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T A T R A A R E A
R E S E A R C H
G R O U P
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© TARG All rights reserved.
Newsletter for January-February 2009
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Ahojte (hello) TARG members! Stastny
Novy Rok! Szczesliwego Nowego! (Happy New Year!)
I hope this issue of the TARG e-newseletter finds you well. If
any of you have suggestions or items to share, please feel free
to send them in for inclusion!
Thanks!
-- Paul K. Bingham
TARG Founder
WEBSITES____________
1. TARG's official website: http://www.e-TARG.org!
2. Helene B. Cincebeaux's new 2009 Treasure Tours
Schedule is out! Go to her website at: www.Our-Slovakia.com
3. The website for the Zamagurie Region DNA Project
is: www.familytreedna.com/public/ZamagurieRegionDNAProject.
4. Jewish Gen's incredibly helpful 'shtetlseeker'
site: www.jewishgen.org/shtetlseeker/loctown.asp?
YOUR LETTERS___________
---Hi Paul, My father, Kazmer
Lenart was born in "Zayanse," Austria in 1892. I was
there 10 years ago and with a translator; talked to the priest
and confirmed my father's birth records, godparents etc. The
priest stated that the name Lenart was an unusual name in that
village. I later found out my great grandfather traveled over
the Carpathian Mountains from Hungary. I believe my tour guide/translator
stated that the village of Zayanse changed it's name to.....??????
I would appreciate any help in finding out
the village's name. I would like to return there again but need
the name change. We traveled about 1.5 hours from Krakow to get
there by car. Please help me. Thanks! - Jerry L.
---Hi Jerry, I looked for your village in some of the reference
books I have and also online at: http://www.jewishgen.org/shtetlseeker/loctown.asp?town=ANSE&ctry=PL&stype=DM&units=MILES&latd=&latm=&lond=&lonm=.
Although I did find a few villages in Eastern Europe with similar
spellings, I did not find anything in a range of 1.5 hours from
Krakow with that name either now or historically. The prefix
"zay" is something found in Hungarian
names. For instance, the Slovak village of Uhrovec was in earlier
times called Zaj-Ugrocze, Zay-Ugrocz, and Zayugroc. I tried removing
the Zay from Zayanse, but could find nothing definative with
"anse." Do you remember which direction you went from
Krakow? Was it once in the Crownland of Galicia (or Galizien
in German)? It is my opinion that the name Lenart is most certainly
a name of German and not Polish or Hungarian origin. There were
many Germans who settled throughout the Austrian-Hungarian empire,
so this is to be expected.
When I look in our TARG database, I do find
the surname LENART with that exact spelling in many villages
south of Karkow. Most of these are from phonebook listings 11
years ago. Back then only about one in four households in this
area had a phone, so you can almost multiply by four and get
a better picture of occurance. Below are the totals for listings
of the LENART surname by Polish village. Interesting is the village
Zaluczne, which because of Polish diacritic marks would be pronounced
"ZA - wooch - nay."
This is really not a far stretch from Zayanse
and is also about 1.5 hours out of Krakow in the hilly country
close to the feet of the Tatra mountains. When you went there
as a child, was it hilly country close to tall snow-covered mountains?
This village would also have been in Austrian held Galician territory
before WWI. If you'll notice on a map, it is also very close
to many surrounding villages and towns where LENART is common.
It's my bet Zaluczne is the village you want. - Paul
6 or more occurances of LENART each in Zaluczne,
Spytkowice, Piekielnik and Odrowaz
5 occurances of LENART in Czarny Dunajec
3 occurances of LENART each in Rabka and Nowy
Targ
2 occurances of LENART in Jordanow
1 occurance of LENART each in Polanovce, Wysoka,
Witow, Naprawa, Lipnica Wielka, Konina, and Jablonka
TATRA MOUNTAINS BOOK - PART 19__________
Chapter 8 "Sudden Cross and Sorrowing Christ" continued
from last time:
Wayside shrines furnish another tasteful example of the local
wood-carving art. The most typical figure in them is the so-called
'Sorrowing Christ', represented in a sitting posture with his
thorn-crowned head supported on a fist. Behives are also of considerable
interest. They are made in the shape of a bishop, a monk or a
bear, with an entrance for the bees in the pit of the stomach.
When it is an ecclesiastic personality, its folded arms holding
the breviary are used by the bees as a sort of bridge to reach
the entrance.
Apart from wood carving, glass painting is another, if half-forgotten
local art. The painting, representing usually a holy scene, Virgin
mary, or dancing robbers in red ceremonial head-gear jumping
over a bonfire, is made, so to say, in reverse perspective on
the back of the pane; the finer detail is painted first and then
comes the background. Painting on glass on these lines has been
recently revived by some sophisticated painters of Goral descent
and notably my M. Gasiennica-Szostak, whose glass pictures have
had considerable success.
The Tatra Museum in Zakopane contains an extensive collection
illustrating Goral folklore -- wood objects, arms, costumes,
pottery, etc., while the School of Wood Crafts, situated next
door to it, has for one of its objects to preserve old traditions
and to adapt them to the requirements of modern life.
(Chapter 9 "In the 'Hala'"" of Firsoff's 1946
book will begin in our next issue.)
CONTACTING TARG_____________________
To contact the TARG Editor, the new e-mail
address is: TatraAreaResearchGroup
gmail
. Our "snail"
mailing address is still TARG, P.O. Box 3533, Escondido, CA 92033.
use it for sending in orders or photos and anything else you
want to share with the group. (If for some reason you are unable
to contact us at the new address above, go ahead and use the
old address targ_nethotmail.)
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