Prussian Authorities Research Articles

THE WESTERN ARMENIAN PERIODICAL PRESS ABOUT THE 1846 POLISH LIBERATION STRUGGLE

In the 1840s, the Polish patriotic and secret societies began preparing for another struggle for independence and freedom. In 1846 in Krakow the Polish revolted and which drew the attention of the Armenian press. The Polish national liberation struggle did not escape the attention of the Armenian periodicals of the time. The newspapers ‘The Arshaluys Araratyan" and "Azgaser"newspapers of the Western Armenian national-conservative current directly referred to it. Based on the news received from the European press, these periodicals covered the struggle of the Polish from their ideological point of view. Current ideologues and periodicals advocated maintaining the existing political balance in Europe and did not encourage any revolt against the authorities. The Smyrn-Armenian newspaper ‗‘The Arshaluys Araratyan‘‘, while speaking about the Krakov rebellion in 1846, stated that they didn‘t encourage the struggle of the Polish, for the Austrian authorities didn‘t violate them. According to the newspaper the reason of it was non-consolidation of the Polish and never violation and pressure of the Austrian and Prussian authorities. The Indian-Armenian newspaper ―Azgaser‘‘ displayed its pro- Russian position on the Polish rebellion. According to the newspaper, not only the rebellion took place in 1830 but also the Krakov rebellion in 1846, caused a fair vengeance of the Russian Tsar. The Western Armenian periodicals understood that the Polish had rebelled to overthrow the foreign rule, but they did not praise their struggle

Niemieckie „dzieci państwowe” (Staatskinder) wyznania ewangelickiego w kolonizacji wschodnich prowincji państwa pruskiego. Sierociniec w Ruchocinie/Mielżynie 1899–1918

The article presents the mechanism of the Prussian authorities using „state children” [Staatskinder] in the process of colonization of the eastern Prussian provinces, and combining charity activity with the program of Germanization of the area in question. The actions taken by the Prussian authorities in the late 19 and the early 20th century were in reaction to the internal migration movements, which directly affected the eastern Prussian provinces, from Berlins perspective negatively influencing their national structure. In 1895, Ernst Hasse presented a plan to colonize the eastern Prussian provinces by bringing „state children”, i.e. orphans and illegitimate children from the metropolitan areas of central and western Germany, and placing them in orphanages established in the East. The article describes, among others, one of such orphanages which operated between 1899 and 1918 and was supervised by the Protestant Association for the Care of Orphans in the Province of Poznań [Evangelischer Verein für Waisenpflege in der Provinz Posen].

Vom innerjüdischen Appell zur öffentlichen Kampagne. Joel Bril Löwes Sendschreiben an die Brüderschaften und der Beerdigungsfristenstreit in Breslau, 1793–1800

Abstract The danger of burying only apparently dead bodies when following the Jewish custom to bury the deceased within a day was a hotly debated topic in the eighteenth century. Joel Bril Löwe participated in this debate with an open letter to the burial brotherhoods of all Jewish communities. The article reconstructs the dispute between the traditionalists, who argued for the Jewish custom of immediate burial, and the modernizers, who argued for its abandonment. Despite Löwe’s efforts to mediate between the fronts and to convince everyone to allow three days until the funeral were not successful, the dispute escalated, particularly in Breslau. In a number of German and Hebrew journals, Jewish supporters of the three-day limit ran campaigns, some of them rather aggressive, which led to the founding of new burial societies and attracted the attention of the Prussian authorities. The practice of early burial could only be brought to an end by state order.

