Urzecze

The greater part of the area where LIFE+ Warsaw Vistula project is conducted is in a forgotten, yet exceptionally colourful, ethnographic micro region that traditionally is called Łurzyce (which is a dialect form from Urzecze). Its distinctive features had been noticed by the great 19th century Polish ethnographers, such as Oskar Kolberg, Kornel Kozłowski and Stefania Ulanowska.

Urzecze lies on both sides of the Vistula River, which today may seem somewhat strange, as transportation to the left and right banks takes place almost exclusively by bridges. In the past the Vistula did not divide the region and its inhabitants, but in fact brought them together. This was due to the catastrophic state of the roads then and transport relied to a greater extent on permanent ferry transport and widespread ownership of boats. The river had a function similar to that of a highway today, on which one travels fast with relative ease of reaching one’s destination. Relative ease of getting to the neighbouring bank is conducive to fostering interpersonal contact. Most often, apart from matrimonial contacts it included trade, which was dictated by the regular market fairs in Warsaw, Wilanów and Mount Calvary (Góra Kalwarii).

Origin of the name of the region

Determining the etymology of the name of the micro region was not easy, as in various written sources it appeared in numerous variants (including Urzecze, Urzyce, Łużyce), and at the same time it was pronounced identically (Łużyce). Some of these descriptions related to the areas that lie by “u rzyki” (Urzecze, dial. Łyrzyce), and partly to “ługów”, that is swampy riverine areas (Ługi, Łuże, Łużyce). That is why in the first publication of interest to us about the micro region [Ł.M. Stanaszek, “Na Łużycu. W zapmnianym regionie etnograficznym na Wisłą”, Warszawa-Czersk 2012], following in the footsteps of several earlier authors, it was decided to compromise and combine both forms, i.e. “Łużyce”, but changing into the word Urzecze (“on Łużyce”).

In 2013 after having analysed all written sources documenting both forms of the micro region’s name ethnographers decided that the name “Urzecze” be used nationwide, and used in dialect form in this part of Vistula as “Łurzyce”. At the same time due to the likelihood of mistaking the names “Łurzyce” and “Łużyce”, it is recommended to use the name “Urzecze” in official documents, with an explanation in each case of its dialect form “Łurzyce”.

Identity of Urzecze

A variety of factors over several decades contributed to the formation of a separate identity of the micro region, which is manifest in unique dress, architecture and specific riverside economy. First of all, it was the presence of the Vistula River, a kind of “window on the world” for people living on its banks, who called each other Zawiślak (one by the Vistula). It seems that it is the Vistula and relative geographic isolation of its ice-marginal valley (old river bed, high escarpment) that contributed to the creation of a regional community. And at the same time the feeling of separateness from the people living “just across the border”, that is on the right bank of Polesie (Kołbielszczyzna) and left bank areas above the escarpment. The Łurzyca inhabitants generally called the first the Polesoki and the latter Kamieniorze or Górnicy (Miners).

The many generations of contacts between Łurzykovians and the “people of the Vistula”, that is flisaks (people working on river transport) and also żwirnicy (people working in stone mining), hauliers and fishermen, was very significant.

The influence that the Olender settlers, who started to appear since the early 17th century, had on the identity of the micro region also cannot be underestimated. The Olenders imperceptibly infiltrated the Łurzykovian social structures, modifying their behaviour and the economy in particular.

The specificity of living on flood plains as well as multiculturalism resulted in Łurzyca’s local cultural landscape having a number of distinct or very rare characteristics not found on the neighbouring “upper fields”. The most important undoubtedly include brushwood fences, dikes and embankments, polders, willow and poplar bases, bindugi (river marinas), boardwalks (elevated paths on the wetlands), terpy (artificial mounds under houses) and numerous windmills.

