Kreis Köslin

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 former Kreis Köslin (Polish: Koszalin; after territorial changes: Koszalin District and Koszalin, West Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland) was compiled by Dr. Franz Erdmann Schulz, a local scientist from Koszalin, who worked on it until 1935 (in that year he published his collection entitled Die Orts- und Flurnamen des Kreises Köslin und ihre Auswertung als Bausteine für die Kultur- und Siedlungsgeschichte des Kreises). The original documentation was drafted in German (including the Lower German dialect), with Slavic, Polish and Kashubian vocabulary. Originally, the documentation comprised two parts, but only the A-M part survived. This file consists of 205 sheets, covered on one side, comprising a typed index (204 sheets) and a 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