Friday, March 29, 2013

Žemaitkiemis 1929



This is a registered cover sent 1929 from Žemaitkiemiai to Königsberg i. Pr. (in Preußen), now Калининград / Kaliningrad, Russia. The registration label has an error, the first letter "Z" of Žemaitkiemiai is printed in the opposite side. You might be wondering why I write "Žemaitkiemis" as the title when the cover shown is from Žemaitkiemiai. . Well this Žemaitkiemiai is a little confusing actually... The town has changed it's name from "Žemaitkiemiai" to "Žemaitkiemis". I can't tell you when this happened, I simply can't find any source of information. In addition to that, there are at least 3 more "Žemaitkiemis" in modern Lithuania. To which Žemaitkiemis does it correspond??

Now let's take a look at the sender's address on the back of the cover. Lapallen b (bei) / Szameitkehmen, Kreis Heydekrug, Memelgebiet. Ah... Kreis Heydekrug! Heydekrug is now Šilutė, Lithuania so it should on Šilutė district on the modern Lithuanian map, but... I found 2 "Žemaitkiemis" in the same district. Aii... Now, looking on the old map of Memelgebiet, in deed, there are 2 "Szameitkehmen". One on the south west of Heydekrug, and the other on the north of Heydekrug.



But thank god, actually the sender's address is Lappallen bei Szameitkehmen, this determines which is the Szameitkehmen in question. Great! and now I know that Lappallen is now Lapaliai, Lithuania too. The question remains, how do other philatelists know which Szameitkehmen had a post office during Memelgebiet period? Just the one near Lappallen or both towns had one? All philatelic resources I have about Memelgebiet don't mention about the existence of 2 Szameitkehmen. Both town seems to be right next to the railway track which gives both town a similar characteristics. But it looks like the one near Lappallen belonged to kreis Heydekrug and the other to kreis Pogegen (kreis Tilsit before WW1) back at that time. The fact that the Lithuanian postmark of Žemaitkiemiai I have uploaded doesn't seem to mention any extra information, it is likely to indicate that there was only one Žemaitkiemiai at that time since when there are 2 towns with the same name, very often they added the name of the district like Russ (Elsass) and Russ (Ostpr.) for example. But this doesn't confirm 100% the fact that there weren't 2 post offices named "Žemaitkiemiai" during the Memelgebiet period. My research continues...

5 comments:

  1. There are three locations with the name Szameitkehmen in old Eastern Prussia. The cover is from former Szameitkehmen (Kreis Heydekrug). The other location with this Name was part of Kreis (district) Tilsit, which was divided between "Memelgebiet" and Germany in 1920 and was added to Kreis Pogegen. The third location is Szameitkehmen (Kreis Pillkallen) - now in the area of Dobrowolsk (Kaliningrad Oblast).
    source:
    http://wiki-de.genealogy.net/Szameitkehmen
    Happy Easter wishes!

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  2. Wow.. So, there was even a third Szameitkehmen.. Later i've found out that there were 10 Žemaitkiemis in present Lithuania which 2 of them located in former Memelgebiet with both Szameitkehmen as German name.
    http://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDemaitkiemis_(reik%C5%A1m%C4%97s)
    This name seems to be originated from the name Žemaitija, a Lithuanian region (literally "lowlands" according to Wikipedia. Yes! like Netherlands!). It is translated in German as Schemaitien, Szemaitien or Niederlitauen.

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  3. Seeing that none of the "Žemaitkiemis" nor "Szameitkehmen" were located in Žemaitija itself, I'm suspecting that it was name for a small colony or village inhabited by the Žemaitian tribe. This is just a personal opinion.

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