kuryer Literacko-Naukowy : dodatek do Nru 284 “Ilustr. Kuryera Codziennego” z dnia 12-go października 1936 r. R. 12, Nr. 41.

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DOŁY SANOCKIE: the Rusyn People from the Sanok Area

Roman Reinfuss

The Sanok region is an interesting mosaic in terms of ethnography, because apart from the Polish peasant population and the small provincial gentry, there are three Ruthenian ethnic groups bordering each other: Lemkos, Boykos and Dolinians. Of the latter, the least known in ethnography so far is the Dolinian group, inhabiting the immediate vicinity of Sanok and the area to the southwest to Bukowsko and Rymanów.

In the north, the border of the Dolinians coincides with the Polish-Rusyn ethnic border, while from the east the Dolinians are divided from the Boykos by a transitional belt stretching from Czaszyn along the lower Osława.

In addition, the Dolinian group should, in my opinion, also include the so-called Zamieszniec, i.e. the inhabitants of several villages located north of Krosno, who constitute a Ruthenian island within Polish ethnographic territory.

The names “Dolinianie” and “Doly sanockie” are rather academic creations, we do not encounter them in folk dialect. However, sometimes you will hear among the neighboring highlanders the name “Doliniany” or less frequently “Mazury“, which is the name used by the highlanders to encompass all the people from the vicinity of Sanok regardless of whether they are of Polish or Ruthenian nationality. The name “Mazury” in reference to the Ruthenian Dolinianie is justified by the fact that in their costume they closely resemble the Polish people of the foothills.

The “przyjaciółka”—sometimes also referred to as a “kaftan” or “kaftanik”—bore a striking resemblance to the “futra” described above, with the sole difference being that it was significantly more modest. (It was not lined with lambskin, but rather padded, and instead of a fluffy fur collar, it featured a narrow, upright collar made of cloth).

The “przyjaciółka” and “futra” have by now vanished completely; however, the image of the “futra” has survived to the present day, having been preserved in one of the watercolors by Count E. Krasiński, which depicts peasants from the Sanok and Rymanów regions (Fig. 3).

Married women formerly wore caps made of green, red, or blue percale, over which they tied a white kerchief.

When heading to the market or to church, a woman from the Dolina region would drape a linen cloth—known as a “rąbek”—over her shoulders; this cloth measured 2 meters in length and 60 centimeters in width.

Fig 10) Podcienie of a house in the village of Mokre.

Fig. 12) A cottage in Odrzechowa, painted with red clay and white stripes.

Rys. 1) I. Plan of a cottage from Dąbrówka Ruska: a—porch, b—stable, c—threshing floor, d—store-room, e—entrance hall, f—living room; a—”wankirz” (alcove); black rectangle—stove. II. Traditional corner jointing (“oblap”). III. Eave construction: a—purlin, z—rafter, c—support post, d—roof batten, e—auxiliary rafter.

Nowadays, the living quarters are, as a rule, whitewashed; in earlier times, however—when smoke-stoves (“kurne piece”) were still the norm—the walls were never whitewashed, but rather refreshed by scraping away the soot with a sharp knife.

AGRICULTURE.

Due to the extensive depletion of forests and the lack of vast mountain pastures, neither logging and timber transport nor large-scale cattle rearing can serve as occupations for the Dolinians. Their entire economy is based exclusively on crop cultivation.

On the fertile soil of the Sanok region, the Dolinians grow all varieties of grain, potatoes, and cabbage, as well as small quantities of flax and hemp for clothing.

In the vicinity of Sieniawa, Trepcza, and Besko, the peasants sow onions and garlic on a massive scale; in the autumn, they transport these crops by the wagonload to sell at fairs in towns both near and far.

POLISH INFLUENCES

As can be seen from the above description, the Dolinians are a typical lowland group, culturally completely distinct from the Lemko or Boyko highlanders. 

However, this fact does not prevent some experts from including on their maps the entire Dolinian area discussed here from Bukowsko to Nowosielce and Dąbrówka Ruska to the indigenous Lemko region.

Meanwhile, the Dolinians, despite all the labels affixed by ethnographers, show far-reaching Polish influences, extending from the north. For example, the Dolinians’ costume does not differ much from the costume of Polish peasants from the areas of Jasło, Krosno or even Rzeszów.

Rys. 2) Map of the surveyed area known as the “Sanok Valleys.” I – Ruthenian Highlanders, II – Dolinians, III – Dolinian-Boyko transitional zone, IV – Southern boundary of the Dolinians, V – Polish enclaves, VI – Mixed Polish-Ruthenian villages. Localities: 1 Sieniawa, 2 Besko, 3 Mymoń, 4 Odrzechowa, 5 Wola Senkowa, 6 Posada Zarszyńska, 7 Długie, 8 Nowosielec, 9 Pielnia, 10 Nadolany, 11 Nowotaniec, 12 Nagórzany, 13 Bukowsko, 14 Pisarowce, 15 Jędruszkowce, 16 Pobiedno, 17 Markowce, 18 Płowce, 19 Dąbrówka Polska, 20 Niebieszczany, 21 Poraż, 22 Morochów, 23 Mokre, 24 Czaszyn, 25 Tarnawa Górna, 26 Zarszyn.

This phenomenon is completely natural, if we take into account that the area inhabited by the Dolinians is densely interspersed with Polish islands (Fig. 2), but in order to explain this matter in detail, a few words should be devoted to the past.

FROM THE HISTORY OF SETTLEMENT IN THE SANOK LAND. 

When, in 1340, Casimir the Great annexed the Cherven Towns to Poland, there were already many villages in the vicinity of Sanok (which was then a Rus border town) inhabited by the Ruthenian population. Casimir the Great densified this network of settlements by colonizing the empty parts of the Sanok Land with Germans brought from the west.

In the 15th century population of Iwonicz, Rymanów, Sanok, Jaćmierz, Zarszyn, Lalin etc. there was a fairly significant percentage of the German. Today’s Nowotaniec was then called Lobentanz, and the royal village, Poraż-Kunzendorf. In later times, Polish settlers came to the Sanok Land, they quickly assimilated the remnants of the German population based on their common Catholic Church (creating a difference of denominations and later rites), which survives to this day. For this reason, the map of Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches from the 15th century” (Fig. 3) matches the ethnic map of the area inhabited by the Dolinians.

Rys. 3) Map showing the distribution of Roman Catholic churches (kościołów) and Orthodox churches (cerkwi) in the Sanok region as of the 15th century. I = Roman Catholic. II = Orthodox. Localities: 1 Besko, 2 Zarszyn, 3 Odrzechowa, 4 Nowosielce, 5 Pielnia, 6 Nowotaniec, 7 Bukowsko, 8 Pobiedno, 9 Niebieszczany, 10 Poraż, 11 Wielopole.

In addition to these old Polish islands, which are several centuries old, in almost every Ruthenian village there are now small or large Polish colonies. These were established in the second half of the last century as the former serfs were brought by the lords from various parts of Poland. With the fall of the manors, these servants bought land and settled permanently in Ruthenian villages.

These two waves of Polish settlement, one that came 500 years ago and the other 50 years ago, undoubtedly had an impact on the local Ruthenian population.

Over the course of many generations, the Ruthenians adopted many elements from the Poles, a detail that drew the attention of the highlanders (Hirmuks), who, as I mentioned above, sometimes call their northern neighbors Mazurs.

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ETHNIC POLITICS

Now to our question at hand:  “Did Reinfuss invent the Dolinians?”  It’s a straw-man because he admits to doing as much right in the fourth paragraph.  Maybe a better question is, “Is it possible to classify the Carpathian peoples?”  That is more complicated–and political.

In the 1930s, when Reinfuss did his research, Sanok was a battleground for competing national movements.  Poland emerged from World War I with national independence.  Ukraine did not.  What is now Ukraine was split in four parts.  The Soviet Union controlled central and eastern Ukraine.  Poland held the western part (historic Galicia and Volhynia), while Romania and Czechoslovakia had smaller areas of the southwest.  

