The Location of Leeleva

What about the fact that the Jake Unruh Leeleva map doesn’t seem to correspond to today’s geography of the area south of Ostrog?  To my knowledge, there are no maps that mark a village as Leeleva directly south of Ostrog.  How then do we reach a conclusion regarding which village was the Leeleva of our ancestors?

In the early German Mennonite sources, the village later known as Leeleva was called Fürstendorf (Fuerstendorf).  Abe J Unruh in his book The Helpless Poles, as well as Mennonite Elder Tobias Unruh in his baptism records, refers to a German Mennonite village by the name of Fürstendorf.  Jake Unruh, the author of the Leeleva map used frequently in this blog says that Fürstendorf was the old name of the village, and that by about the time of the turn of the century, the village was called Leeleva (this can probably be attributed to the Empire’s “Russification” policy during the latter half of the 19^th Century.  The German name Fürstendorf undoubtedly had to be done away with) .  In the Green Ratzlaff Book, the village is referred to as Lilewa (in German, that “W” makes a “V” sound, so the pronunciation of Leeleva and Lilewa would be very similar).  Finally, in his 1905 survey of Mennonite villages, (Statistik der Mennonitengemeinden in Russland Ende 1905 [Anhang zum Mennonitischen Jahrbuche 1904/05], Gnadenfeld: Dirks, 1905: 39) Heinrich Dirks asserts that the name of the village is Lileva, and that the ministers were Johann Jantz, Johann Nachtigal, and Johann Dekkert.  In a document possibly dated 1893 and signed by Johann Böhse (Boese) attesting to the fact that the resident Benjamin Unruh Family were Mennonites, Böhse names the village Lilewa and accompanies it with “bei Ostrog” to note the village’s geographic proximity to the town of Ostrog. 

After the Mennonites left the area, Lutherans came to populate the village (in fact, some Lutherans lived there already by the late 1900s).  Metrical Books kept by the Lutheran bishop in Rovno list the name as Furstindorf and Furstendorf.  I am also in possession of a map of the village dated 1935-1936 when the village was populated by Lutheran Germans which names the village as Lesnoe.

I’ve consulted several experts with whom I am acquainted, asking them regarding the location of the village of Fürstendorf.  Luckily, we have many folks who are experts in this area; there were many German colonists in Volhynia in the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries.  Mennonites were among the first to come to the area, but Lutherans and Baptists followed shortly behind.  Therefore we can look at not only Mennonite records to determine the location of Fürstendorf/Leeleva, but also Lutheran and Baptist records as well.

Mennonite sources indicate that the village that was named Fürstendorf was just a couple miles southwest of Jadwinin and maybe a mile more southeast of Antonovka.  This would seem today to indicate the village of Lisna (Lesna).  This is a comparison of a modern satellite view versus the Ostog area from the Mennonite Atlas.  Note that Jadwinin is known today as Novosilka.

Don Miller is a descendant of German Baptists who lived in the area (Don’s ancestors actually lived in the village next door to the village in which my Ratzlaffs lived for a short period of time to the northeast of the Leeleva area named Zabara.  Many of our group of Mennonites lived in Zabara/Dosildorf in the 1850s and 1860s.  My great grandfather Jacob Ratzlaff was baptized there by Elder Tobias Unruh).  Don is distinguished scholar regarding the history of the Germans in Volhynia and annually leads tours to the area.  He’s been down the road through Lisna many times.  He assures me that Lisna is indeed our Fürstendorf/Leeleva.

Don Miller also referred me to a scholar named Jerry Frank, an archivist with the Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe (SGGEE).  Mr. Frank, says Don Miller, is the true expert dealing with Volhynian geography.  I’ve emailed Mr. Frank and he also indicates that Fürstendorf/Leeleva can certainly be found on maps today marked as Lisna.

In other places, Fürstendorf/Leeleva can be found as Lesnaya or Lessnaja, a name somewhat similar to Leeleva.  Soviet maps from the 1940s indicate this name, and this Lesnaya is indeed the village that is today known as Lisna.  References to Lesnaya as Fürstendorf can be found at the website of the “Germans from Russia Heritage Society”, the “Black Sea German Research” website, as well as the German website Wolhynien.de.  Finally, many old German, Polish and Austrian maps of the area mark the German villages in the area as colonies.  For instance, Karolswalde, Antonovka and Jadwinine are all usually preceded by “COL” or “KOL” to denote the fact that the village was a German colony.  In these instances, whether the village is named Lesnaya, Fürstendorf or even Nikitska, the village which corresponds to today’s Lisna is usually marked as a colony.  For instance, this Polish map from the 1920s:

All the experts seem to agree, then, that today’s Lisna was indeed the Leeleva Village of my ancestors.  I still have questions as to why the Jake Unruh map of Leeleva doesn’t more closely approximate the geography of the village of Lisna.  On Jake Unruh’s map, the main road running through Leeleva runs mostly east-west whereas the road running through Lisna runs more northwest to southeast.  On Jake Unruh’s map, Kunov appears to be a bit south of Leeleva, whereas the village of Lisna is several miles south of Kunov.  Jake Unruh indicates the lake and the mill are east of Leeleva, whereas a lake and a well existed (pre-Soviet era) directly to the northwest of Lisna, at the village of Syvir.  This is a comparison of Jake Unruh’s map of Leeleva to a satellite view of Lisna today, as well as to the 1920s Polish map.  The Polish map corresponds to today's satellite map quite well, The Unruh map has been tilted several degrees.

Jake Unruh was a very credible authority to draw the map of Leeleva.  He left Volhynia in 1907 as a teenager but had been the unofficial village errand boy.  When an errand or message needed to be communicated to one of the other villages, Jake was the boy from Leeleva to physically do the job by running to the other village.  This would certainly give Jake intimate knowledge of the geography of the area.  Even though the map wasn’t drawn until the 1970s, Jake probably kept that information stored somewhere down through the years.  But Jake probably didn’t have the luxury we have today of looking at a map of the area when he actually lived there.  Even if he was very good with directions, a hilly, curvy road could have thrown his sense of direction or distance off somewhat.  Whatever the case, Jake’s map is a priceless resource to our family history and I’m sure no one could have drawn a better representation of the area.

Could the 1906 Volhynian census give us a clue?  Could there have been a different village named Leeleva?  The 1906 census lists a village named Lesnaya (Лѣсня) as well as Leleva (Лелева).  Could this be a clue?  Could there have been 2 villages by these very similar names both within Kunev volost?  Or could this have simply been a clerical error by the census-takers (for instance, the village of Balyary was simply omitted from the census; perhaps one of these villages should represent Balyary?).  More research needs to be done regarding this issue.