Lubelskie - The Lublin Region
Lubelskie Wojewodzstwo (voivodeship or province) is a mainly agricultural
region in what is now Eastern Poland, to the Southeast of Warsaw. At the
beginning of this century Lubelskie was part of the Russian Tsarist Empire.
After the first world war, when Poland regained its independence, the region
was firmly in central Poland. After the second world war, when Poland was
physically moved west, the region found itself on the Eastern border. The
actual shape of the region has changed over the years for various political
reasons, the latest, in 1998, was to comply with entry requirements into
the European Union.
Poland is not an Eastern European country, but is located firmly in central Europe. In fact, the Lubelskie region itself, along the Southern edge of the Roztocze Hills is a tectonic downcast which is the geographical divide between Eastern and Western Europe.
Lubelskie covers an area of some 25155km2 (14500 square miles), which makes it the third largest wojewodzstwo in Poland. The wojewodzstwo is divided into 20 powiats, each powiat is divided into an approxiamately 11 gmina's (213 in total), and each gmina into about 17 solectw (3645 in total). A solectw usually consists of one village. The population of Lubelskie is 2241 thousand, 16% of whom live permanently in Lublin (10% of Lublin are students) whilst 65% live in the countryside, villages and towns of less than 20 thousand people.
Lublin is the major city of the region and is located on the road and rail routes between Warsaw and Ukraine. Lublin is a rural city, much looked down upon by many people in the west of Poland for their insularity. However, on a personal level, this insularity is only noticable really to Poles from other regions and much less to visitors from other countries. The region does seem to lack a certain confidence in itself as a place which people would like to come to visit. For too long Poles have been focussed on narrow parts of their heritage and have not learnt yet to appreciate what they hold in their own hands.
Lublin itself had little chance of becoming a stable town until it became part of the Polish State in the 10th century. Previous to this it had been in an area that was in a state of flux as different peoples eyed up the area with views to replacing the local population or stealing what they had. Not that attacks from the north, east and west ceased with the arrival of Poland as a defined country, but at least there was a better chance of defence. With the Polish State came new wooden castles to protect its eastern borders, and the Roman Catholic church to replace the previous tribal beliefs. Not that all previous beliefs were forgotten, but the Christian Church is as good as any in popularising itself by transforming local beliefs into acceptable versions. Hence, Poles still celebrate pre-christian festivals under the guise of All Saints Eve etc.
Jews had become firmly established in Lublin by the 14th century and they had a significant influence on the development of local traditions, craft skills and culture generally. Until the second world war, Jews formed a large part of the population of the region and even had a certain amount of self government granted to them by the state for several centuries. The Jewish parliament in Poland (The Sejm of Four) had their sessions in Lublin from 1580 to 1764.
After suffering repeated attacks from the Tartars over the centuries, many were finally allowed to settle in Poland and Lithuania and fought on the side of Poland right up until the second world war. In Lubelskie, the lands they were given were generally in the north, in Podlaskie.
A significnat number of Armenians came to seetle as refugees as the Turkish Ottoman Empire began to expand into the Caucasias mountains in the 16th century. They primarily chose the Zamosc region. Prior to the second world war there were also many Ukrainians living in Lublin, Chelm, Zamosc Hrubieszow and Hrebenne.
As time goes on I will take my camera and notebook farther and farther afield and try to bring to these pages a flavour of what there is to be appreciated.
The Geography of the Lubelskie Region
The voivodeship of Lubelskie lies mainly between the Vistula (Wisla) and Bug rivers, and is divided between three geographic diverse areas. In the south is the Roztocze, or Lublin Upland, with its multitude of rounded hills and narrow ravines; The Podlaskie lowlands with its large forests set on a gently undulating plain; and the Leczna/Wlodawa with its large lakes.
The Podlaskie lowlands is an area with many marshy peat bogs, woods and forests, and are the remains of a peatbog landscape that was once typical of Central Europe. Much of this area, and indeed for the Lubelskie region, is protected to maintain the lanscsape for the future.
The area between Leczna and Wlodawa, in the east of the province, has 67 lakes of various sizes and depths. Many of the lakes are smaller than they once were as they slowly and naturally become converted into new peatbogs. In the west of the region, along the Wieprz river for example, the lakes are controlled by man as a series of fish ponds.
The Roztocze is an area of Loess which form steep sided hills and are cut in many places by deep and narrow gullies. Lublin itself is located on the northern edge of the Roztocze partly because these same hills provide good defence against attacking forces. Kazimierz Dolny, on the east bank of the Vistula has many good examples of these gullies, as does Naleczow, and the area is well known in Poland and helps to attract many visitors to the area.
One glance at a detailed map of the region shows that a great part of the rural population don't live in villages, but in solitary houses scattered across the landscape. The reason for this is historical and one important contributarty factor has been the continual division of family land between the children. Consequently it is very common to find very narrow and long fields of a kind I had only seen before in history books of England before the Enclosure acts of the 17th century (or thereabouts). Farmers are quite independent and often grow a range of crops to support them selves and to sell in local markets. Often these strip fields have one crop for part of the length and then switch to another for the remainder.
Forests, besides being very beautiful places to go, consist most often of fir, birch or beech. Once, forests covered 80% of the region, but agriculture has made significant inroads into this. National parks have been established over the past 30 years to help to protect the remainder, such as the Puszcza Solska in the Roztocze. This area consists of fir and beech forests mixed with marsh and peat, and is part of one of the largest forest complexes in Europe, stretching for over a 100km (70miles). It is not uncommon to see pollarded trees (trees with their main branches removed to encourage new growth) with thick trunks and masses of very thin branches. These have been harvested over the centuries to provide the raw material for basket making, a craft which is still prevalent in the area.
But how has this landscape come about? Probably the two most significant factors are that this part of Poland has been twice been an inland sea (the last time as recently as 200 million years ago!) and the reconstruction caused by glaciation. Being under the sea led to the laying down of sedimentary rocks, such as the chalk which can easily seen around Chelm in the east. Sandstone and Limestone also formed, creating the basis of the Lublin Upland and Roztocze Hills.
Long after the temperate seas had retreated, glaciers came strolling down from the north, grinding down inconvenient rocky areas in their way and leaving clay and sand in their wake as they returned back north. The soil in the Lublin region is rich, and yet so sandy that it is rarely muddy for long, even after prolonged rain.
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Website written & maintained by: Trevor & Ania Butcher