We interrupt our examination of the Franztal Gemeindebericht to offer a clarification and a correction of an earlier section. A prior post (here) stated that we cannot identify the village Chernigov, whose border was 7 versts (4.6 miles) from Franztal. Thanks to several nineteenth-century maps hosted on the Chortitza: Mennonitische Geschichte und Ahnenforschung website, we can now locate Chernigov and confirm an earlier suspicion about the farmland associated with Franztal.
The first map bears the date 1829, less than a decade after the founding of Franztal. The entire map (below) shows the area of the various German groups of settlers and the Nogai in relation to the Sea of Azov (south) and the surrounding regions to the west, north, and east (see here for the map on the Chortitza site).
The Molotschna colony is outlined in blue and marked by a letter B; the red arrow pointing to the left in the upper center is directed toward Franztal. An enlarged extract reveals why this map is of interest to us.
The same red arrow points to the left at Franztal; a second arrow points to a nearby village outside of Molotschna that bears the name Tscherniowka. Of course, this is the same as the Chernigov referred to in the Gemeindebericht.
Unfortunately, this alone does not solve our problem, since according to the scale given on the map, Tscherniowka was roughly 15 miles from Franztal, not the 4.6 miles that the community report specifies. One might suspect that the report includes some sort of error or mistake, but another map points to a different, better answer.
This map lists the year 1836 on it, but that is not the date of the map, merely the date of the statistics that the map summarizes for the colonies shown. In fact, the map must be much later, since it shows villages that were not founded until well after that time. Hierschau, for example, was established in 1848, but it is shown on the map. Likewise, even Alexanderkrone (birthplace of Peter P) appears on the map even though it did not exist until 1857. In the end, we cannot say when the map was created, although it was presumably sometime in the nineteenth century, so not too far distant from the 1848 community report (see here for the map on the Chortitza site).
Molotschna is the area outlined in the lower center of the map; Franztal, of course, is located in the southeast part of the colony. The next map shows the Franztal area in greater detail.
Several things on this map are worth noting. First, although the village Tscherniowka/Chernigov is not marked on the map (none of the villages or towns outside the focal regions are shown), we can locate it reasonably well based on comparison with the previous map.
Second, this map offers yet another spelling of the name: Tschernigowki. As we have often observed, spelling of names, both personal and geographical, was not standardized at this time.
Third, the label Tschernigowki is applied to the entire area to the north of Franztal and its neighbors, not just a village. This implies rather strongly that this is the area in which Russian peasants from the Chernigov guberniia had been settled (see Staples 2003, 18, 58 and the earlier post).
Fourth and most important, this map shows the exact outline of the area associated with Franztal and thus confirms our earlier hunch about where the village land was located and how far it extended. In the process, it provides the key to understanding what the community report meant when it wrote that “the distance to the opposite border of the village Chernigov is 7 versts.”
To recap, the village Chernigov was located roughly 15 miles north-northwest of Franztal. Further, the land around the village Chernigov was associated with it and bore the same name: Chernigov (aka Tschernigowki). That land abutted the north end of the Franztal land, thus forming a border, as it were, between the two small areas. When one considers that the distance from the northeast corner of Franztal to the border with the Chernigov land was around 5 miles, the Gemeindebericht statement makes good sense: it was specifying the distance from Franztal the village to the north edge of the land associated with the village, a distance of approximately 4.6 miles; it located the northern border of the Franztal land both by distance and by boundary, all the way up to the border with the land of the village Chernigov.
We are not yet finished with this last map, but we will leave our last look at it for a separate post.
Work Cited
Staples, John R. 2003. Cross-Cultural Encounters on the Ukrainian Steppe: Settling the Molochna Basin, 1783–1861. Tsarist and Soviet Mennonite Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
The first map bears the date 1829, less than a decade after the founding of Franztal. The entire map (below) shows the area of the various German groups of settlers and the Nogai in relation to the Sea of Azov (south) and the surrounding regions to the west, north, and east (see here for the map on the Chortitza site).
The Molotschna colony is outlined in blue and marked by a letter B; the red arrow pointing to the left in the upper center is directed toward Franztal. An enlarged extract reveals why this map is of interest to us.
The same red arrow points to the left at Franztal; a second arrow points to a nearby village outside of Molotschna that bears the name Tscherniowka. Of course, this is the same as the Chernigov referred to in the Gemeindebericht.
Unfortunately, this alone does not solve our problem, since according to the scale given on the map, Tscherniowka was roughly 15 miles from Franztal, not the 4.6 miles that the community report specifies. One might suspect that the report includes some sort of error or mistake, but another map points to a different, better answer.
This map lists the year 1836 on it, but that is not the date of the map, merely the date of the statistics that the map summarizes for the colonies shown. In fact, the map must be much later, since it shows villages that were not founded until well after that time. Hierschau, for example, was established in 1848, but it is shown on the map. Likewise, even Alexanderkrone (birthplace of Peter P) appears on the map even though it did not exist until 1857. In the end, we cannot say when the map was created, although it was presumably sometime in the nineteenth century, so not too far distant from the 1848 community report (see here for the map on the Chortitza site).
Molotschna is the area outlined in the lower center of the map; Franztal, of course, is located in the southeast part of the colony. The next map shows the Franztal area in greater detail.
Several things on this map are worth noting. First, although the village Tscherniowka/Chernigov is not marked on the map (none of the villages or towns outside the focal regions are shown), we can locate it reasonably well based on comparison with the previous map.
Second, this map offers yet another spelling of the name: Tschernigowki. As we have often observed, spelling of names, both personal and geographical, was not standardized at this time.
Third, the label Tschernigowki is applied to the entire area to the north of Franztal and its neighbors, not just a village. This implies rather strongly that this is the area in which Russian peasants from the Chernigov guberniia had been settled (see Staples 2003, 18, 58 and the earlier post).
Fourth and most important, this map shows the exact outline of the area associated with Franztal and thus confirms our earlier hunch about where the village land was located and how far it extended. In the process, it provides the key to understanding what the community report meant when it wrote that “the distance to the opposite border of the village Chernigov is 7 versts.”
To recap, the village Chernigov was located roughly 15 miles north-northwest of Franztal. Further, the land around the village Chernigov was associated with it and bore the same name: Chernigov (aka Tschernigowki). That land abutted the north end of the Franztal land, thus forming a border, as it were, between the two small areas. When one considers that the distance from the northeast corner of Franztal to the border with the Chernigov land was around 5 miles, the Gemeindebericht statement makes good sense: it was specifying the distance from Franztal the village to the north edge of the land associated with the village, a distance of approximately 4.6 miles; it located the northern border of the Franztal land both by distance and by boundary, all the way up to the border with the land of the village Chernigov.
We are not yet finished with this last map, but we will leave our last look at it for a separate post.
Work Cited
Staples, John R. 2003. Cross-Cultural Encounters on the Ukrainian Steppe: Settling the Molochna Basin, 1783–1861. Tsarist and Soviet Mennonite Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
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