Lasowiacy and Rzeszowiacy
You can get to know the heritage of the Lasowiak and Rzeszowiak people by wandering around the open-air museum. You will see two villages from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, in which the fascinating stories of the people who lived here come to life. You will understand the peasant soul...
Lasowiacy
This is an ethnographic group living in south-eastern Poland, in the northern part of the Sandomierz Basin, in the forks of the Vistula and the San. This was the area of the former Sandomierz Forest. Today it comprises the districts of Leżajsk, Nisko, Stalowa Wola, Tarnobrzeg, Kolbuszowa, Mielec and part of Ropczyce & Sędziszów area. This group was complex in terms of its origins. It was formed by a centuries-long settlement action, carried out in the area of the Sandomierz Forest. There was an influx of people from Mazovia in the north, from Lesser Poland in the south and a mixed Polish-Ruthenian population in the east. Finally, there was a noticeable Ruthenian-Volga, Turkish-Tatar (prisoners of war settled) and even Lithuanian element. This ethnic mix was compounded by the Austrian colonisation campaign, which was particularly intensive during the reign of Emperor Joseph II in 1780-1790. Such a specific background formed the basis for the emergence of a new ethnographic group. This population self-described themselves as "Lesioki" (literally: people of the forest), which may be a testimony to their high awareness of their distinctiveness in relation to their neighbours, as well as the respect they had for the forest. A well-known saying "The forest is our father, we are his children, we go to him" has also been preserved in the accounts.
How did they live?
The typical village layout for wilderness settlements were dispersed villages, often single-homestead villages with an irregular field layout, which arose from the spontaneous appropriation of meadows and forest clearings.
They were associated with forestry (farming, beekeeping), timber industries and metallurgy. In addition to these, there were also forest-fallow villages (chain villages) and the so-called street villages (or terraced villages) – a settlement consisting of two rows of houses standing compactly along a village road. They were established on the basis of an organised settlement, with the street villages mainly associated with the Josephine settlement.
There were three types of homesteads among the Lasowiak people:
1) Wilderness(traditional) – characterised by a large farmyard area (even up to 1 ha) and monumental buildings set at a large distance from each other; it often included: a cottage, stable, cowshed, huge barn, granary, pigsties, coach house, shed, well with a "crane" and apiary. The location of the buildings was quite arbitrary, but the cottage was usually located with its front (wider) wall to the road. The whole farmyard was fenced off with 'dranks' made of pine boards split with an axe along the rings. Adjacent was a meadow or pasture fenced with poles.
2. Multi-building, elongated – characterised by a very narrow homestead plot; in the farmyard the cottage, stable and pigsties were situated with their gable wall to the road, standing in a row, while the barn usually stood with its front wall to the road on the side of the farm fields. Thus, it was through the barn that the exit to the fields led. The whole farmyard was enclosed by a high "droning" fence. It was typical of middle-class farmers.
3. Poor – consisted of a cottage under a common roof with a stable, barn field and shed. It was typical for the poorest strata of the rural community, and located most often in the area of the gathering community. Next to the cottage was a small garden for vegetables and flowers.
2. Multi-building, elongated – characterised by a very narrow homestead plot; in the farmyard the cottage, stable and pigsties were situated with their gable wall to the road, standing in a row, while the barn usually stood with its front wall to the road on the side of the farm fields. Thus, it was through the barn that the exit to the fields led. The whole farmyard was enclosed by a high "droning" fence. It was typical of middle-class farmers.
3. Poor – consisted of a cottage under a common roof with a stable, barn field and shed. It was typical for the poorest strata of the rural community, and located most often in the area of the gathering community. Next to the cottage was a small garden for vegetables and flowers.
Josephine farmhouse
There was also a fourth type of homestead called Josephine homestead among German colonists. This type of homestead was built on a regular quadrangle, which had detailed dimensions of the habitat and distances between buildings. Within the homestead there was a cottage under a common roof with a stable, situated with its gable to the road, and a two-storey granary. The houses were not fenced off from the road, but were separated by ditches and planted with fruit trees and lime trees. In practice, the homesteads were often similar in appearance and layout to their Polish neighbours.
The forest is our father, we are his children, we go to him....
The widespread proximity of forests meant that the building material was mainly wood. Pine and fir wood was used, less frequently spruce or oak. [As late as 1960, in the districts of Kolbuszowa, Leżajsk and Nisko, more than 93 per cent of buildings were made of wood, while straw roofs accounted for 36 per cent].
