12. Poczet Szlachty Galicyjskiej i Bukowinskiej. Lwów 1857; p. 331. The entries by the three Sobolewski men are listed.
13. There are no known birth records of any of the three Sobolewski men whom we assume were brothers. Using a sometimes imprecise way of estimating their years of birth from their ages entered in marriage or death records, we can calculate that Ludovicus was born in 1728, Ignatius in 1729, and Joannes in 1748. The accuracy of these estimates is clearly questionable. The first written record attesting to their physical presence in Bohorodczany dates back to 1787, when Ignatius Sobolewski’s son Adalbertus was born. Of note, there is no record of the birth of Adalbertus’s older sister, Catharina, in Bohorodczany. Earlier entry from 1752, referring to the birth of Anna Sobolewska, did not specify location of the Sobolewski’s home, other than stating that her parents resided in “the county of Bohorodczany.”
Surprisingly, there is no record of the marriage between Ludovicus Sobolewski and Magdalena Krechowiecka in Bohorodczany parish. The ceremony likely took place sometime before 1794, when their first child was born. In 1800, Joannes Sobolewski, from Kosmacz, married a woman we assume was a relative of Magdalena’s, Helena Krechowiecka, from the village of Rozulna.
14. The Emperor Francis census from 1820 specified the size of lands owned by the inhabitants of Bohorodczany, including that of the Sobolewski family, living in house 26.
15. The Josephine land census conducted in Lachowce and Bohorodczany in March 1787, and certified in 1788, did not list any members of the Sobolewski family as landowners. This is surprising, since the birth of Adalbertus Sobolewski, the son of Ignatius, was recorded as taking place in house 25 in Bohorodczany on April 9, 1787. Instead, the census identifies Johannes and Sophia Balcer as the owners of the large country house and land spanning Lachowce and Bohorodczany. It is possible that the land title was not transferred to the Sobolewski family in time to be reflected in the census documents, despite evidence that they were already living there.
16. The Josephine land census conducted in 1787 provided detailed descriptions of the land and crops grown in Bohorodczany. The agricultural area of the town was divided into gardens (vegetables and orchards), pastures, and farming fields with meadows.
17. Given his age, this Joannes was likely the one requesting certification of his noble status with Ignatius and Ludovicus. Another Joannes Sobolewski was younger (born in 1770) and lived in house 27. On a contemporary map of Lachowce, there was a large compound labeled “SJB,” standing for “Sobolewski Joannes Bonorum”; that could denote house 27.
18. The church records provide date, house number, and name and age of the deceased. Sophia was listed as 112 years old at her death, and Ludovicus as 107 years old. Joannes’s age is more appropriate at 74 years. Sophia’s and Ludovicus’s ages most likely represent errors made by Dominican friars, who were precise when recording information about families but sometimes inaccurate when giving the exact ages of the deceased.
19. Several marriages of German-speaking colonista took place in Bohorodczany. On January 29, 1839, a rare dual marriage ceremony took place: Herman Wilhelm Kaendel (or Kändel) from the German settlement of Landestreu married Franciska Palczynska, and Josephus Andreas Feitner from Hotzenplotz tied the knot with Joanna Schimke from Moravia (today’s Czech Republic, then part of Hungary). In 1860, Franciscus Sobolewski was the witness at the marriage of his neighbors, colonista from Horocholina.
20. There are many examples of members of the Sobolewski family marrying in the eastern rites of the Greek Catholic Church. At times, the differences between Roman Catholics and Greek Catholics were blurred even further. A good example was the marriage of Anna Sobolewska, a Roman Catholic, to a Greek Catholic theologian or priest (theologus), which took place in the Dominican church of Bohorodczany in November of 1840. In contrast to Roman Catholic priests, who had to observe celibacy, Greek Catholic priests were free to marry. As Anna was only 17 years old at the time of her wedding, her father, Adalbertus Sobolewski (house 25), signed permission with his full name in the church books.
21. In 1830, Adalbertus Sobolewski was a witness at the marriage of Magdalena Heymann from Hradisch, Moravia.
22. This event was not simply a reflection of the lack of Protestant churches in the area. Although the construction of a Protestant church was finished in neighboring Stanislawow only in 1885, it is certain that other Protestant churches had existed near there since the early years of the nineteenth century. They were to be expected in some of the German rural settlements.