Polish national leaders had not completely settled the question of whether Galician Ukrainians (Ruthenians) were an integral part of the Polish nation or whether they were something else.  To Ukrainian national leaders, like my distant relative Ivan Fylypchak (Iwan Filipczak), they were decidedly something else.  They were part of a separate Ukrainian nation that extended from the Carpathians to the Black Sea coast, to Kyiv, Kharkiv and beyond.

The San Valley was an especially complicated region.  During Austrian times, the river was seen as the border between West Galicia where most villagers were Roman Catholic Mazurs and East Galicia, where the majority of villagers were Greek Catholic Rusyns. In interwar Małopolska, the Polish leadership (in coordination with the Vatican) certainly claimed the Mazurs on both sides of the river as Poles, and it would grudgingly admit the Rusyns east of the San were Ukrainians, but the Rusyns west of the San were a problem.

Therefore, the Polish Government used the umbrella term “Lemkos” rather than “Ukrainians” to describe the Greek Catholic and Orthodox believers residing west of the river.  This would have made an ethnographer like Reinfuss cringe as in a scientific sense “Lemko” was only one of several Carpathian ethnographic divisions of the “Rusyn” ethnic group.  Just within the Sanok region itself, there were also Boyko villages and others that evaded easy classification. Then there was the whole issue of the Dolinians near Sanok City who had a mix of influences, including Polish.  To keep them from joining the Ukrainian movement, should they be polonized or “Lemko-ized?”

Further complicating matters was the internal battle within the Lemko region.  Ivan Fylypchak was involved with the founding of the Ukrainophile Lemkivshchyna Society society in Sanok.  With its newspaper Nasz Lemko, it attempted to spread Ukrainian identity west of the San.  Here, they competed with the Russophile Lemko Union and its newspaper Lemko.  This latter group had the financial support of the Polish Government and the Vatican. It was a case of strange bedfellows as many in the Lemko Union were Orthodox having risen out of pre-WWI “Old Rusyns” and the religious politics in North America, but that’s a whole other blog post.  For our purposes here, it’s enough to say that they did not consider themselves part of the Ukrainian nation and preferred political union with Poland or Czechoslovakia to any future independent Ukraine.

I don’t get the sense that Reinfuss was trying to promote any particular national agenda. However, his article should be understood in the interwar context. Had it been written after the Second World War, it would have been much different. We know this because it was reprinted.

POST WORLD WAR II

In 1986, the editors of the yearbook of the Sanok Museum of Folk Architecture (Skansen) reprinted Reinfuss’ article for its 50th anniversary.  The ethnographer was still living, and by that point, he had been collaborating with the museum for decades–mainly on less-controversial topics.  The introduction to the reprint blames the War for preventing the article from gaining much traction when it was first published.  It also hints at why little follow-up research was done on “The Dolinians.”

“The Second World War—and the bloody atrocities committed by UPA bandits—forced a portion of the local population to abandon these territories, relocating to the USSR or to Poland’s Western and Northern Territories. The folk culture of the Sanok region was subsequently devastated, and in the wake of post-war transformations, ultimately erased.”

This passage obliquely references the Volhynian Massacres, Polish-Ukrainian guerilla warfare, the “voluntary” deportations of Ukrainians across the Curzon Line under postwar Soviet occupation, and the Polish Communist Government’s 1947 Operation Vistula (Akcja Wisła) which forcibly resettled most of the remaining Greek Catholic and Orthodox populations to northern and western Poland.  The corresponding resettlement of ethnic Poles from Soviet Ukraine, and the general upheaval of the War and its aftermath changed the ethnic character of the region forever.  In other words, the Sanok of today does not have the same ethnic demographics as the Sanok our ancestors left 125 years ago.    

The thaw of the 1980s and then the fall of communism led to renewed interest in pre-war ethnographic geography. Formerly taboo topics could be discussed again, and the historical politics of nationality remerged. Exiles in Ukraine pressed to recapture the legacy of the “Nadsyanian” Ukrainians.  

Recent decades have also seen increased interest in North America in “Carpatho-Rusyns,” an umbrella term for people who are now typically called “Ukrainians” in Poland.  My own hometown has an Orthodox church, and some of the families of Carpathian origin have started using the “Carpatho-Rusyn” identifier.  Paul Robert Magosci, a leading academic and advocate for this Carpatho-Rusyn nationhood, provided Britannica.com with a map for its Rusyn article.  In it, we see fingers of territory erupting west of Sanok from the core Lemko Region.  If you look closely, however, it seems the Carpatho-Rusyn nation has made a point of bending around and excluding the Dolinians. 

So what’s going on here? Back in October, I had the opportunity to meet with an Ethnography Professor from the University of Rzeszów who has done studies throughout the Carpathians.  I also met with a Lemko historian in Komańcza.  Both men spoke about the excitement surrounding the initial Carpatho-Rusyn international conference, but then both started to notice something at the subsequent conferences.  They were becoming increasingly pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine.  Some of the funding sources seemed a little mysterious and dubious.  This is not to implicate the sincerity or outstanding research done by North American Carpatho-Rusyns.  It is just to say that the Kremlin has a way of ruining everything in its quest to undermine Ukrainian identity.  There is nothing new under the sun.

Given the brutal full-scale of Ukraine in 2022, how these identity debates will play out in the future is anyone’s guess.

SO DO I GET TO BE A DOLINIAN? 

So, if I don’t get to be a Carpatho-Rusyn, do I at least get to be a Dolinian?  My great-great grandmother Franciszka Michoń-Filipczak was from Zarszyn, which Reinfuss puts in the Dolinian region.  Most of the surnames connected to her family appear in the church records of Greek Catholic churches in nearby villages.  She was herself, Roman Catholic (i.e. Polish), but perhaps there is some more distant Dolinian ancestry. Zarszyn is one of the towns Reinfuss points to as bringing Polish influence to the Dolinians.  Interestingly, though, he seems to state these “Poles” were actually ethnic Germans brought in by Casimir the Great and later slavicized.  Does that mean many of the first Poles in Sanok were actually Germans? Franciszka’s grandmother, Clara Niemiec, having a surname literally meaning German, could indicate some of my ancestors fit that description.

So was Franciszka’s husband, Michał Filipczak, a Dolinian?  My great-great grandfather, a wheelwright in Sanok, was born in the village of Liszna in the Słonne Mountains across the river on the right bank of the San.  Liszna was a mixed village that over time had “polonized” (gone from having a Greek Catholic majority to a Roman Catholic majority).  Michał was baptized Roman Catholic, though his father was of the Greek rite.  Their relative, Ivan Fylypchak from Liszna, was from a family that stayed Greek Catholic into the 20th century.  He became a proud Ukrainian and self-identified as a Lemko, even though Liszna is excluded from Magosci’s map of the Lemko region.  Ivan was likely thinking of “Lemko” more in the broader political sense of the 1920s and ’30s than in the hair-splitting ethnographic sense.

Reinfuss’ map of the Dolinians stops at the San River and the ethnographer defines the Dolinians as being a “lowland group” that lives by planting.  This would seem to exclude the heavily forested mountainous Liszna, with its grazers and lumbermen, from being part of the Dolinian region. 

There’s still hope, however!  If you go to the Skansen, and look at their map of highland subgroups, they do extend the Dolinian region east of the San, and when they acquire buildings from the Słonne, they are put into the Dolinian section of the museum. On that same map, the Lemkos and Boykos are “Rusyn,” and the Dolinians are “Polish-Rusyn.”    

(A larger Dolinian region than Reinfuss’ shown on this map, with a Dolinian-Boyko transition zone around Zagorz and Lesko shown in light green. Wikimedia Commons)

Furthermore, the renowned Liszna-based folk band Lisznianie describes its music as “Dolinian,” and that’s good enough for me.  I was lucky enough to meet Edward Filipczak, the 92-year old founder of Lisznianie while in Sanok, then later got to see the band rehearse.