Construction of buildings
The residential, farm and livestock buildings were characterised by their wide frontage and the log construction of the walls, i.e. a system of wooden beams laid horizontally one on top of the other and tied in the corners with an douse, fishtail or dovetail (so-called "coals"). The cottages were mainly single-roomed, consisting of two rooms: a hall and a chamber, and sometimes a separate chamber. The whitewashed chamber was the living area, while the hallway and chamber were used for storage. The main part of the chamber was the cooker, while the rest of the room was filled with furnishings in the form of benches and bunks, stools, a table, a chest and a cupboard. Even before the First World War, a large proportion of these were hut houses, where the smoke from the cooker spread throughout the room and escaped through an open door. While this was going on, the members of the household would sit quietly in the room and only after the woman had burnt out would she close the door.
Interior
The equipment in the hallway consisted mainly of querns for grinding grain, a palfrey for making porridge, a kneading trough for dough, basins, breadmaking equipment, a cheese press and potato baskets. The chamber, on the other hand, was used to store grain and flour in barrels, sacks, chests, also bread and, in addition, often a chest for festive clothes.
What did they do?
The main occupation of the peasants was agriculture. However, due to the not very infertile soils, they also engaged in shoemaking, weaving, plaiting or cooperage as part of their output.
Blacksmiths and millers were also important occupations in the former countryside. The amount of timber encouraged the development of all wood crafts and forest industries. In the whole of the Sandomierska Forest, there is no shortage of pinewood and pine and fir timber, which is used to build almost all buildings; therefore, there is not a villager who does not know how to make things with an axe, and in every village there is a professional carpenter... The following were particularly popular: tar making, wood charcoal making, carpentry, coopering, wheelwrighting and toy making. Villagers made tar, turpentine and potash. Another occupation was widespread beekeeping, later transformed into beekeeping. Beekeeping was one of the most important branches of the economic life of the forest population.
It was, however, a typically male occupation, while rural women were mainly involved in housework, preparing food for the family, tending to the animals and helping in the fields. Where necessary, they also produced items that are nowadays considered to be ritual arts: tissue paper and straw ornaments, paper cut-outs, as well as sewing, embroidering and embroidering.
It was, however, a typically male occupation, while rural women were mainly involved in housework, preparing food for the family, tending to the animals and helping in the fields. Where necessary, they also produced items that are nowadays considered to be ritual arts: tissue paper and straw ornaments, paper cut-outs, as well as sewing, embroidering and embroidering.
How did they dress?
The Lasowiaks wore what they made themselves and from their own raw materials. The basic set of women's and men's clothing, both festive and everyday, was sewn from undyed linen or hemp canvas. Men wore linen "trouser breeches" and a shirt let loose on top, tied with a belt or string, and in colder weather, lime bark clogs or leather "clogs". On top of this, he wore a canvas jacket, also tied with a belt. A hat made of rye straw completed the outfit. The women's outfit consisted of a linen shirt, an apron (skirt), a pantyhose, a gown on the head, a linen waistcoat and a shoulder cloth.
On festive occasions, a man would wear a dress and put on his head a magierka made of brown hand-woven cloth, produced by clothmakers from Rakszawa. In winter, the wealthiest wore sheepskins made by local furriers.
On festive occasions, a man would wear a dress and put on his head a magierka made of brown hand-woven cloth, produced by clothmakers from Rakszawa. In winter, the wealthiest wore sheepskins made by local furriers.
The uniqueness of embroidery
Women's festive wear, on the other hand, as opposed to everyday wear, was exquisitely decorated with white, black or red embroidery (the most traditional form of which was the so-called snail embroidery). The object of pride was an apron heavily creased from four (or, in a more modest version, two) widths of linen. Married women also wore bonnets worn over hoop made of lime wood, and later linen bonnet scarves tied in a special way on the head.
Corsets
The festive traditional costume, long preserved in its archaic form, was the most characteristic element of the folk culture of these areas. Even local variations of it emerged: from the area of Kolbuszowa, Tarnobrzeg and Leżajsk. Interestingly, the Leżajsk costume featured corsets as an element of the most parade-like attire, mainly for ladies and young married women. The richest ones were made of velvet and decorated with beads and sequins, sewn into very elaborate floral motifs covering almost the entire surface of the corset. More modest versions were sewn from cream-coloured woollen fabrics and embroidered with coloured thread in analogous, very elaborate floral motifs.
Rzeszowiacy
This is an ethnographic group living in south-eastern Poland, which included the loess belt between the Carpathian Foothills and the Sandomierz Basin. It is an area along the Rzeszów-Łańcut-Przeworsk axis covering the districts of:, Łańcut, Przeworsk and partly Rzeszów, Jarosław, Strzyżów and Ropczyce & Sędziszów area.
