Kreis Usedom-Wollin

The documentation was developed as part of the project initiated by Pomeranian linguist, Dr Robert Holsten (1862-1954), with the aim to collect and compile contemporary folk and archive names of natural and anthropogenic physiographic objects, as well as inhabited and uninhabited places of the pre-war province of Pomerania (from Rügen to Lębork), with the help of teachers and local scientists. The collected set of archive materials – indices and maps with locations of objects – Flurnamen Sammlung – covers the intangible onomastic cultural heritage of the region. Documentation of physiographic names from the area of the former Kreis Usedom-Wollin (Polish: Uznam–Wolin; currently a part of Kreis Vorpommern-Greifswald, Bundesland Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany and a part of West Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland) was compiled by Robert Burkhardt (1874-1954), a teacher and historian from Świnoujście (Swinemünde) with the help of teachers, compiled in 1933 and completed in 1937 by Robert Holsten. The original documentation was drafted in German (including the Lower German dialect), with occasional Slavic, Polish and Kashubian vocabulary. The documentation consists of 144 sheets, mostly covered on both sides, comprising a typed index (143 sheets) and a handwritten document (1 sheet). The vast majority of the topographic maps with locations of physiographic objects and their names also survived in the documentation.

Andrzej Chludziński