Lisznianie: the best darn folk band in Poland!

Hooray, I’m a Dolinian!  

“Not so fast,” says Piotr.  Always one to rain on my parade, he informs me that while Dolinian is useful as an ethnographic descriptor (a Dolinian house, a Dolinian-style cap, Dolinian music, etc.), it is not really an ethnic group, and certainly not a national identity like Polish or Ukrainian.  No one actually thinks of him or herself as being “a Dolinian.”

So what am I then?  Well, Piotr and everyone else in Sanok would just say I’m an American and be satisfied with that.  But I’m not satisfied with that! I live in Wisconsin.  Multiple times a week, someone is going to ask me what nationality my surname is.  

I suppose I’m Polish.  After all, my Roman Catholic great grandfather considered himself a Pole when he came to America.  However, that answer is not going to please my Ukrainian friends–the fans of Iwan Filipczak.  It also misses the beautiful complexity and eventful (if often tragic) history that is the Sanok Lands.

So, how do you do?  I’m Leo and I’m an American of Dolinian-Lemko-Nadsyanian-polonized German-Carpatho Rusyn-Mazur-Ukrainian-Polish-Galician-Red Ruthenian origins.  

How ‘bout yourself?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If this national identity stuff piques your interest, be sure to check out my debut book Beyond the San: National Identity in the Carpathian Borderlands. If it’s not your thing, don’t worry, not everything on Sanok Genes is about my identity crisis. Start with Piotr’s HOW STORKS WERE SHOT AT IN POBIEDNO. OR THE INTERESTING CASES OF POBIEDNO AND RATNAWICA IN THE YEARS 1731-1790.

Piotr Zelny

Historical Museum in Sanok

© 2025 Copyright Piotr Zelny 

HOW STORKS WERE SHOT AT IN POBIEDNO. OR THE INTERESTING CASES OF POBIEDNO AND RATNAWICA IN THE YEARS 1731-1790.

(A contribution to research on the history of the Ossoliński family’s foothill estates).

Every great story is composed of many small stories, and these small stories are composed of a series of even smaller ones. Therefore, I decided to use the short episode about storks, which occurred one summer in 1764, as a pretext to weave in the histories of certain villages, weave these into the histories of certain estates, to present as a fragment of the history of the largest 18th-century complex of landed estates located in the Sanok region and neighboring lands.

Pobiedno and Ratnawica, for these are the villages that will be the subject of this story, were owned by the Ossoliński family from 1731 to 1790. When, on February 4, 1731, the very young Teresa Stadnicka married Józef Kanty Ossoliński, the starosta of Sandomierz and Khmelnytskyi, son of a prominent politician, she brought him a vast inheritance with her dowry, which had been created by her grandfather, Jan Franciszek Stadnicki, the voivode of Volhynia. He had purchased, among many other properties, the villages of Pobiedno and Ratnawice from the heirs of Andrzej Drohojowski, starost of Łuków, in 1693.¹ On April 17, 1731, Józef Kanty Ossoliński and his wife were intromitted, or came into possession, of the Pobiedno estate.² For the next 35 years, the couple jointly managed their estates located in the Red Ruthenian, Kraków, Sandomierz, Lublin, Masovian, Podlaskie, Volhynian, and Podolia voivodeships. They also raised four children together. Teresa, although much younger, was the first to die in 1776. For Józef Kanty, this was an irreplaceable loss, and his grief over it is evident in his letters from this period. Józef died just four years later. In 1786, their children divided their inheritance, and Pobiedno and Ratnawica passed into the hands of Józef Salezy Ossoliński (the third of his siblings), the Voivode of Podlaskie, who died just three years later, followed a year later by his infant son, Józef Tymoteusz.³ Both villages were likely acquired by Teresa née Ossolińska (the fourth of his siblings) and her husband, Józef Potocki, Crown Carver and Starost of Leżajsk. Thus, in 1790, Pobiedno and Ratnawica became the property of the Potocki family.

During the Ossoliński era, both villages were part of a large complex of landed estates known as the Podgórskie estates, which collectively encompassed several towns (Lesko, Rymanów, Ustrzyki Dolne, Bukowsko, and Dukla) and over a hundred villages. The Podgórskie estate complex was divided into three, and later four, smaller estates: Lesko, Rymanów, Przemyśl (also known as Ruthenian), and, from 1779, Dukla. These, in turn, were divided into a series of even smaller units called keys.⁴

Pobiedno. The first military photograph of Galicia, the so-called Friedrich von Mieg map from 1779-1783, Kriegsarchiv Vienna.

Pobiedno and Ratnawica together formed just such a small section of the Lesko Podgórze Estate when, on October 15, 1764, a certain A. Baczyński appeared in Pobiedno. He had been sent to be an instigator by Commissioner General Stanisław Wiśniewski of Wiśniewo, the sword-bearer of Gostyń. The Commissioner General was a high-ranking official who headed the entire local administration of the Ossoliński estate.

Baczyński’s task was to conduct an inquisition, or investigation, in Pobiedno into a very serious case of suspected arson. Criminal offenses such as rape, robbery, arson, and home invasion were considered the most serious, and the perpetrator could face capital punishment. To make matters worse, the case caused quite a scandal because the suspect was the minor son of another high-ranking official in the same estate, Mr. Jan Kurpiewski. Kurpiewski served as general clerk, and his immediate superior was the aforementioned Stanisław Wiśniewski of Wiśniewo. Therefore, the case could not be heard by the local court in Pobiedno, nor even by the castle court or the lay judges’ court in Lesko.⁵ The peasants from Pobiedno submitted a supplication (complaint) to Ossoliński, who passed their case on to Mr. Jastkiewicz, the treasurer (also known as the treasurer or cashier), who, together with his oral instructions, submitted it for consideration to the above-mentioned general commissioner:

As for the three Pobiedno subjects, the deterioration, the damage so significant, the private is sent back to His Grace, Mr. Wiśniewski, the sword-beared, and in order to reach the most desirable, according to justice, conclusion about this [matter], it is also very important to remember this in accordance with the oral resolutions.⁶

Ratnawica. The first military photograph of Galicia, the so-called Friedrich von Mieg map from 1779-1783, Kriegsarchiv Vienna.

Upon arriving in Pobiedno, Baczyński met with a local peasant, Jan Szelka, who was then serving as a village oath-bearer. Baczyński tasked him with convening the entire village community to conduct an investigation, obtain testimony, and resolve the dispute.

Detailed testimony was provided by eyewitness Jan Bednarz, a resident and, for a dozen years before, mayor of Pobiedno, sworn witness Jan Szelka, and other village residents. Based on this, an investigation report was prepared.

The incident took place in 1764, most likely in June, when storks are nesting in Poland, but the May haymaking season will have already ended but the mid-July haying has not yet begun. At that time, the aforementioned clerk general, Jan Kurpiewski, arrived in Pobiedno with his nine-year-old son, his clerks, and one soldier from the so-called postal service. The purpose of their visit to Pobiedno is unknown. In any case, the clerk general was responsible for, among other things, collecting rents, preparing inventories, and supervising leases. He could also conclude or extend lease agreements on behalf of the commissioner general. From 1761 to 1767, Pobiedno and neighboring Ratnawica were leased by a certain Jałbrzykowski, the cupbearer of Łomża. The visit may therefore have been related to some matters related to the lease of these villages.

Protocol of the arson case in Pobiedno, October 15, 1764.

While Jan Kurpiewski was minding to his business, his son, the postman, and some clerks were amusing themselves by running around the village with a rifle and shooting, probably at birds. They were seen, among other places, in the “Jewish courtyard.” At one point, they arrived at Hrycio Zemlanin’s house. The postman stood in the doorway of his cottage, and Kurpiewski’s son, rifle in hand, crept under a haystack. Seeing a stork perched on the roof, he aimed at it and pulled the trigger. The rifle failed to fire because all the powder burned up. However, a spark from the burning powder landed on the dry hay and started a fire. The fire quickly spread to the houses of Hrycio Zemlanin and his neighbors, Szymek and Sobek. Fortunately, the fire was extinguished in time, and the rest of the village survived.