The Rzeszowiaks were a small group with a local character, ethnically diverse due to the area of intensive settlement from the east and west, clashing influences. The fact that two very important trade routes ran through this area: from Krakow via Przemyśl to Kyiv and from Sandomierz via the Carpathian Mountains to Hungary, was of great importance. The colonists settled in this area came mainly from the Lesser Poland and Mazovia. A strong ethnic accent was brought by Silesians and Lusatian Serbs, a Slavic but heavily Germanised population, and Ruthenians. In villages such as: Hadle, Manasterz, Mirocin, Krasne, there was a largely Greek-Catholic, Ruthenian-speaking population, which, however, was in time absorbed by the Polish element.
The Rzeszowiaks were a small group with a local character, ethnically diverse due to the area of intensive settlement from the east and west, clashing influences. The fact that two very important trade routes ran through this area: from Krakow via Przemyśl to Kyiv and from Sandomierz via the Carpathian Mountains to Hungary, was of great importance. The colonists settled in this area came mainly from the Lesser Poland and Mazovia. A strong ethnic accent was brought by Silesians and Lusatian Serbs, a Slavic but heavily Germanised population, and Ruthenians. In villages such as: Hadle, Manasterz, Mirocin, Krasne, there was a largely Greek-Catholic, Ruthenian-speaking population, which, however, was in time absorbed by the Polish element.
In the Rzeszowiaks, the awareness of community was limited to individual villages and did not, as in the case of the Lasowiaks, stem from a sense of awareness of group separateness.
The name 'Rzeszowiacy' was first used in scientific literature in the 1920s. Jan Stanisław Bystroń to describe the population living in the area whose centre was Rzeszów.
How did they live?
The German and Wallachian colonisation carried out in the area was linked to the introduction of new settlement forms. In the structure of the villages, instead of the levelling system, the field layout: more regular, allowing a three-field system of work and increasing yields. These were villages with a chain layout, in which the main axis was the village road usually running along a river or stream valley. The buildings stretched in one direction along the entire length of the village. Perpendicular to the road, there were strips of land – fields preceded by access field roads.
There were basically 3 types of homesteads of the Rzeszowiak people:
1. Multi-building – was characterised by a large farmyard space. It consisted of a cottage, a barn (sometimes two), a stable, a granary, a wagon house and sometimes a bróg. The cottage was always positioned on the side of the 'guest house', with the stable close by and the barn well away for fire safety reasons. Within the homestead there was also a flower garden, an orchard and often a cattle paddock. The whole was fenced off with a fence or poles.
2. Single-building – inhabited by the poorest residents of the village. It consisted of only one building, which housed the residential part and the utility part, i.e. the stable, shed, playground and woodshed.
3. Guadrilateral, compact – the so-called circular or "homestead with a market" - was found in the area of Łańcut and Przeworsk. Its oldest form was a cottage set tightly in a square field, with a stable and a barn opposite and the other two sides enclosed by a pigpen and a fence. Later, the barn and granary were thrown outside the compact quadrangle. This was due to the increased productivity of the land and the consequent need to build larger buildings that could accommodate the multiplied quantities of grain and fodder. The square between the buildings was filled with a manure pit, referred to in dialect as the 'market'.
There were basically 3 types of homesteads of the Rzeszowiak people:
1. Multi-building – was characterised by a large farmyard space. It consisted of a cottage, a barn (sometimes two), a stable, a granary, a wagon house and sometimes a bróg. The cottage was always positioned on the side of the 'guest house', with the stable close by and the barn well away for fire safety reasons. Within the homestead there was also a flower garden, an orchard and often a cattle paddock. The whole was fenced off with a fence or poles.
2. Single-building – inhabited by the poorest residents of the village. It consisted of only one building, which housed the residential part and the utility part, i.e. the stable, shed, playground and woodshed.
3. Guadrilateral, compact – the so-called circular or "homestead with a market" - was found in the area of Łańcut and Przeworsk. Its oldest form was a cottage set tightly in a square field, with a stable and a barn opposite and the other two sides enclosed by a pigpen and a fence. Later, the barn and granary were thrown outside the compact quadrangle. This was due to the increased productivity of the land and the consequent need to build larger buildings that could accommodate the multiplied quantities of grain and fodder. The square between the buildings was filled with a manure pit, referred to in dialect as the 'market'.
The Rzeszowians developed the original half-timbered construction, which was usually associated with a circular homestead and was found in the vicinity of Łańcut and Przeworsk. It was the posts that supported the weight of the roof trusses independently of the timber framing. However, this construction was used to build cottages, sometimes stables, but never barns. Until the middle of the 20th century, 90 per cent of the building material was wood.