23. Kurjer Stanislawowski October 24, October 31, and November 7, 1909, printed a series of articles providing an account of events. The Austrian garrison left Stanislawow in early June 1809. However, Bohorodczany and Stanislawow had been retaken by the Austrian army by the end of July of that year. This description was based on the diary of an eyewitness, first published in 1869.
24. Alexandre Rembowski. Sources Documentaires Concernant L’histoire du Regiment des Chevau-Legeres de la Garde de Napoleon I. Varsovie 1899; p. 469.
25. Unlike Joseph Regiec’s mother, Anastasia probably did not die as a result of childbirth. Her son, Thomas Franciscus, was born on December 18, 1853, but then there is a gap in the records. We can surmise that Anastasia passed away early in 1854, followed by the customary one-year mourning period before Antonius remarried in June 1855. Antonius Sobolewski died of pneumonia in May 1873, in the same house (number 26) where he and his children had been born and his grandmother and parents had also died. He was 63.The record simply identifies his profession as farmer (agricola).
26. Andreas Sobolewski never knew his grandfather Ludovicus, who had died in 1835, before Andreas’s birth in 1848. The names of the children of Andreas and Anna Sobolewski were Antonius, Ladislaus, Ludovica, Carolus, Michael, Franciscus, Carolina, Theophilus, Wilhelmina, Ludovica 2nd, Joannes, and Mathilda. Of their 12 children, the four who died very young were Ludovica, Ludovica 2nd, Joannes, and Mathilda.
27. Kurjer Stanislawowski March 29, 1903, published reports of intentionally set fires in Bohorodczany. Tensions between the Ruthenian and Polish populations were on the rise, with large agrarian strikes against land-owning Poles erupting over the next few years.
28. Michael Sobolewski’s life came to untimely end when he died at the age of 23 in November 1907. The cause of death was attributed to typhus. Before his illness, Michael was likely a clerk (dictarius) in a local district office in Bohorodczany.
29. Szematyzm Krolestwa Galicyi i Lodomeryi z Wielkim Ksiestwem Krakowskim na Rok 1908. Lwów 1908; pp. 415 and 740.
30. Kurjer Stanislawowski July 10, 1904, listed Franciscus and Stanislaus Sobolewski as graduates of the all-male teachers’ school.
31. Reported in Kurjer Stanislawowski on July 17 and October 2, 1904, and in the national Kurjer Lwowski and Gazeta Narodowa on July 13 and 16, and September 27, 1904. The reports in the newspapers were clearly pro-Sobolewski. Nobody seemed to have remembered that the reverse had happened just a few years before. In an earlier language-related incident, the Greek Catholic church had complained about receiving a minor communication from the district offices in Bohorodczany written in Polish. Subsequently, official directives were issued in Lvov reminding officials in eastern Galicia about the requirement to use Ruthenian when dealing with Greek Catholic institutions (Kurjer Stanislawowski January 22, 1899).
32. Kurjer Lwowski January 11, 1908, reported on the number of emigrants leaving Galicia.
33. The advertisement sections in Kurjer Stanislawowski March 4, 1906, and November 24, 1907, and in Kurjer Lwowski December 7, 1911, listed several routes and ship services. Not much is known about Theophilus’s life in Argentina. In 1954, he was still living there, as recalled at the time by his brother Franciscus Sobolewski.
34. Kurjer Lwowski August 9, 1905, described the teachers’ conference in Bohorodczany.
35. Prior to 1802, military duties had been for life, interrupted by frequent furloughs. Over the years, the service had become mo
re tolerable; at that time, it was shortened to 10 years, and after 1862, it was further reduced to 3 years. Typically, service began when the recruit was 20 or 21 years old. In 1912, the service was further reduced to 2 years.
36. Kurjer Stanislawowski October 9, 1910.
37. Details of Franciscus Sobolewski’s military service were derived from his own biographical sketch (Polish Central Military Archives).
38. Szematyzm Krolestwa Galicyi i Lodomeryi z Wielkim Ksiestwem Krakowskim 1905–07, 1911–13.
CHAPTER 6
1. Kurjer Stanislawowski September 23, 1900, described the changes in the law but stated that women were allowed to run pharmacies only after obtaining special permission from a government ministry.