Total material losses were estimated at 171.9 złoty, although initial estimates were twice as high. By comparison, the annual rent for renting a quarter of a field, equivalent to the area of an average peasant farm at the time, was nearly 21 złoty, and the annual salary (excluding the ordinaria, or part of the in-kind remuneration) of the deputy starosta, who managed the manor and administered a small key of estates, ranged from approximately 110 to 180 złoty. This was a considerable sum.

The direct perpetrator of the act, the son of the general scribe, was not held accountable due to his minor age; he was nine years old on the day of the incident. Although he certainly didn’t escape his father’s punishment, a beating, likely on the carpet, as befit a noble child. However, the postman was arrested and deemed the ringleader for “scandalizing” the minor. We don’t know what specific punishment he received. It can be assumed that for setting a bad example and sowing scandal, he received the customary punishment of flogging, paid a fine to the court, and served some time in custody at Lesko Castle.⁷

* * *

At about this time, in 1772, Pobiedno was inhabited by 63 peasant families (55 peasants, 5 cottagers, 3 bailiffs) living in 54 cottages. Ratnawica was much smaller, with a total of 24 families (17 peasants, 2 crofters, 5 bailiffs) and 19 cottages.⁸

A dozen or so years later, in 1785, Pobiedno’s population reached 420, the majority being Roman Catholic (69.1% Roman Catholics, 28.3% Greek Catholics, and 2.6% Jews). The seat of the Catholic parish was in neighboring Dudyńce. Pobiedno, meanwhile, housed the seat of the Greek Catholic parish (Sanok deanery), with the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, whose patrons were the Ossoliński family. However, from 1758 onward, the village had no parish priest and for the next twelve years, the church stood empty and fell into ruin. The last serving priest was killed. In 1760, an investigation was conducted, the details of which unfortunately remain unknown.⁹ Only in 1770 did Father Michał Skobielski take over the parish. Immediately upon assuming office, he sought Józef Ossoliński’s assistance in renovating the church (particularly the roof and ceiling), replacing missing elements of the iconostasis (the royal doors), renovating the altars and paintings, purchasing missing church paraphernalia, and improving the parish’s endowment. Meanwhile, another fire, this time more serious, ravaged the village, destroying seven peasant cottages and the rectory barn. The priest and his congregation complained to Ossoliński that the village’s lessee, Michał Białobrzeski, whom I discuss below, was not allowing them to take wood from the forest to rebuild the damaged buildings. Father Skobielski continued as parish priest until 1786.¹⁰

Ratnawica had a population of 153 people, and unlike Pobiedno, the overwhelming majority were Greek Catholics (91.5% Greek Catholics, 3.3% Roman Catholics, 5.2% Jews). Ratnawica also had a parish church dedicated to St. Nicholas (Sanok deanery). In 1782, the parish priest was Commander Father Jan Starakiewicz, who was also the parish priest in Zawadka Morochowska. The Roman Catholic parish was located in nearby Niebieszczany.¹¹

In Pobiedno, there was also a magnificent fir-wood drive-in inn, which also included a brewery with a malt house, a small granary, and a barn. The entire facility, along with the right to produce and sell alcohol (propination), was leased annually (brewery lease). The annual rent for the brewery lease was 900 złoty in 1754-1756 and 936 złoty and 16 grosz in 1762-1763. In 1772, the lessee (tenant) of the inn and other buildings was a Jew named Dawid Lewkowicz. He also complained to Ossoliński, but about various troops passing through the village, who regularly took alcohol from the inn without payment. These were the years of the Bar Confederation, the Civil War, and Russian intervention. The innkeeper also reported the poor condition of the buildings, asking for help with renovation. An inspection conducted that same year and a description of the buildings provided did not indicate that they were in poor condition, although certain structural elements did require urgent repair. In any case, Lewkowicz requested a waiver of the lease payment due to losses caused by the military.¹²

In the northern part of Pobiedno stood a wooden manor house with a dining room, an office, three large rooms, one small room, a small room known as the medicine room, and an inhabitable attic. Nearby were detached buildings housing the kitchen, the old and new manor stables, and in the adjacent courtyard were the farm buildings. The farm employed four permanent servants (a shepherd, two girls, and a swineherd). Local peasants from Pobiedno and Ratnawica also worked there as part of their labor serfdom, working in the fields, on the farm, or performing supervisory, transportation, and other duties.¹³ The manor house was the seat of a lower-level official in the local administration of the Ossoliński estate.¹⁴ This was the farm manager and administrator, known as the podstarośta (also known as the “dispatcher” or “administrator”). The local deputy starosta (provincial head) managed a small estate, which included the villages of Pobiedno with its farmstead, and Ratnawica. He also headed the local court, whose territorial jurisdiction encompassed the Pobiedno estate. The deputy starosta’s annual salary (usually paid in quarterly installments) was 150 złoty in the years 1749-1750 and 1753-1756, plus an additional 9 to over 13 złoty in natural products such as butter, cheese, and meat. He was, of course, provided with housing for his family in the manor. The deputy starostas of the Pobiedno estate were: Żurowski from 1744 to 1748, Michalewski in 1748, Dębowicz from 1749 to September 12, 1755, and Szczygielski from September 28, 1755 to 1758.¹⁵ All of them reported to the general accountant, based at Lesko Castle, who managed the Lesko estates. The legal status of Pobiedno and Ratnawica changed in 1761. The Pobiedno and Ratnawica estates, i.e., the sub-starosty, were abolished, and the Pobiedno estate was handed over to leaseholders. These were short-term leases, lasting two or three years. The leaseholder assumed complete management of the estate, while the Ossoliński officials were left with only supervisory functions. The first leaseholder, from 1761 to 1767, was Mr. Jałbrzykowski, the Łomża cupbearer, who had previously served as “commissioner” for the Chrzanów estate in 1752 and 1754.¹⁶ He may have received the Pobiedno estate lease as a reward for his faithful service. This was a fairly common practice. The annual lease rent specified in the contract for the years 1761-1764 brought the Ossoliński family an income of 4,516 zlotys.¹⁷ In the next lease contract, from 1764 to 1767, the rent was 4,430 zlotys, 21 groszy, and 1 1/2 shillings. In 1767, the lease was taken over by Michał Białobrzeski, the Wiślanski’s podstoliński, who held it until 1776.¹⁸ A total of four two-year contracts and one one-year contract were concluded with Białobrzeski, for the years 1767-1769, 1769-1771, 1771-1773, 1773-1774, and 1774-1776. In 1772, the annual lease rent was 4,445 zlotys and 11 groszy. In the years 1776-1778, for the same amount, the Pobiedziński key was leased for two years to captain W. Hoffman.¹⁹

The year 1767 heralded misfortune for Pobiedno and Ratnawice. It began with two massive hailstorms that struck much of the Sanok region that year, including Pobiedno and Ratnawice, devastating crops. A total of 42 farmers and a propination leaseholder (innkeeper) from Pobiedno, as well as 20 farmers from Ratnawice, applied for assistance from the Commissioner General. All received subsidies (so-called “stake”) in the form of seed for sowing from treasury granaries from the Lesko and Rymanów Podgórze estates, as well as some from the manor granaries of the current lessee of the Pobiedno estate, Michał Białobrzeski. Due to the disaster, grain was scarce both in treasury granaries and on the open market, so the administration rescued itself by purchasing grain for the peasants from the leaseholder.²⁰ The lessee himself also received compensation in the form of a reduction or cancellation of rent for the following year because such natural disasters were covered by the guarantee in the lease contract.

