Mshanets () is a village in Ukraine, part of the Strilky rural hromada in the Sambir Raion of the Lviv Oblast. The first preserved written mention of the village dates back to 1446.
This village is the most researched in terms of historical and ethnographic dimensions not only in Ukraine but also in all of Central and Eastern Europe, mainly due to the efforts of Father Mykhailo Zubrytskyi. He served as a village priest of UGCC and community activist from 1883 to 1914, combining his pastoral duties with extensive scholarly work on the history, culture, and lifestyle of the village and the surrounding region. Zubrytskyi engaged prominent figures like Ivan Franko, Volodymyr Hnatiuk, Ilarion Sventsitsky, Khvedir Vovk in these studies, and they visited Mshanets for field research. Historians Mykhailo Hrushevsky and Bohdan Barvinsky also mentioned Mshanets in their works.
Geography The village is in the Upper-Dniester Beskids (Carpathians), beneath Mount Magura-Limnyanska. It was founded amidst vast forests. O. Mykhailo Zubrytskyj mentioned that "even now branches and rough logs are found in the earth."
"The river Mshanka [the first major tributary of the Dniester] enters the village from the west, originating from Bystre and Mykhnovets (in 1951, stalin transferred these villages to Poland in exchange for Chervonohrad), cuts through two mountains, Magura and Zhukiv, and flows through the village, dividing it into two uneven parts." Neighboring Ukrainian villages include Halivka, Ploske, and Hroziova.
Not far from the village are the National Natural Park "Royal Beskids" and the Regional Landscape Park "Upper-Dniester Beskids."
History
Kyivan Rus' and the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia It is known about the existence of a Rus' hillfort on Mount Magura Limnyanska (the village itself is located below the mountain) as far back as the 11th-13th centuries.
Data about the ancient period may not have been preserved due to the occupying policies of states that controlled these lands since the decline of Kyivan Rus' and the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia. This part of history still needs thorough research, as it is quite likely that it is much older than officially known.
Some experts argue that ancient people appeared in the territory of the Carpathians and the Subcarpathian region during the Mesolithic period (9th-4th millennium BCE).Курій Василь, Лопушанський Роман. Найрідніша в світі Лопушанка-Хомина / В. Курій, Р. Лопушанський. - Львів: Видавництво "Растр-7", 2019. - 548 с., 16 с. іл. С. 17
Volodymyr Kobilnyk, co-founder of the "Boykivschyna" society, while studying the history of settlement in the Carpathians, concluded that during the princely times, there existed an ancient trade route - the Rus' Path - through Staryi Sambir and Turka, and the mountainous part of Boykivschyna was already densely populated "from the 6th to the 13th centuries, and in the 14th century, life here rather declined than developed,"Комарницький В. Комарники - село на Руському путі / В. Комарницький. - Л.: ТзОВ "Камула", 2007. - С. 13-14 due to the Mongol-Tatar invasion.
The fact that life was thriving in the mountains long before the appearance of Poles here was confirmed by the Carpathian Architectural-Archaeological Expedition of the Institute of Social Sciences of the NAS of Ukraine, led by M. Rozhak in 1978-1988.
Included within the Polish state (16th century - 1772) Currently, more information has been preserved from the times when these lands were part of the Polish state (they were part of the so-called "Crown lands" or royal estates) and their settlement in the 16th century, mostly at the initiative of Queen Bona, who had one of her residences in Staryi Sambir. However, the first preserved written mention of the village Mshanets dates back to a century before this - in the year 1446.Грушевський, Михайло (2005). Твори у 50 томах. Том 7. Львів: Світ. с. 600.
Fr. Zubrytskyi mentions that he could not find the charter for the founding of the village (he gathered and described documents from peasants dating from 1649 to 1872). However: In the oldest of the issued descriptions - the lustration of 1564 (M. Hrushevsky, Sources for the History of Ukraine-Rus I, p. 231), Mshanets already appears as an old settlement of the Vlach law, on 20 ancient lans, to which later three more were added, besides the yards of the Schultheiß and the church.Зубрицький, Михайло (1906—1907). Село Мшанець Старосамбірського повіту (матеріали до історії гальцького села). Львів: ЗНТШ. с. Томи: 70, 71, 79.Mykhailo Hrushevsky in 'Pages from the History of the Ukrainian-Ruthenian Rural Clergy' describes a charter from October 15, 1546. 'Queen Bona grants a parish in the village of Mshanets to Ivan, with a note of 10 hryvnias.'
The settlers were attracted by the so-called "Vlach law" (or "shepherd law"), which granted peasants free use of land and pastures, under the authority of community elders, initially called "Knyazes" ("Князі") and later "Vijts" ("Війти") and "Schultheiß" ("Солтиси"). "Each charter for the founding of a village included conditions. Schultheißes were an intermediate class between the nobility and the peasant serf."Зубрицький, Михайло (1895). Село Кіндратів (Турецького пов.). Львів: Житє і слово.
