Dvorishche

(1) An old Russian form of collective land ownership and of the familial village. The term dvorishche is first encountered beginning in the 12th century in ancient Russian documents and, beginning in the 16th century, in Byelorussia, where it consisted of one or several dymy (homesteads; literally, “smokes”). Members of the dvorishche owned implements jointly, farmed collectively, and distributed the harvest equally. The original dvorishche represented an extended family that, in the course of time, had disintegrated into small family units and was subsequently transformed into a neighborhood obshchina (peasant commune). The Byelorussian dvorishche corresponded to the northern Great Russian pechishche, the Ukrainian siabry, the south Slavic zadruga, the partriarchal kucha (crowd), and so on. The word dvorishche is still used in the northern areas of the USSR to denote a house, farmstead, or the center of a state farm.

(2) Λ place where a courtyard was once located