However, an even worse misfortune than the hailstorm proved to be the new tenant himself, who also signed a lease agreement for the Pobiedzino estate at the Midpost meeting that same year.²¹ This was the aforementioned Michał Białobrzeski, Cupbearer of Wizna. He leased Pobiedno and Ratnawica, much to the local population’s chagrin, for the next nine long years. During this time, the priest, innkeeper, and peasants from both villages submitted as many as five collective petitions (one missing) and at least seven individual petitions (requests, complaints) to the owner himself, Józef Kanty Ossoliński, and to the general commissioners of his estate.²² In these petitions, they asked for help, intervention, and release from the tenant’s authority and transfer the village to the direct management of the Lesko Podgórze estate administration. Due to the events surrounding the Bar Confederation (1768-1772) and his involvement in its activities, Józef Ossoliński lived in exile from 1769 in the village of Budzimierz (now Budimir in Slovakia) and then in the town of Sebes (present-day Romania). Therefore, he was unable to personally monitor the situation and take decisive action.

The official responsible for taking such actions on his behalf was the general commissioner (also the general plenipotentiary). His responsibilities included general management of the estate, supervision of local administration, legal and property matters, and supervision of leases and the conclusion of lease contracts. Consequently, he also had jurisdiction over matters concerning violations of the lease contract, including misdemeanors, abuses, and crimes committed by tenants against their peasants.

Until the autumn of 1770, Stanisław Wiśniewski of Wiśniewo, the sword-bearer of Gostyń, served as commissioner general,²³ but he died that year. His duties were assumed by Piotr Szawłowski, a magistrate judge in Sandomierz, who had a reputation among the peasants for corruption and bribery. A rumor circulated about him, repeated by peasants from Pobiedno, Ratnawica, and Wysoczany, that in exchange for his silence, he had accepted a pair of very expensive horses from Białobrzeski, worth 1,440 złoty (80 red zlotys):

We appealed to the late W. Imć., Lord Judge. [ However, ] we received no results, because he, having received a pair of horses from the possessor as a gift, for which 80 reds were paid, did not hear our wrong. And W. Imć., Lord Regent Żłuchowski, gave one horse, all to our detriment.

Our tenant, the late JGMći, of Płońsk, gave the judge a rein of horses so that he would have respect from him.²⁴

It’s impossible to say what the truth was. In any case, Szawłowski didn’t manage to do anything about the peasants wronged by Białobrzeski, as he ruled for only a few months, or at most a few. In the winter of 1770/71, he slipped on a steep staircase in Lesko and broke his neck. His duties were taken over by Maciej Kazimierz Skorupka, cupbearer of the Ślepowron family, and cupbearer of Drohicz. Skorupka was a long-time employee of Ossoliński’s administration. His name first appears in 1749, and already at that time, he held a prominent position, likely as a plenipotentiary, performing legal and other duties on Ossoliński’s behalf. At the same time, he developed his professional career in the Sandomierz castle, where he served as regent in 1749, scribe in 1760, and then deputy starosta in 1771. It seems that Skorupka did not become the new Commissioner General, but merely assumed the duties of the Commissioner General as a temporary plenipotentiary until a new one was appointed. Nevertheless, together with Mr. Kopczyński, the general accountant of the Lesko Podgórze estate, he strongly advocated for the peasants, thus gaining a good reputation among them.²⁵

At the very beginning of his term as acting commissioner general, for the upcoming “mid-Lenten” (March) contracts of 1771, Ossoliński gave him three keys of estates (farms) to contract: Sieniawe, Bukowsko, and Pobiedno (with Ratnawica). He was to choose one key for himself as his office stipend and lease the remaining two, one to Father Dobrzański, a canon of Kraków, and the other to Michał Białobrzeski:

To Mr. Białobrzeski, the understeward, if he is punctual in his duties to the treasury and is not as oppressive as has been told, then one of these two estates.²⁶

As you can see, Białobrzeski’s case and his attitude toward the peasants were well known to everyone, including Ossoliński. However, as a payor, he faithfully fulfilled his obligations, which was not uncommon among tenants during the turbulent times of the Bar Confederation, and this advantage prevailed. Left with little choice, Skorupka ceded Pobiedno and Ratnawice to Białobrzeski for the third time, much to the local population’s dismay. In March 1771, Skorupka signed a new lease with him for another two years.

The first page of the collective complaint (suplication) of the village communities of Pobiedno and Ratnawica against the village tenant, Michał Białobrzeski, 1774.

A little later, around mid-1771, a new general commissioner was appointed. He was August Fryderyk de Romainville, a lieutenant in the Saxon army in 1771 and later a captain in the army of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.²⁷ Nevertheless, Maciej Skorupka continued to deal with the misdeeds of the lessee Michał Białobrzeski. 

The first known, though lost, collective complaint against Białobrzeski was filed by residents of Pobiedno and Ratnawica in late 1770 (some evidence suggests there were earlier complaints). As we know, the then-commissioner general, Piotr Szawłowski, did not intervene against him in defense of the peasants. The situation changed only when Maciej Skorupka took up the matter. When another collective complaint was received by Ossoliński on January 21, 1772, he forwarded it, along with verbal instructions, to Mr. Skorupka, who finally took decisive action and simply revoked Białobrzeski’s lease. Pobiedno and Ratnawica became the property of the treasury, meaning they were directly administered by the Lesko Podgórze estate. Direct management was assumed by the deputy starosta of the neighboring Niebieszczany demesne. However, after just a week, the lease was returned to Białobrzeski. This likely occurred due to the consequences of breaking such a lease agreement, which would have provided grounds for initiating legal proceedings against Ossoliński in the Sanok district court. Perhaps from the outset, the action was intended merely to deliver a clear warning to Białobrzeski. Instead, it was calculated that it would be safer to wait a few more months until mid-January of the following year, i.e., March 1773, when the lease agreement was due to expire anyway. At any rate, Białobrzeski was unimpressed, and the result was that the peasants suffered the consequences, as the lessee ordered 30 lashes administered to all those who filed a complaint.²⁸ The situation was exacerbated by the local activities of the Bar Confederation, which the lessee ruthlessly exploited to pacify both villages and exact revenge on the rebellious peasants. Jan Szelka narrowly escaped with his life when the confederates tried to hang him from a willow tree. Four farmers fled the village, likely with their entire families. Those who signed the petitions with the sign of the cross next to their names suffered particularly at the hands of Białobrzeski’s men and the Confederates. These were representatives of local communities, oath-bearers, decurion-holders, and wealthier farmers long established in the village and leading their communities—the local rural elites. The oath-bearers, Jan Szelka, Maciej Stary, Sebastian Stary, Jędrzej Stary, Sebastian Brejta, Jan Adamski, Jan vel Iwan Pisaniak, and decurion-holder Jan Pawłowski—their signatures appear on the petitions. There was also one “black sheep” in Pobiedno. His name has not been established; sources refer to him as the “flatterer.” The “flatterer” advised and reported everything and everyone to Białobrzeski and undermined the activities of his community. He also reportedly sent denunciations (according to them, false) about his countrymen to the administration. Another clash soon followed. When the aforementioned lease was expiring in 1773, a “commissioner” arrived at the Pobiedno estate on Ossoliński’s behalf, acting as a senior official, to conduct an “inspection,” or simply an inspection. Unfortunately, the name of this “commissioner” could not be identified.²⁹ Complaints from peasants, and likely the poor condition of the inspected estates, led to a verbal altercation between Ossoliński’s commissioner and Białobrzeski. The two men apparently hated each other. The commissioner told Białobrzeski to look for another lease, as he certainly wouldn’t renew his current one. Białobrzeski, angrily, replied that he wouldn’t take it even if he were given it for free. However, when the time came for signing leases, around mid-March, Białobrzeski changed his mind and was ultimately able, surprisingly, to secure a contract for another year, and after that, for two more years of lease. In the process, Białobrzeski’s men beat up the local peasantry. It’s important to remember that the first partition of Poland took place at the same time as the events described. The partition caused not only social and political shock but also panic in the markets, especially in areas cut off from the rest of the country by the border cordon. Creditors began demanding accelerated repayments, and new investments were fraught with risk due to the unstable situation. It may therefore have turned out that in 1773, there was simply no one willing to lease Pobiedno and Ratnawica. When the local peasants learned that Białobrzeski was returning, they fell into despair. In a subsequent petition to Ossoliński from 1774, they listed 23 instances of abuse, fraud, misappropriation of property, destruction, beatings, imprisonment, intimidation, and even incitement to murder. Only in 1776 was Białobrzeski finally dispossessed, when the new leaseholder was appointed army captain W. Hoffman.³⁰

* * *

And what happened to the storks? Oh, if only storks could not only bring babies but also speak of their memories. The storks of Pobiedno have survived the exploits of all the unruly teenagers and brutal tenants, all the hailstorms, fires, uprisings, and wars. And today they are internet stars. You can watch the Pobiedno storks live at any time of day or night thanks to a camera placed above their nest. The video is available on YouTube.³¹

Stork nest in Pobiedno, July 28, 2025. Youtube channel.

