How far did Kashubia extend?

Hi all!,

There is a book that was published in 1994 about one side of my Polish family, the Brzoska's, which states that they were part of the Kashubian "tribe" for many generations. There is a whole chapter on Kashubians because of this. Family research can only go back on the Brzoska side to third great grandfather, who was born in Rywałd in 1812. From the maps I've seen on Google, Rywałd isn't within the Kashubian "region" however in the 1800s and earlier, did Rywałd and the Starogard County in general have Kashubian influence? I assume it was researched before being published, and the authors didn't just assume the whole of Pomerania was also Kashubian.

Any help would be great! :)

If you mean RYWA£D on the right bank of the Vistula river, that one has never been within the Kashubian region. Starogard Gdański, irrespectively of who lives there now, is historically Kashubian. Kashubian is the name the Pomeranian tribe were giving to themselves, whereas they were more widely known as "Pomeranians". In today's Poland people still call them "Kashubians" rather than "Pomeranians"

The Kashubian language has survived only on the territory which was on the Polish side of Pomerania before 1772 (the date of the first partition of Poland). A very small island (one or two villages) of the Kashubian-speaking minority survived as well in the former German Vorpommern province until the end of the Second World War. The rest were germanized over the centuries. The name "Cashubia" was first recorded on the 13-th or early 14-th century map showing the area south-east od Szczecin (Stettin), near the river Oder (Odra), so in the German Vorpommern province, according to the Polish historian of Kashubian origin, Gerard Labuda.

How far did Kashubia extend historically ? On the east to the river Vistula, beyond it lived the tribes of mediaeval Pussians. On the west definitely to the river Oder, maybe a little beyond it where they bordered the areas inhabited in the Middle Ages by the Slavic tribes of the so-called Polabian Slavs whose territories in turn extended to the river Elbe and almost to the town of Hamburg in the west.

What is the title of your book?

Indeed, though not so far away for it to be a strange place for a Kaszëb family to be living in 1812, a time after all of population movents.

Fascinating really and certainly areas overlapping with other populations, in many ways the quintessential story of this part of Europe.

Thanks for your reply. That is correct. The records state it used to be Riewalde which I assume is the same place. The book is called "The Descendants of Johann Jacob Brzoska and Marianna Barbara Klinowska in Poland New Zealand and the United States".

It can be viewed online here, dcms.lds.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE4053641

From the book - "For many generations the Brzoska family has been part of the Cassubian tribe, therefore a chapter concerning the Cassubians will be included."

This side of my Polish is all from around Tczew, Starogard Gdański and Rywałd (as far as we can go back to the 1700s), so I don't know if word of mouth is how Kashubian was confirmed. It doesn't appear to have extended that far though geography wise.

After doing some research, the Kociewiacy people seems more appropriate due to them inhabiting Tczew, Rywałd and Kokoszkowy. This is not mentioned at all in the book though.

A paragraph from the book:

"The Brzoska family and ancestors in Poland lived in Pomerania (East) and the Polish language dialect spoken in that area was Kaszubi or Cassubian. Cassubian is the dialect that was spoken by the mass of the people in Pomerania, in the time during which the Brzoskas and ancestors lived in Pomerania"

Was Kashubian more wide spread to the east during that period of time?

Remember there weren't hard and fast borders between regions. People also didn't always identify themselves only by the district they lived in and the distances you're talking about are relatively small, even by the standards of the day.

Basically you ask the same question again (Kashubian spread more into the east). No, it wasn't spread to the east beyond the Vistula. Individuals or families may have migrated to the right bank of the Vistula river (former East Prussia), but that is all to it. The big river such as Vistula used to be a big frontier. Kociewie dialect, as explained in the Polish part of the wikipedia, is a mixture of Polish and Kashubian language with the former constituing a bigger part of it (appearing as a result of the inflow of Polish colonists on the areas inhabited before by the Kashubian Pomeranians). Kashubian is more than a dialect of Polish, it is a language separate from Polish, although belonging to the same group of Western Slavic languages. If your ancestors said they were Kashubian it is sure that they were not Kociewiacy, but identified themselves as Kashubians. Moreover, they must have spoken Kashubian since if they didn't I'd say they wouldn't call themselves as such.

Indeed. There were individual Kaszëb families spread across a much wider area than the Kaszëb heartland and the OP is also talking about a period when migration was common and loyalties were changing. He is also talking about people who lived in areas with large scale national and international trade as well as incipient industrialisation.

Merged:

Kashubia - The Pearl of Poland

Beautiful Slavic people that secured Poland`s access to the Baltic Sea. Kashubs.

Kashubia, where is it?
> blogs.bl.uk/european/2020/03/kashubia-where-is-it.html








To Admin

Its fine with me but title `Kashubia - The Pearl of Poland` sound much better. It shows that Poland and Poles care for Kashubs and love them. That was idea to show.