The Museum of the Slovincian Village in Kluki

After the liquidation of the grange buildings in Otok, when the Brenkowo grange and district was founded, the name began to disappear as well. The continuously expanding settlement on the lake was referred to as Kluki, probably from the surname Kleków, from the inhabitants of the lakeside farmsteads (sources confirm that this surname was carried by the highest number of families in the 19^th Century).

With time, the settlements also expanded onto the uninhibited land stretching to the south of the existing settlement, and were owned by the nearby properties of Żelazo and Ciemino. Due to this, new districts were created, which were referred to as Kluki Żeleskie and Kluki Ciemińskie, as opposed to Kluki Smołdzińskie. The common name of Kluki for all settlements was appointed under administrational mode and it was considered as a single-commune village with one council chair.

Until halfway through the 20^th Century, the development of Kluki underwent significant changes. The old clay and wooden houses were often replaced with new brick ones, and several plots were designated in the middle of the village, which, among others, hosted the building planned to serve as the school. All houses were built parallel to the road on both its sides. This formation of the village is preserved to this day.

At the beginning of the 19^th Century, the coastal seashore of Łeba and the villages on Gardno and Łebsko lakes were the only areas where people still spoke Kashubian. Halfway through the 19^th Century, the Kashubian population inhabiting these terrains became commonly known as the Slovincians.

During their history, the Slovincians created their own material culture, while Kluki is the village with the most keepsakes of this culture, the most examples of Slovincian construction and the best-preserved Slovincian traditions. For this reason, in 1963, a permanent exhibition presenting the culture of the people once inhabiting the villages on the Łebsko and Gardno lakes was organised in one of the farmsteads built in the 19^th Century and preserved in its original location. During the nineteen seventies, facing a new wave of departures of the Slovincian population to Germany, the Museum of Central Pomerania in Słupsk undertook action aimed at creating a large open-air museum in Kluki by taking over the land around the already-existing Museum Farmstead. Within ten years, the Museum was able to secure six farmsteads and overtake land with two 19^th Century in situ farmsteads and remains of 18^th and 19^th Century developments. The rows of trees marking the borders of these lots made it easier to allocate the huts transported to the museum, which, according to the authors of the development concept, had to be set in their old “nests” in order to have them recreate the former spatial arrangement of Kluki and compose its oldest fragment. As a result, the ten-hectare area of the Museum of the Slovincian Village in Kluki hosts seven farmsteads with utility buildings, wells, baking furnaces and basements, all embedded into a living, functional village on both sides of the road frequented by the re|sidents.

Autor: Muzeum Wsi Słowińskiej w Klukach