APPENDIX

A humble supplication to the Most High Lord from the Pobiedzińska and Ratnawiecka congregation, 1774 to A[ nno ]

Original. National Museum in Krakow, Princes Czartoryski Library, 12129, Pobidno (11), 1770-1774, undated [supplication no. 7].

Your Honor

Our Merciful Lord!

Unworthy of the Most High, Gracious Lord of the villages of Pobiedna and Ratnawica, subjects of constant and unbearable troubles from our Most High, for seven years now, we have been oppressed by troubles from our Most High, Gracious Lord of Grace and Mercy, complaining about the hardships inflicted on us by our Most High, Leaseholder.

1st. In our livestock duties, we are to leave for serfdom at ten o’clock in the morning, and the Lord Possessor orders us to leave at six o’clock in the morning for some work, and whoever misses the deadline is severely punished.

2nd. When working with cattle, we should be allowed an hour to rest. The Possessor forces us to work all day long without rest, until dark night, keeping the cattle, often even spending the night in the manor.

3. For a day of serfdom, six fields must be plowed, each covering a meager number of stables. The Lord Possessor ordered one of two stables to be plowed. And so, in each current section for ploughing, two regular stables are found. It always takes two, and sometimes even three, whole days to reach it, for one day of serfdom.³²

4. We should go to transport manure with cattle and send a journeyman to throw it, but once he has thrown it onto the cart, he should rest. The Lord Possessor orders the cart to be thrown as quickly as possible, and when they leave, he hires the servants to wash cloths, carry clay, model, and do other work, and sometimes, having detached the journeyman a mile away with letters, he sends them away.

5th. Whenever we travel on a given route, according to the inventory, we must accept so many days of serfdom, as we spend many days on the road. The Possessor deducts only one day for the journey to Dukla or Krosno (which requires three days of stay).

6th. It is a common practice everywhere that one horse and one man serve as serfs. And when the Lord Possessor orders two to be hitched to any work, even for travel, he will only accept half a day’s work for one horse and one man.

7th. When they’re dragging out the corvée, three overseers stand, two at the ends and the third in the middle, and just like through the bush [?], they constantly let the cattle and their drivers loose, beating and driving them all day long. And when the cattle return home from such work, they can’t come to their senses for two or three days. Ratnawica, on the other hand, often has to spend the night there, or in Zboiska, so much so that they can’t even get home.

8th. Whenever we do anything with cattle, the Lord Possessor orders us to insist without ceasing that no subject can have good harness, because even if he has helped himself to the best one, if he works out the serfdom in the spring, the cattle will probably be crippled in the autumn.

9th. Whether it’s continuous work or walking , when rain gets in the way towards evening and doesn’t allow for a full day, such work is always deemed worthless by the Lord Possessor. And even if it happens two or three days in a row, he never deducts a single day’s serfdom for it. And that’s why so much serfdom is paid to the serfs every year.³³

10th. During continuous work, especially when transporting manure, it was customary to let the cattle graze. Under the Lordship of the Possessor, however, this never happened. One time, when manure was being transported to Błonia and the cattle had not eaten all day, the servants at the carts, already at dusk, would let the cattle loose among the manure piles. For this, the Lordship of the Possessor ordered each of them to receive ten lashes the next day, even after wearing summer clothes. As for Sobek Dudasz’s son, after complaining about his and others’ unjust punishment after receiving ten lashes, six more were added. For such an unnecessary punishment, no serf would ever support a journeyman’s servant; one could not even force one’s own child into serfdom.

11th. In the stable where the Herd of the Honorable Possessor would stand, whenever the mud became too deep, he would always order the mud to be dragged out through these troughs. Many cattle would bolt, and Jan Adamski’s mare would throw up her foal right at the trough.

12th. For this mud hauling, when the Lord Possessor ordered someone to go out with one horse, two servants with shovels should always go, and this was for one day of serfdom, and when one man left someone, even if he left not only with one horse, but also with a pair of cattle, he was only charged for half a day.

13th. A shepherd’s land was formerly granted to the community for grazing cattle, from which 28 złoty was paid annually. The Honourable Possessor turned it into a garden, and the rest he grazes with his horses.

14th. Ivan Pisaniak’s mare was used by the Honorable Possessor for heavy work and travel, and when she was sent to Jaćmierz with fodder for the oxen, she died on the way.

15th. During the revolution, after the arrival of the confederate commands, the Honourable Possessor constantly incited³⁴ the crowd and stated that the confederates, when refusing to go with supplications, always beat and murdered³⁵ people, and at the instigation of the Honourable Possessor they wanted to hang the old sworn Szelka on a willow.

16th. Ivan Bilas from Ratnawica went to serfdom for five days in one week, yet he wasn’t credited a single day, and this is how he did it. On Monday, he sent him to mow, and when he left the distant village around seven o’clock, the Honorable Possessor dismissed him , saying it wouldn’t be long. On Tuesday , he sent him to mow again, and after he had completed a few swaths, along with the others , he was dismissed because it was raining a bit. On Wednesday, he sent a mare to carry mud in a trough and two servants, who, after pulling mud out of the trough twice, got stuck and fell. The two servants asked the Honorable Possessor to find them some work on foot, but he ordered them and the mare to be sent home. On Thursday, they were ordered to leave in a ladder wagon, hitched to another servant to carry hay. And two servants from each left, bringing two loads of hay to the hayshed [ and ] then the Honorable Possessor didn’t order them to transport it so it would dry better, so they had to go home. However, they loaded the cart with three and a half³⁶ heaps of hemp to distribute to the Ratnawice community.³⁷ They arrived with this hemp at night, carrying it on their backs, tied to their backs. On Friday , finally, he sent them to thresh, but since the Honorable Possessor only ordered some to thresh, they had to return. And so, for five days, leaving and going to serfdom, he didn’t earn a single day.

17th. When the same Biłas’s farmhand went out to thresh grain for the serfdom, Sikorski, the deputy starosta,³⁸ for no reason at all, hit him behind the ears with his fist so hard that blood immediately gushed from his mouth, nose and ears and flowed in a stream all the way to the doorstep. His whole body and clothes were covered with blood.

19th. Sobek Brejta, went first with supplications to the Honorable Szawłowski, then to the Honorable Skorupka, and finally to His Lordship. For the first received 30, for the second 40, and for the third nearly a hundred lashes from the Honorable Possessor.³⁹

20th. Bartek Stary, severely punished by the Honourable Possessor, went beyond the Bieszczady Mountains and has not returned since.

21st. Ivan Tynik, who was given 30 lashes by the Honourable Possessor, went beyond the Bieszczady Mountains and died there.

22nd. Wawrzek Bednarz, persecuted by the Honourable Possessor, was put in shackles and chains several times, went to Brzozów and settled there.

