Ankstyvoji modernizacija Užnemunėje: luominio mentaliteto erozija XIX amžiaus pradžioje

Abstract

EARLY MODERNISATION IN TRANS-NIEMEN LITHUANIA: THE EROSION OF THE ESTATE MENTALITY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 19TH CENTURY The article identifies several sources hitherto unknown in Lithuanian historiography for the study of the history of Užnemunė (Suvalkija) in the first half of the 19th century. Texts from the ‘Peasants’ Questionnaire’, which are important for getting to know the mentality of the regional nobility, and the official letters of Marijampolė council and the sub-prefect of the area, drafted improve the situation of the peasants, have been investigated. The innovative rhetoric of Marijampolė council in 1814, and its approach to the issue of the peasants, allows us to treat it as a supporter of Duke Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, the initiator of reforms, and his group. The attitude of the Marijampolė experts towards farmers supports the assumption of the greater and earlier emancipation of the peasantry of Užnemunė (Trans-Niemen) which occurred in the second half of the 19th century. The ongoing liberation process was indirectly reflected in the writings of Marijampolė landowners in 1814. Novum is that this emancipation is even earlier. It is not even the beginning of the 19th century. We can distinguish clearly the period of the Prussian occupation at the turn of the 19th century, when the peasants were given the opportunity to participate in pre-capitalist trade, taking advantage of the circulation of cash stimulated by the prewar period. At the beginning of the second decade of the 19th century, the nobility saw the peasants in the Marijampolė area as a separate and respectable class of society (no longer the lower estate in an anthropological sense), worthy of government support, familiar with philanthropy and entrepreneurship, and the principle and autonomy of personal interest.