Frank Sysyn provides statistical data from 1890 about the inhabitants of the Staryi Sambir and Turka Powiats, which had the highest percentage of Greek Catholics among all Powiats of Galicia. In the Staryi Sambir Powiat, there were 38,764 Ukrainian speakers (77.84% of the total population), and in the Turka Powiat there were 55,507 (88.83%).Михайло Зубрицький. Зібрані твори і матеріали: У 3 т. (українська). Т. 3. Львів: Літопис. The ethnographic population of these territories belongs to the "Boykos" ethnic group."Indeed, the Polish government, while establishing villages in the mountains based on Vlach law, did not differentiate between the roles of the voivodeship ("війтівство") and the Schultheißship ("солтиство") (advocatia vel scultetia). However, there was a distinction in Mshanets, for which separate charters were issued. In the voivodeship (війтівство), there were nobles from the Stetskovych, Huzelovych, and Petrychkovych families, as well as the immigrant Pole Yankivskyi, while in the soltys (солтиство), there were Voloshchak, Dorosh, Butrym, and Dytzman."Over time, Vijts and Schultheißes assimilated into the Polish nobility from a legal perspective. The lands granted for their maintenance were eventually distributed by the Crown into ownership of various lords, who introduced a form of serfdom previously unknown in the region. However, these territories never experienced large magnate landowners or significant landownership, which fundamentally distinguishes this region from Podillya. Unlike the rest of Galicia, there were few Poles here, and the local minor nobility barely experienced colonization influences, and the absolute majority of the inhabitants spoke the Boyko dialect of the Ukrainian language and belonged to the Greek Catholic Church.In Mshanets, there were three Lans in the voivodeship, one of which was called "Lan," from where its name originated. The land there was the best because everything was situated on a fairly spacious plain above the river. Even now, people envy the Lanians and say: "There is nothing like what the Lanians have!"
The second Lan extended along both sides of the church towards the boundaries of Bandriv and Hroziova, while the third Lan was located in Zavadka. In addition to those three, there was also the Schultheißship, and that Lan extended from the upper gristmillalong the mountains of Zhuk and Magura.
The field in Zavadka is not bad; it yields well, but it is difficult to manage because almost everything is spread out on both hillsides. Grain for sowing is often carried on shoulders, it is hard to plow because the plowshares often fall off, and it's also difficult to bring in the harvest.
In Zavadka, the entire voivodeship was settled by the Petrychkovych and Lyzynsky families, while on "Lan," a portion was used by the Stetskovych, previously by the Lypetsky family, and the larger part belonged to the "Sambir treasury."
Below the church, on the voivodeship, lived the Huzelovych, Stetskovych, the Pole Yankivskyi, and the subject Parashchak, nicknamed "Podolyak" by the villagers. At one point, a lord brought a servant with him to the village, gave him a quarter of the voivodeship, and people called him by a higher-sounding name.
The majority of this voivodeship belonged to the castle and passed from hand to hand of various leaseholders, such as Volovskyi, Humnytskyi, Zderkevych, and finally Pyurkovskyi, along with the Lanian field.
Bohdan Barvinskyi mentions an interesting document "Rebellion in the village of Mshanets in 1717" about serfdom relations and an agrarian uprising.
Mshanets during the times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth belonged to the Lipetsk region in the economy of Sambir land in the Peremyshl region.
In the inventory for the year 1760, it is mentioned that the community complained about Jmp. Piórkowski, the possessor of the voivodeship, who forces them into unusual work, beats them, incorrectly selects tax collectors (karbowników), and dismisses those chosen by Jm. Pan Krajnik. Furthermore, he demands oats from barren land. The same community complained that J. Kr. M. was appropriating land in other villages, such as in Ploske, Bystre, Halivka, and Hrozova. Administration should intervene.Бібліотека Оссолінських: rkp. № 1632, str. 209
Under the rule of the Habsburgs (1772-1914)
After the region's annexation to the Habsburg Empire in 1772, the practice of distributing local lands to ownership decreased, and the village, along with others, came under the administrative management of the Chamber (state administration of royal estates).
In 1782, the Stetskevich family (one of the three branches of the Mshanets voivodeship-princely family of the "Sas" coat of arms; the other two being Guzilovych and Petrachkovych; these families separated at the end of the 16th century) confirmed their nobility in the Przemysl city court. They are descended from Stetsko Medved (1599-1608).
According to the data on the map "Galizien und Lodomerien (1779–1783) - First Military Survey," during this time, there were at least three mills in Mshanets.
The second significant change in the early years of Austrian rule was the introduction of military conscription, which later played an important (though not necessarily positive) role in the development of rural communities. Father Mykhailo Zubrytsky wrote most comprehensively about this in the article "Contributions to the History of Conscription in Galicia from the End of the 18th Century to the Mid-19th Century." At the same time, Emperor Joseph II's colonization policy led to significant demographic changes. An important factor here was the establishment of a German colony in Bandriv near Mshanets, where settlers from the Rhine River areas, Lutherans by denomination, settled. Ivan Franko mentions and describes their way of building houses, farming practices, etc., in the article "Ethnographic Expedition to Boykivshchyna."
Significant fundamental changes occurred only at the end of the 19th century. They affected daily life, livelihoods, and even more profoundly, the worldview of people. These changes can be considered a crisis of the old culture and the beginning of modernization.