Samoluskivtsi was settled twice: in 1733 people were “brought from Uhertsi”

The entry, as printed

55. A ponieważ IMć pp. Antoni Drogomir komornik graniczny lwowski uroczysko Samołoskowce jedyną tylko pustynię kosztem swoim erygował i poddanymi dziedzicznymi z Uherec transportowanymi tęż królewszczyznę osadził, zaczem IMcie pp. posłowie nasi mają się starać i wyjednać komissyą ad taxam faciendam pomienionej reparacyi, aby proporcyonalna suma na tych dobrach IMci przyznana była.

In English

55. And since His Grace lord Antoni Drogomir, boundary chamberlain of Lviv, at his own cost founded the tract of Samołoskowce, which was nothing but a wasteland, and settled that crown land with hereditary subjects brought from Uherce, our envoys are to seek and obtain a commission to assess this restoration, so that a proportionate sum be awarded to His Grace on these estates.

What the reference books say

Samoluskivtsi lies on the Taina, thirteen kilometres from Husiatyn. Wikipedia and the regional encyclopedic dictionary give a first mention in 1547 “as Sulkivtsi”, without naming a document. The History of Towns and Villages of 1973 says “known since 1564”. After that the reference books jump to the late seventeenth century and Austrian times.

Three old documents fill the gap, and they tell something unexpected: the community living here today was brought in the early 1730s from the other end of the Ruthenian voivodeship.

1564: a name without people

The 1564 tax register of Terebovlia district records every village the same way: the name, then the number of peasant households, a priest, cottagers, craftsmen. Samoluskivtsi is there, but no number follows its name. The neighbouring lines are full: Zarvanytsia has fifty-eight households and a priest.

The simplest explanation of the empty line: there was no one in Samoluskivtsi to tax. The village had a name and boundaries but most likely stood empty. The register does not say why.

1648: the village lives again

In the summer of 1648, with the Khmelnytsky war already under way, the gentry of the Halych land voted to raise their own troops and assigned villages to support them. The banner of Aleksander Cetner, standard-bearer of Podolia, received Mohylnytsia, Romanivka, Oryshkivtsi, Hadynkivtsi, Yabluniv, Tseliiv, Uvysla, Petrykiv near Ternopil “and Samoluskivtsi”.

It was a light cavalry banner. In the Polish army of the time such units were called “Cossack”, though they had nothing to do with the Cossacks. What matters is this: if Samoluskivtsi had to feed soldiers, then in 1648 it had people and households.

1733: “nothing but a wasteland”

The next word comes from the instruction that the gentry, gathered at the dietine in Vyshnia, gave their envoys in 1733. Point fifty-five says that the Lviv boundary chamberlain Antoni Drogomir “at his own cost founded the tract of Samoluskivtsi, which was nothing but a wasteland” and settled it “with hereditary subjects brought from Uherce”. Now he asked the state to assess his costs.

Every word matters. Samoluskivtsi is called not a village but a tract, a place where the village no longer stood. The land was crown land. And the people brought here were not free settlers but serfs from Drogomir’s own estate. The document does not say what emptied the village after 1648, but those decades saw both the Khmelnytsky war and Ottoman rule in Podolia in 1672–1699.

Where the people came from

The document does not say which Uherce it meant. There are several villages of that name, and two of them lie near Lviv. Since Drogomir was a Lviv official, it is more likely the people came from there, but that is only a guess.

For those whose ancestors come from Samoluskivtsi this may be the most important line in the village’s history: the family line here most likely begins in the early 1730s and leads further back to Uherce. And the reference books’ “1547 as Sulkivtsi” most likely belongs to another village, Solkivtsi near Skalat, which we found next to Horodnytsia.

Sources

• Akta grodzkie i ziemskie, vol. XXIII (Lviv, 1928), p. 15, no. 5, point 55: instruction of the Vyshnia dietine to its envoys, 1733.
• Akta grodzkie i ziemskie, vol. XXIV (Lviv, 1931), p. 69, no. 52, point 8: resolution of the Halych dietine, 1648.
• A. Jabłonowski, Źródła dziejowe, vol. XVIII, part 1 (Warsaw, 1902), p. 100: the 1564 register of Terebovlia district.

© 2026 Vadym Ratynskyi. All rights reserved. The research, text and translations on this page may be copied or republished only with the author's permission. To ask for permission, write to hello@ukrainianhomecoming.com.