The characteristics of the Urzecze landscape near Warsaw are its great simplicity, functionality, as well as an insignificant interference in the Vistula nature. If it wre not for recommendations from higher authorities, probably even dykes against flooding would not have been built, which the local Olenders did not want. In 1848 they explained their reluctance for the dykes to be built in this manner: We did not raise the dykes because the flood waters of the river do us no harm, they fertilise our fields through the accumulation of silt, otherwise those meadows not flooded naturally will not provide any fodder, and hence the dykes would be at our peril and not to our benefit.

Urzecze is a phenomenon – an example of successful cooperation between man and nature in shaping the flood plains of the Vistula. It shows how much we can learn, by observing nature and working closely with it. This all means that in Urzecze we have the type of economy, which is closest to nature with which the inhabitants of Mazovia had dealt with in the past.

The cultural heritage of Łurzyca near Warsaw – its people living in harmony with nature surrounding them – is disappearing in front of our eyes. The proximity of the city and modernization of the village means that the awareness of the uniqueness of this region is being forgotten together with the oldest members of the Łurzyca people. Whether we will remember and take advantage of the achievements of generations of those living by the Vistula is totally dependent on us …

The Olenders at Urzecze

The influence of the Olender settlers on the total cultural heritage of Urzecze (Łurzyca) is not to be underestimated. It undoubtedly played a leading role in forming a specific type of character of the Nadwiśle area of interest to us.

The Olender settlement (mainly Dutch, German and Pomeranian) was a colonising movement, from the first half of the 16th century on the Polish lands. It developed mainly along the Vistula and its tributaries – on the Pomoranian, Kujawy, Mazovia, Lublin region and Greater Poland. The origins of the colonization are mainly associated with the reformist Protestant movements and emigration of oppressed Mennonites (belonging to one strand of Anabaptism) from Frisia and the Netherlands. Łurzyca’s flood areas were very difficult to cultivate which meant that the Olenders were willingly settled there, as they were familiar with this type of adversities of nature.

Olender settlers colonised with great intensity practically the entire Urzecze by the Vistula and neighbouring areas. They settled on these lands at least from the first half of the 17th century, however, the greatest heyday of their settlement was at the end of the 18th century and first half of the 19th century, which was associated with the militaristic politics of Prussia and the Polish partitions.

Olenders are widely considered to be masters in the management of the Vistula wasteland, so-called. voids. Reclamation and drainage of wetlands, construction of dikes and ditches, planting willows or bringing functional buildings on mounds (terpy) became a part of the canon of operations of the Urzecze inhabitants, regardless of their origins. In time, when one talked about the Olender people, it was more about a specific type of economy than the actual ethnic composition of the population.

Oryle at Urzecze

In the past the Vistula was the most important Polish transport artery, particularly in terms of trade. It is little wonder then, that a greater part of the Urzecze near Warsaw was involved in various type of rafting of a variety of goods, including grain, wood from nearby Polesie (Kołbielszczyzna) or salt from Wieliczka. Flisaks engaged in the Vistula River trade were commonly called Oryle. They had a separate dialect, their own dress and “river” manners, as well as their own internal organisational structure. Next to ordinary sailors-flisaks, one could come across bosses, skippers and helmsmen. The Vistula was constantly full of boats, barges and Berliners (river boats), mooring sometimes at the so-called ‘binduga’, that is at river marinas, where rafts where assembled and where one rested in the coastal inns.

The magnitude of contacts between the Oryle and Łurzyce peoples, apart from church records, up until recently were indirectly evidenced along the Vistula by the numerous homes and outbuildings built of logs, which to a large extent sailed to Urzecze from southern Poland as flisaks’ rafts. It cannot be excluded that prevalent at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century occupations associated with carpentry, practiced in the newly established spa resorts (Otwock, Konstancin-Jeziorna) had their roots in dealings with Oryle. Finally, “oryle” or “szot” was a name given to a dance, which next to oberek (Polish folk dance) was especially popular in the Czersk region, southern part of Mazovia during the 19th century.