Volhynia was ruled by Poland until the late 18th century, when Poland was partitioned by the Prussian, Austrian, and Russian empires. After the partition of Poland, Volhynia was a gubernia, or province, of the Russian Empire until 1919, when the western part of Volhynia once again became part of Poland. In 1945 the entire area of the Volhynia Gubernia was absorbed into the Soviet Union, but the gubernia system was no longer used and the Volhynia name was used to identify a smaller region, called an oblast, in the western part of the old gubernia.
Most of what was the Volhynia Gubernia is now in Ukraine, with a small part of northern Volhynia in Belarus. Major cities and towns in and around Volhynia include Zhitomir (the former capital), Rovno, Lutsk, Kovel, Berdichev, and Novograd-Volinsk. Other names for Volhynia are Volinskaya, Wolin, Wolyn, Wolina, Wolinsk, Volinski, Wolinski, Volenskii, Wolenskj, Wolenskja, Volin, Volyn.
Polesia is the area of lowlands stretching east by northeast of Lublin along the course of the Prypec River and its tributaries to the Dnieper River. The major towns of Polesia were:
Bobrujsk,
Borysow,
Brzesc(Brest),
Homel,
Kobryn,
Mogilew,
Pinsk, and
Witebsk
Polesia is characterized by its many marshes. During the inter war period, the region formed a Polish province. Currently most of the region lies in Belarus with a small western segment in Poland and the southern part in the Ukraine. A land of swamps, marshes and peat-bogs where the ground waters are just below the surface, forming many shallow lakes, many unreachable except when the marshes are frozen in winter. This is the largest such region in Europe. Once it was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Polesie was largely part of Poland in the 1921-39 period when the country's largest provinces bore that name. It was an area populated by historically very highly-patriotic Polish gentry surrounded by local peasantry. WWII has resulted in virtual elimination of the Polish population from areas incorporated into the then Soviet Republics of Belarus and Ukraine, although some Polish communities still survive to the present day.
This beautiful district was populated with a variety of people: 62% of the population couldn't describe its nationality or its parent language, basically describing themselves as locals. They were usually called Poleszczukami and used a dialect of prosta --straight-- or chlopska -- worker/peasant. They used dialects of different origins i.e.: Belorussian, Polish and Russian.
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