Kreis Rügen

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 names of physiographic objects from the area of the former Kreis Rügen (Polish: Rugia; currently a part of Kreis Vorpommern-Rügen, Bundesland Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany) was compiled by Magdalene Haensel (Hänsel), a teacher and local scientist from Bergen, in 1932. The original documentation was drafted in German (including the Lower German dialect), with numerous Slavic, Polish and Kashubian vocabulary. The collection comprises four parts: A–L, M–N, P–S, T–Z. The documentation consists of 523 sheets, some of them double-sided; with all volumes comprising in total: typed lists (517 sheets), handwritten document (1 sheet), press (Rügensche Heimat, 1927, 4 sheets) and a hand-drawn map (1 sheet). The vast majority of the topographic maps with locations of physiographic objects and their names also survived in the documentation.

Andrzej Chludziński