Church Borderland of Cracow and Wrocław Diocese in Silesia at the Turn of thel9th Century

The issue includes the territory of the decanates of Bytorn and Pszczyna in Upper Silesia and the decanates of Siewierz and Lelów in the region of Częstochowa and New Silesia. All these decanates used to belong to the Cracow diocese although most of them were beyond the borders of Poland. Until 1741 all Silesia was under the Austrian rule. It was only after the Silesian war between Prussia and Austria in 1741 that Silesia was subjected to the Prussian rule. Soon after the first partition, on January 4, 1773, the Prussian authorities demanded that the Cracow bishop Kajetan Sołtyk grant powers for the Bytom and Pszczyna decanates. Finally, territorial affiliation of these two decanates was decided in the years 1816-1821. Talks were held then between Nibuhr, plenipotentiary of the Prussian government and cardinal Consalvi, representative of the Holy See, concerning reorganization of church administration in Prussia. By the powers of the papal bulla De salutare animarum of July 16, 1821 the decanates of Bytom and Pszczyna were incorporated into the Wroclaw diocese.

1724 m. rugpjūčio 9 d. įsakas dėl tvorų ir jo vertėjas Christophoras Heinrichas Wegneris

During the preparation of the publications of the edicts of the Prussian authorities for the website of the Database of Old Lithuanian Writings of the Lithuanian Language Institute, the only currently known copy of the Prussian government’s edict forbidding the burning of fences in winter, issued by the Prussian authorities on 9 August, 1724, was discovered in the Library of the University of Leipzig (UBL : 01E-2015-25). Two copies of the German edict from which it was translated were found in the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences (LMAVB : E-343). Up until now, the 1878 transcript of the Lithuanian edict, prepared and published by Hugo Weber on the basis of a copy owned by August Leskien and lost during World War II , has been used. The supplement to the article presents transcripts and photographs of the edicts and a word index. Documents from the Secret State Archives Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin show that Christophor Heinrich Wegner (1685–1731), a priest of the Lithuanian church in Königsberg, worked as a translator of the edicts into Lithuanian between 1721 and 1731. A comparison of the language and orthography of the published edict with other edicts of the early eighteenth century revealed features common to all texts of Lithuania Minor and specific only to the period of Wegner’s translation work. The linguistic elements of this edict that are typical of the edicts printed during Wegner’s translation period are the adverb ik čiolei ‘until now’. The preposition with [č] <cz> occurs only in the edicts attributed to Wegner. The conjunction ydant ‘so that’ written with <y> is found in other texts, albeit rarely, and the genitive forms menesės ‘of the month’, rugpjutės ‘of August’ are also the most abundant in Wegner’s translation period. According to the currently available data, the chronological distribution of the Germanised Slavism štonas ‘state, condition’ is limited to the years 1721–1723.

Lithuanian Catechism for Rural Schools (1795). Circumstances of its Compilation

Researchers constantly add new items to the bibliography of Lithuanian publications published in East Prussia in the last decade of the 18th century. The initiatives of publishing in local languages of that period were driven by the reforms of the Church and schools carried out by the Prussian authorities while the Enlightenment was coming to an end and the ideo­logy of regional particularism was continuously growing in the country. As can be seen from newly discovered archival documents and already recorded bibliographic information, at least four publications dedicated for primary Christian education were published in Prussia in 1795, namely, the New Testament, the psalm book, the semi-secular reading textbook The Friend of Children (Kūdikių prietelius), and the catechism for rural schools. The editions of the New Testament and Kūdikių prietelius are recorded in the Lithuanian bibliography, however, nothing has been known about the mentioned editions of the psalm book and the catechism so far. The circumstances of their publishing are analysed in the article.

Seeing Infrared: Breast Cancer, Inuit, and the Extractive Colonality of Disease Distributions and Diagnostic Imaging Technologies.

This article considers how epidemiology has functioned as a form of resource extraction by tracing the work of Dr. Ray Newton Lawson, the founder of breast thermography and one of the first researchers to track breast cancer incidence within circumpolar Canada. By showing how Lawson was able to transform his ideas and observations about Inuit breast cancer risk into something medically, professionally, and financially useful, this article highlights the politics of epidemiological knowledge production, and the long-standing tendency of researchers to view Indigenous lands and bodies as “raw materials” to be exploited. It also draws attention to the enduring impact of Lawson’s research, as his new ways of representing northern disease patterns and breast tumor tissue have had long-lasting effects on how medical professionals and health systems “see” breast cancer and decide who should (and should not) have access to cancer screening technologies and other forms of preventative care.

