Etnografia dawnych ziem Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego od epoki zygmuntowskiej do XX wieku - problemy badawcze
ENThe lands known as the Suwałki region have, over the course of history, undergone many changes. They were inhabited by the Sudovians, devastated by the Teutonic Knights, settled by a Christian population from Kuyavia and Mazovia. From 1385 they were a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania where land was in the hands of the king and magnates. The king’s administration sought to regulate property rights. As a result, such towns as Augustów (1557), Bakałarzewo (1514), Filipów (1556), Przerosi (1566) were located. In the 16th century, as a result of a land reform known as the Volok Reform, royal lands were to be separated from private ownership and the remaining lands to be integrated, with villages measured out and reshaped. The newly measured villages, irrespective of topographic conditions, assumed the form of regular rectangles with unified building layouts. The building regulations determined the shape and size of individual peasant farmsteads. Until the end of the 18lh century, much of the peasant population did not have a clearly shaped sense of nationality. The peasants described themselves as local, ‘of this place’. In the time of the Partitions, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth continued to be present in the consciousness of Polish society as did the White Eagle and Pahonia, the coats-of-arms of the Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, seen together. In the 19th century, as a result of various political changes, the rural population began to consciously create its own culture and identity. One of the useful methods of determining cultural boundaries was the new ethnographic atlases. With time, cultural product became a separate object of comparative studies.