2. Kurjer Stanislawowski May 26, 1907.
3. Kurjer Stanislawowski October 28, 1906.
4. Helena’s new home was in house 75. Looking at a map of the town, we see that it was situated behind the market square and near the courthouse.
5. Schematismus für das Königreich Ostgalizien 1799, Lemberg 1799, p. 214, and Schematismus für die Königreiche Ostgalizien und Lodomerien sammt einem Schreibkalender und Namen-Register für das Jahr 1802, Lemberg, p. 233. Listed under the German-Jewish schools is S. Bland as a local teacher in Bohorodczany. The last teacher was M. Minzchelez, listed in Schematismus für die Königreiche Galizien und Lodomerien sammt einem Namen-Register für das Jahr 1806, Lemberg 1806, p. 253.
6. Szematyzm Szkol Ludowych, Lwów 1865, p. 34, detailed compensation of the teacher from Bohorodczany. Additional information about the number of children of school age is derived from Handbuch des Statthalterei-Gebietes in Galizien für das Jahr 1861, Lemberg 1861, p. 269.
7. Kurjer Lwowski January 16, 1901.
8. Kurjer Stanislawowski May 31, 1903, described the construction of the school, which cost 40,000 kronen. The paper raised concerns about the use of shoddy building materials. The citizens of Bohorodczany complained that the bricks had been purchased from a local brickyard (one that belonged to the Stadion family), and apparently their quality was not appropriate for the two-story building.
9. Szematyzm Krolestwa Galicyi i Lodomeryi z Wielkim Ksiestwem Krakowskim na Rok 1908. Lwów; pp. 529–531. Since 1899, the district cities had been required to appoint regional school boards that included county officials, representatives of the teachers, and clergy from all religious denominations with more than 1,000 congregants.
10. The monthly salary has been calculated based on the total compensation that Helena is known to have received during her years spent in Bohorodczany. It is more than likely that her income in the first few years as a teacher-in-training was even lower. Teachers were paid little, and their income would later be eroded by the inflation that became rampant during the Great War.
11. Kurjer Stanislawowski February 20, 1910, described the opening of the public omnibus route. On May 7, 1911, it reported the arrival of an “automobile omnibus” with two classes of service, shuttling between towns south of Stanislawow. The first vehicles carried up to 12 passengers and traveled at the “amazing” speed of 11 miles per hour. A ticket cost 6 to 8 kronen.
12. Kurjer Stanislawowski February 27, 1898, published a report of carnival entertainment that took place about eight years before Helena’s arrival in Bohorodczany. It is likely that similar evening parties were organized in later years.
Kurjer Stanislawowski February 17, 1907, in an article signed by “two dancing female observers,” decried the declining manners of the men attending carnival balls. They also made a point that the evening entertainment was becoming less formal, with gatherings increasingly organized in private homes or even restaurants.
13. I recall my grandmother telling me that she spoke Ukrainian but had some difficulty with Russian. Of note, both languages use the Cyrillic alphabet.
14. Szematyzm Krolestwa Galicyi i Lodomeryi z Wielkim Ksiestwem Krakowskim na Rok 1909. Lwów 1909; p 604.
15. Mark Hasten. Mark My Words! Brotchin Books 2003; pp. 7–9. The author went to school in Bohorodczany about 30 years after Helena was a teacher there. He provides a vivid description of the early education of Jewish children.
16. Kurjer Stanislawowski February 14, 1909. This was the first time I had heard that my grandmother played the violin, apparently quite well. The teacher who sang a few songs was Marya Krzyzanowska, who had joined the school as a teacher-in-training that year. The cytra that provided accompaniment was a stringed instrument then popular in Austria.
17. Sprawozdanie z Dzialalnosci Towarzystwa Szkoly Ludowej; Kraków 1911; pp. 39, 242, 269, and 347; and Kraków 1912; p. 28*. Edward Sobolewski was the secretary, and Antonius Sobolewski was a member of the executive committee and deputy treasurer in 1910.
18. Today, Kochawina is known as Hnizdyczow, Ukraine. Approximately one month after the wedding, an unrelated celebration was held there for a famous painting of the Madonna that had hung in the church for several centuries. At that time, the place was visited by several church dignitaries, and received papal letters and blessings. An estimated 100,000 pilgrims attended. (The railway employees of Stanislawow were known to make frequent excursions to that oft-visited place.)