The cottages of the Rzeszowiak people were wide-fronted, with a log wall structure (a system of wooden beams placed horizontally one on top of the other and tied in the corners with an douse, fishtail or dovetail), usually two or one and a half tracts. They consisted of several rooms – on one side of the through hallway was the living area: the bakery and the parlour (alcove), and on the other side were two chambers, one of which usually housed the farmer's workshop. Often there was also a carriage house under a common roof. The cubic capacity of the Rzeszowiak cottages was very large, up to 250 m3, and the ratio between the visible part of the log and the roof was 1:2, and sometimes even 1:2.5.
The cottages of the Rzeszowiak people were wide-fronted, with a log wall structure (a system of wooden beams placed horizontally one on top of the other and tied in the corners with an douse, fishtail or dovetail), usually two or one and a half tracts. They consisted of several rooms – on one side of the through hallway was the living area: the bakery and the parlour (alcove), and on the other side were two chambers, one of which usually housed the farmer's workshop. Often there was also a carriage house under a common roof. The cubic capacity of the Rzeszowiak cottages was very large, up to 250 m3, and the ratio between the visible part of the log and the roof was 1:2, and sometimes even 1:2.5.
Equipment
The functions of the rooms determined their furnishings: in the bakery, there was a cooker, table, benches, beds and cupboards; in the parlour, which was used for sleeping, there were beds and a chest for festive clothes; in the chamber, which was the larder and granary, there were utensils needed on the farm, as well as boxes for grain and flour.
What did they do?
Thanks to the relatively fertile soils found in the area, the primary occupation of the inhabitants of the Rzeszów villages was agriculture.
Among crafts, on the other hand, weaving was the most popular (mainly linen, and to a lesser extent cloth making) especially in the vicinity of Łańcut and Przeworsk. After the enfranchisement, when farming was no longer able to provide a livelihood for the growing population, it was the primary source of income for a large part of the inhabitants of Rzeszów's villages. Blacksmithing, which flourished from the second half of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century, as well as shoemaking, weaving, milling and cooperage were also popular crafts.
However, these were typically men's occupations, while women's duties included preparing food, tending animals and helping in the fields. It was the women who produced items nowadays considered to be ritual arts: tissue paper and straw ornaments, cut-outs, paper światy, as well as sewing, embroidering and knitting.
However, these were typically men's occupations, while women's duties included preparing food, tending animals and helping in the fields. It was the women who produced items nowadays considered to be ritual arts: tissue paper and straw ornaments, cut-outs, paper światy, as well as sewing, embroidering and knitting.
How did they dress?
The earliest forms of clothing imitated the garments of the nobility and were an expression of the high social aspirations of the inhabitants of the richest villages. Until the mid-19th century, the women's and men's costumes of the Rzeszowiak people were analogous to those of the Lasowiak people, but then they started to undergo transformations. In the second half of the 19th century factory-made fabrics came into common use: tulle, muslin, damask and silk fabrics, which enriched festive clothes. On a daily basis, peasants wore a long linen self-made shirt let down over their "breeches" and belted, and a straw hat on their head. On colder days, a linen jacket was worn, and "clogs" or shoes with an upper were worn on the feet.Women wore a linen shirt, an apron (skirt), a pantyhose, a gown on their heads, a linen waistcoat and a shoulder cloth.
Festive outfits
On the other hand, on festive occasions men wore: in the Rzeszów region – a linen shirt, a waistcoat and breeches made of "grey" cloth, "officer's" shoes, a dress of brown cloth, a straw hat and a long leather belt, richly decorated with brass studs, rings, plates and caps – it was an object of pride for every man; in the Łańcut region – a linen shirt let loose over trousers, a grey or black waistcoat and trousers, a dress robe with brass buttons in the shape of an oak acorn on the front lapels and decorated with a gold bordure, an amaranthine cloth belt and a cap made of red cloth, trimmed with black sheepskin. In the Przeworsk region, on the other hand, they wore a navy blue waistcoat with a row of silver buttons, from the mid-19th century onwards – brown coats with hoods, and on their heads tall black felt hats.
And festive women's attire....
Women, on the other hand, wore: in Rzeszów - a thin linen shirt with an embroidered collar and sleeve cuffs, a fabric skirt, a bra or a grey waistcoat and a long kerchief thrown over the shoulders, and a net cap. In winter, women wore grey gowns with red lapels decorated with tassels. Strings of real beads were a sign of pride. On their heads they wore large woollen kerchiefs tied at the nape of the neck; in Łańcut they wore an apron, a linen shirt, a plain cloth or satin bra and a gown, and in winter a navy blue cloth with red epaulettes.
