Sixteenth to Nineteenth Century Maps
by Deborah Glassman, copyright 2004

Located by Henryk Limon, translated by Vitaly Charny,
notes by Neville Lamdan

• Purpose: The primary purpose of the map is to indicate the ownership of the various towns, villages and properties shown. Owners include princes, barons, "castellans", aldermen, ordinary landlords and Roman Catholic institutions.

• Location: The map covers a section of the western part of the Minsk Gubernia (set up in 1793), with the small town ('shtetl") of Lechovich (=Lyakhovichi) roughly at its centre, adjacent to various internal administrative borders. More specifically, it also shows:

  • a small part of the Grodno Gubernia (1795) immediately to the west of the Minsk Gubernia – marked by the heavy line "zigzagging" from the left-hand side of the map (about 1/3 from bottom) upwards in a north-easterly direction.

  • that Lechovich is in the Slutsk "Povet" (Polish for the Russian term "Uezd", meaning an administrative district roughly equivalent to a "county" in the UK).

  • that, just north of the Slutsk Povet, lay the Novogrudok Povet – indicated by the dark line north of Lechovich running in a south-easterly direction.

  • that the western end of the Slutsk Povet abuts the Pinsk Povet – clearly shown on the left-hand side of the map (towards the bottom corner).

• Accuracy: Along the east-west axis there seems to have been significant "compression" from the top (north) and bottom (south) of the page, perhaps in an attempt to fit in all the items and also allow space for the legend. Thus, the map is more of a sketch, in which geographical accuracy is secondary.

• Legend: Refers only to features in the Slutsk Povet (to the south), using letters of the Russian alphabet (both upper and lower cases). Features on the Novogrudok side (to the north) are named and numbered, but ownership is not listed.

• Scale: No scale is marked on the map. This copy has been copied and scanned so often in differing ways that it is difficult to gauge its original scale. From left to right, the map appears to span an area roughly 50 kms wide.

• Vintage: The map is undated. The use of Polish administrative terms, rather than later Russian ones, suggests that it was prepared early in the 19th Century. The Nesvizh SIG have posted a sketch map of the town of Nesvizh, dated 1808, also designed to indicate property ownership. Ours may be of a similar vintage.