19. Wilhelmina Telesnicka (older sister of Stephania) could have attended; she and her children still likely lived in Nowy Sacz. Unfortunately, Bronislawa Lösch was not among the crowd of well-wishers. She was gravely ill, and passed away in September of 1912.
20. Rewera March 29, 1913, described extreme views from the larger city of Lvov; a lecturer from there suggested that although young women were often more successful in school than boys, they were not to be encouraged to pursue higher education, as they were considered less capable of “brainy” pursuits. This was a remarkable ghost of past attitudes, which from time to time reemerged in that society.
21. I suspect that Antonius was the oldest brother of Franciscus and Andreas, one of many cousins. Their grandfather, Antonius, was long dead, and it would have been unusual to have Franciscus’s father, Andreas, as a witness.
22. I remember my grandmother as a tiny woman with soft gray hair, although my mother often said she had looked very different as a younger person.
23. Kurjer Stanislawowski September 7, 1907. The fire had consumed about 30 Jewish shops and small warehouses; property losses were estimated at 30,000 kronen.
24. Kurjer Stanislawowski July 21, 1895, described the busy atmosphere from the early morning hours to nightfall in Bohorodczany. The correspondent complained that Jewish businesses ignored the local ordinance requiring stores to remain closed on Sundays. In reality, however, Christian and Jewish neighbors worked alongside each other regardless of the day of the week.
25. Czortkow was also home to many Hassidic Jews and famous Rebbes. Some of them held Hassidic court, providing various rulings that were sought by Jews from Galicia, including those from Bohorodczany. An interesting story about the Czortkow Rebbe who provided advice on dealing with trespassing Dominican friars is described in M. Hasten’s book Mark My Words, Brotchin Books 2003.
CHAPTER 7
1. Paul Robert Magocsi. The Roots of Ukrainian Nationalism: Galicia as Ukraine’s Piedmont. University of Toronto Press, Inc. 2002. My comments on the Ukrainian movement and aspirations are based on pages 19–24.
2. Rzeczpospolita January 3, 1914.
3. Kurjer Lwowski July 31, August 1, and August 5, 1902, began its series of reports in a conciliatory tone, commenting that the protests were legal. However, the tone changed over time, speaking about landowners’ financial losses and daily skirmishes between strikers and troops. Kurjer provided daily reports by district; Bohorodczany was not mentioned throughout the summer. Toward the end of the strike, Gazeta Narodowa August 14, 1902, published a front-page, inflammatory article painting the events of the past few weeks as the beginning of conflict between Ruthenians and Poles, alluding also to problems at Lvov’s university.
In Bohorodczany, Ruthenian gatherings included between few hundreds to several thousands of pr
otesters who demanded equality in election laws and threatened to join future agrarian strikes. The yellow-blue flags of Ukrainian national movement were on display (Kurjer Stanislawowski January 7, January 28, and May 13, 1906).
4. Until 1873, deputies to the lower house of the national parliament in Vienna were elected by provincial diets from various crown lands, like the one in Galicia. Then the elections became direct, but deputies were chosen from a system of four curiae (large landowners, trade and industry, large cities, and rural communities). The representation was heavily skewed toward the first curia. Despite changes in national election law in 1907, the representatives to the provincial legislature (diet) continued to be chosen based on the curial system.
5. Gazeta Narodowa July 5, 6, and 7, 1907, reported on the so-called “Galician Discussion” in the national parliament in Vienna. Debate focused on critical issues like the potential division of Galicia into two parts, alleged election fraud, and voter intimidation. The conservative paper reprinted the speech by the internal affairs minister of Austria, with reactions from various parliamentary groups.
6. Kurjer Lwowski July 29, 1907, devoted its front-page article to the subject. The controversy over election laws for the provincial Galician legislature spilled far beyond the ethnic parties representing Poles and Ruthenians. In fact, there was vigorous debate among Poles themselves. The conservative press (Gazeta Narodowa) advocated preservation of the curial system in the election of deputies to the local legislature. Other, more populist newspapers (such as Kurjer Lwowski) demanded introduction of a plurality vote, like the one newly in use for the election of deputies to the national parliament. To preserve at least some advantage for Polish conservative landowners in Galician politics, a thought was floated about a bicameral body with an upper house based on non-proportional representation.
Galician Trails: The Forgotten Story of One Family Page 30