23rd. Jan Kamiński, who had been determined to keep his farm, only now, when he learned that [the Honorable Possessor] would be staying on the estate, did he take up his duties with his wife, children and cattle and leave out of fear of the Honorable Possessor.

Therefore, having been burdened with these and countless other troubles from the Lord Possessor for seven years, we often resorted to the Lord Commissioners twice, and twice we were a nuisance to our Lord and Majesty Himself. Last year, when we were restored to obedience to the Lord Possessor, we heard that he was allowed to lease only one year, although we had experienced similar hardships in previous years, we did not bring any complaints or grievances to our superiors, only soothing all the hardships with the longed-for end of the year hope. But now, with the return of the Most Reverend Tenant from Hungary, when, although obedience has not yet been restored to him, we are already certain of great oppression, because not only he himself but also his servants order each of his subjects to don several skins, it is even more than in past years to tear these from us by threatening. Therefore, we resort to the kind grace and mercy of our Most Reverend Lord, begging at his feet to free us from this not-lease arrangement, but heavy yoke of slavery, because he deigns to free us from this, not of tenancy, but of the heavy yoke of slavery, because neither patience nor perseverance is sufficient, and we, having been answered in this request, will not cease to beg God for a long reign and the most virtuous health.

The most unworthy subjects of the Most High Gracious Lord, the group of the villages of Pobiedna and Ratnawica.

from Pobiedno and Ratnawica clusters

Papiery nowe = ex Fasciculo

45to = Sub N[umero] 22do    

1. AGAD, Archiwum Potockich z Radzynia, sygn. 376, Akta Jana Franciszka Stadnickiego, dotyczące dóbr Niebyszczany z przyległościami, nabytych od spadkobierców Andrzeja Drohojowskiego [p. sanocki], s. 5 – 8. ↩︎
2. LNNBU, f. 5, op. I, spr. 3974, Archiwum Ossolińskich, 1515 – 1731, k. 181, Najprawdopodobniej w tym czasie, tak jak to było w latach późniejszych, w skład dóbr Pobiedno wchodziła również Ratnawica. ↩︎
3. W. Szczygielski, Józef Salezy Ossoliński h. Topór (ok. 1732 – 1789), PSB, t. XXIV, [online] www.ipsb.nina.gov.pl [dostęp: 07.07.2025]. ↩︎
4.  Występująca zarówno w źródłach historycznych jaki i w literaturze przedmiotu terminologia odwołująca się do nazw jednostek administracyjno-gospodarczych  poszczególnych dóbr ziemskich i zatrudnionych tam urzędników jest bardzo zróżnicowana. Wynika to z faktu, że organizacja zarządu poszczególnych dóbr choć podobna nie była jednakowa a każde większe kompleksy dóbr posiadały swego rodzaju autonomię gospodarczą, prawną i sądową. Z powodu tej mylącej różnorodności postanowiłem zastosować w tekście wyłącznie terminologię, którą stosowano w XVIII wieku w omawianych dobrach podgórskich. ↩︎
5. Sąd dworski w Pobiednie był sądem dominialnym właściciela wsi. Był to sąd pierwszej instancji, którego jurysdykcja obejmowała sprawy mniejszej wagi poddanych a właściwość terytorialna obszar klucza pobiedzińskiego. Sąd ten nie posiadał prawa miecza (prawo do sądzenia spraw zagrożonych karą śmierci) więc nie mógł sądzić w tak ciężkich sprawach gardłowych, Por. „W sprawach poddanych mniejszej importancyi zachodzących, mają podstarościowie sumienne na gruncie czynić pomiarkowania, razem z przysiężnymi bez żadnej korupcji, wielkie zaś sprawy do zamku odsyłać, które zwierzchność decydować będzie.”, Archiwum Państwowe w Przemyślu (APP), Archiwum Zamku Leskiego Krasickich (dalej: AZLK), sygn. 415, Inwentarz miasta Liska z przyległymi wsiami, folwarkami etc. na skarb trzymanemi, przy oddaniu funkcji ekonomicznej i prowentu Iego Mości Panu Kopczyńskiemu wyprowadzony, s. 135 – 136; Zarówno sąd zamkowy (dominialny) jak i ławniczy (miejski) w Lesku były sądami drugiej instancji w stosunku do niego. Miały one prawo skazywać na karę śmierci. Trzecią instancją był sąd komisarski (dominialny), Por. “Jeżeliby się zaś kiedy akcja jaka kryminalna trafiła, – – do rezolucji Pańskiej, czyli postanowionego komisarza o nią się nieodwłocznie odezwać, a po tej nastąpionej, lub samemu rozsądzić, lub do sądu miejskiego takową oddać, aby się sprawiedliwości zadosyć stało”, APP AZLK, sygn. 13, Inwentarz dóbr podgórskich Liskich … ad fundum…niący się… nr 4, s. 469. ↩︎
6. AGAD, Zbiór Czołowskiego (dalej: Czoł.), sygn. 306, Dyspozycja Pańska zaczęta d[ie] 14 July [14 lipca] a[nno] praesenti 1764 w Humennem, s. 42. ↩︎
7. AGAD Czoł., sygn. 306, Inkwizycya o spaleniu poddanych pobiedzińskich na gruncie wyprowadzona, 15 8bris 1764 [15 X 1764] w Pobiednem, s. 58 – 59; Ibidem, A. Baczyński do Pana Dobrodzieja, 16 8bris 1764 [16 X 1764] z Pobiedna, s. 60. ↩︎
8. LNNBU, f. 5, op. II, spr. 2790, Inwentarze klucza tokarskiego y płońskiego…XVIII w., k. 32 – 43. ↩︎
9. 30 października 1760 roku plenipotent generalny, Antoni Wyczółkowski burgrabia grodzki mielnicki, zapłacił instygatorowi (oskarżycielowi publicznemu) grodzkiemu sanockiemu za przeprowadzenie inkwizycji w tej sprawie i sporządzenie wpisów do ksiąg, 77 zł i 18 gr, LNNBU, f. 141, op. I, spr. 179, Księga gospodarska Leska 1745 – 1765, k. 73v. ↩︎
10. APP, Archiwum Grekokatolickiego Biskupstwa w Przemyślu (dalej: AGBP), sygn. 67, [Spisy dusz], s. 38 – 39; APP AGBP, sygn. 6705, [Kopie ksiąg metrykalnych parafii Pielnia z filiami Dudyńce, Pobiedno, Jędruszkowice, Markowice, Podgaj (dekanat Buków)], s. 1; Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, Biblioteka Książąt Czartoryskich (dalej: BCz.), 12129, Pobidno (11), 1770 – 1774, b.d.; Z. Budzyński, Ludność pogranicza Polsko – Ruskiego w drugiej połowie XVIII wieku, t. 2, Przemyśl – Rzeszów, 1993, s. 282. ↩︎
11. APP AGBP, sygn. 67, [Spisy dusz], s. 38 – 39; Z. Budzyński, Ludność…, op. cit., s. 282. ↩︎
12. LNNBU, f. 5, op. II, spr. 2790, Inwentarze…, op. cit., k. 32 – 43; BCz., 12129, Pobidno…, op. cit.; BCz., 12127, Tabela reprodukcji intraty pieniężney z aręnd dóbr podgórskich liskich od śródpościa anno 1754 ad anno 1755 oraz ab anno 1755 ad anno 1756 z wyrażeniem aukcji albo dyminucji jako sequitur; Ibidem,  Remonstracja intraty rocznej z dóbr podgórskich wszystkich – -. W zamku Liskim in mensis Februario anno nunc praesenti 1763tio. ↩︎
13. W niektórych latach, 1747 – 1750 i 1755, podstarości pobiedzińscy zarządzali również folwarkiem w sąsiedniej Bełchówce.
    ↩︎
14. Por. przyp. 5. ↩︎
15. Nie udało się ustalić podstarościch z lat 1731 – 1743 i 1759 – 1761. ↩︎
16. Miasto Chrzanów położone w ówczesnym woj. krakowskim wraz z przyległymi wsiami należało do Ossolińskich. Jałbrzykowski w czasie swojego urzędowania wszedł w ostry konflikt z mieszczanami chrzanowskimi i okolicznymi gromadami wiejskimi, BCz., 12132, Chrzanów, 1754. Jednak chłopi z Pobiedna i Ratnawicy nie zgłaszali na niego żadnych skarg a w jednym zdaniu można odnieść wrażenie, że wyrażono się o nim pozytywnie; W 1765 i 1768 roku Jałbrzykowski dzierżawił od Ossolińskich również klucz ustrzycki z miasteczkiem Ustrzyki, APP AZLK, sygn. 13, Inwentarz…, op. cit., s. 423; BCz., 12128, Ustrzyki 1768, Jasień 1768. ↩︎
17. W roku 1762 – 63 jednorazowo obniżono (defalkowano) czynsz o 266 zł, BCz., 12127, Remonstracja…, op. cit. ↩︎
18. Michał Białobrzeski dzierżawił również klucz płoński (Płonna, Wysoczany, Kożuszne, Osławica) od 1767 do 1773 lub 1776 roku, AGAD Czoł., sygn. 304, Supplement do punktów memoriałowych, circa ultimos mensis Martii 1771mo anno, w Budzimierzu wypisanych, s. 6 – 9; BCz., 12129, Płońsk, b.d.
    ↩︎
19. BCz., 12127, Remonstracja intraty…, op. cit.; Ibidem,  Remonstracja percepty pieniężnej z dóbr w dzierżawach będących za rok 1776, jednych do śródpościa, drugich do św. Jana anni 1777mi  wyprowadzona i uformowana diebus mensis Octobris anno 1776to; BCz., 12129, Pobidno…, op. cit.; LNNBU, f. 141, op. 1, spr. 184, Księga gospodarcza folwarku pobidzińskiego 1749 – 1758; LNNBU, f. 5, op. II, spr. 2790, Inwentarze…, op. cit., s. 32 – 43; APP AZLK, sygn. 13, Inwentarz…, op. cit., s. 248 – 249 i 423; AGAD Czoł., sygn. 304, Supplement…, op. cit., s. 6 – 9; W 1767 roku z powodu dwukrotnego gradobicia i utraty zbiorów Białobrzeski uzyskał tzw. defalke, czyli obniżenie lub umorzenie czynszu dzierżawnego za kolejny rok,  BCz.,  12128, Pobidno, 1768; Ibidem, Ratnawica, 1768. ↩︎
20. BCz., 12128, Pobidno, 1768; Ibidem, Ratnawica, 1768. ↩︎
21. Termin używany w odniesieniu do czwartego tygodnia Wielkiego Postu albo w stosunku do środy lub niedzieli w czwartym tygodniu Wielkiego Postu. Również zwyczajowe określenie czasu trwania kontraktów dzierżawnych, “od śródpościa do śródpościa”. Termin początku lub końca dzierżawy przypadał na około połowę marca. ↩︎
22. BCz., 12129, Pobidno…, op. cit.; Skarżyły się na niego również gromady z Płonnej i Wysoczan, czyli ze wsi, które także były w dzierżawie u Białobrzeskiego, Por. BCz., 12129, Płońsk b.d.; Ibidem, Wysoczany, 1696, b.d. (2). ↩︎
23. Został mianowany komisarzem generalnym około 18.II.1763 roku, wcześniej pełnił funkcję marszałka dworu Józefa Kantego Ossolińskiego. AGAD Czoł., sygn. 320, JJ. Garnisz Raczkowski do Wiśniowskiego marszałka dworu, 18 Febr 1763 [18 II 1763] z Telesnicy Sannej, s. 11 – 13,  przesyła gratulacje z okazji awansu na komisarza generalnego. ↩︎
24. BCz., 12129, Pobidno…, op. cit.; Ibidem, Wysoczany…, op. cit. ↩︎
25. BCz., 12127, Reprodukcya pieniędzy w kasie u Pana Wilińskiego – -, 25 Junij 1749 [25 VI 1749] w Turzysku wyprowadzona; BCz., 12122, Józef z Tęczyna Ossoliński do W. Imć. Pana Skorupki podczaszego ziemi drohickiej i pisarza grodzkiego sandomierskiego, 31.XII.1760; AGAD Czoł., sygn. 304, Supplement…, op. cit., s. 6 – 9; Ibidem, Józef z Tęczyna Ossoliński do Skorupki, 03.III.1771, s. 10 – 14; AGAD Czoł., sygn. 319, Listy Imć Pana Skorupki y Imć Pana Wiktora, s. 5 – 18; Por. A. Gąsiorowski (red.), Urzędnicy województwa sandomierskiego XVI – XVIII wieku. Spisy, Kórnik 1993, s. 46 i 211, podaje imię Mateusz Skorupka. ↩︎
26. AGAD Czoł., sygn. 304, Supplement…, op. cit., s. 6 – 9. ↩︎
27. Nie udało się ustalić dokładnej daty awansu Augusta de Romainville na stanowisko komisarza generalnego. Jednak miało ono miejsce przed 29 sierpnia 1771. Por. LNNBU, f. 5, op. 3, spr. 3942, Archiwum Mniszchów. Papiery różne odnoszące się do wsi Rymanowo. s. 46 –  54, zawiera podpisy Augusta de Romainville komisarza generalnego pod dokumentami z listopada 1771 dotyczącymi rozliczeń za pobyt w Rymanowie pomiędzy 29 sierpnia a 20 listopada 1771. ↩︎
28. Skargę wniosła zapewne cała gromada jednak w suplice z 21 stycznia 1772 z imienia i nazwiska wymienieni są jedynie przysiężni jako przedstawiciele wiejskich władz samorządowych. To oni z pewnością ponieśli karę cielesną. ↩︎
29. Stojący na czele administracji terenowej komisarz generalny był tylko jeden (wówczas A. F. de Romainville). Natomiast komisarzami lub panami komisjonalnymi mogli być nazywani również inni urzędnicy wyższego szczebla, którzy powoływani byli do wypełniania określonych czynności w szczególności kontrolnych np. kontroli działania administracji określonego klucza dóbr. ↩︎
30. BCz., 12129, Pobidno…, op. cit. ↩︎
31. Bocianie gniazdo Pobiedno, gm. Bukowsko – kamera na żywo, [online]  www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lK_HV7z2wU [dostęp: 28.07.2025]. ↩︎
32. Wydział do orania to wymierzony obszar gruntu, który należało zaorać w ciągu jednego dnia pańszczyzny. Chłopi skarżą się, że dzierżawca powiększył obszar wydziału dwukrotnie przez co potrzebują na obrobienie go dwóch a nawet trzech dni.  ↩︎
33. robota ciągła – praca ze sprzężajem, czyli przy pomocy zwierząt pociągowych (woły, konie); robota piesza – praca bez sprzężaju ↩︎
34. fomentował – podburzał  ↩︎
35. mordowali – w tym znaczeniu, męczyli ↩︎
36. półczwartej – trzy i pół ↩︎
37. Obróbka konopii dostarczanej przez dwór była jedną z prac wykonywanych na rzecz dworu przez rodziny kmiece i zagrodnicze z Ratnawicy. Por. LNNBU, f. 5, op. II, spr. 2790, Inwentarze… op. cit., k. 42v, “Konopi co się tylko urodzi, bez pańszczyzny wymoczyć, wymiędlić i wyprawić powinni zarówno i zagrodnicy z ciągłymi”.  ↩︎
38. Podstarosta Sikorski był urzędnikiem zarządzającym folwarkiem i kluczem pobiedzińskim w imieniu dzierżawcy, Michała Białobrzeskiego. ↩︎
39.  Mowa tu o właścicielu dóbr podgórskich, Józefie Kantym Ossolińskim. ↩︎