Opening the Red Box: The Fire Alarm Telegraph and Politics of Risk Response in Imperial Germany, 1873-1900.

Historian of technology Gabrielle Hecht once described technopolitics as the strategic pursuit of political goals through technology's design and use. The fire alarm telegraph, hailed by contemporaries as revolutionary technology in the nineteenth century, offers detailed insight into the technopolitics of risk, a yet uncharted territory. Unlike most histories of risk that do not analyze the design and use of risk technologies, this study unpacks how such technologies embody norms and structure governance. Virtually unknown to historians-yet central to urban risk management-fire-alarm technology emerged as a material contract between authoritarianism and liberalism in the nineteenth century. This article demonstrates how the design of the fire alarm telegraph allowed Prussian authorities and urban liberals to propagate their concept of risk in the German city of Frankfurt. The technology facilitated their cooperation in urban governance and thereby helped to solve conflict between competing national and local interests.

„Pod chorągwiami Ojczyzny” u boku Napoleona. Działalność powstańcza w powiecie lelowskim w 1806 r. w świetle raportu Komisji Powiatowej Lelowskiej

The Greater Poland Uprising of 1806 is one of the few Polish military insurrections ended in victory. It started in November 1806 during the war between Napoleonic France and the Kingdom of Prussia. The uprising started in Poznań Department with support of the Grande Armée and than it spread over the Kalisz Department. After the brilliant conquest of the fortress of Częstochowa, made by Polish insurgents and French chasseurs, the insurrection reached New Silesia, a small part of the former Kraków Voivodeship. The nobles of Lelów County signed an act of uprising and established Lelów County Provisional Commission to take control over the region. They removed old Prussian authorities, symbols and, what is the most important, they started to organise Polish troops. Eventually, their efforts helped to bring into existence the Duchy of Warsaw.

Spis zawartości jednostki archiwalnej Biblioteka Klasztoru Cystersów w Przemęcie

In 1833 the Prussian authorities issued a cabinet order announcing the liquidation of all monastic congregations in the Grand Duchy of Poznan, which resul-ted in the dissolution of the Cistercian abbey in Przemęt in 1836. The archival unit contains correspondence of the Regency with other bodies of state administration and institutions of the Catholic Church in Poznan in the matter of the Cistercian library in Przemęt just before and after the suppression.

Poznańscy Żydzi – szkic do dziejów: rabini, synagogi, szkoły talmudyczne, zapomniane cmentarze…

Pierwsi żydowscy osadnicy pojawili się w Poznaniu już w początkach istnienia miasta. Pierwszy polski książę Bolesław Pobożny, idąc za przykładem cesarza Fryderyka II, który w 1283 roku nadał Żydom w Wiedniu przywileje, uczynił to samo w Poznaniu. Wraz z rozwojem miasta stopniowo zwiększała się w nim liczebność ludności żydowskiej. Na początku XV wieku co czwarty budynek przy ulicy Sukienniczej był zajmowany przez Żydów. Ulica niebawem zyskała nazwę ulicy Żydowskiej. Z przeprowadzonego w 1507 roku spisu powszechnego wynika, że Poznań był jedną z największych gmin żydowskich w Polsce. Pierwszy cmentarz żydowski został założony w XV wieku na Złotej Górze, w pobliżu obecnego kościoła oo. Jezuitów, później przeniesiony został na teren zwany Muszą Górą, po zachodniej stronie miasta. Pod koniec XVIII wieku gmina żydowska stanowiła jedną czwartą mieszkańców. W 1793 roku Poznań przeszedł pod władanie pruskie. Podczas pożaru w 1803 roku spłonęły trzy z sześciu synagog. Działania urbanistyczne podjęte przez władze pruskie nie objęły odbudowy dzielnicy żydowskiej. Cmentarz na Muszej Górze został zlikwidowany w 1804 roku, a gmina żydowska otrzymała grunt pod nowe miejsce pochówku przy ul. Głogowskiej. Historia poznańskich Żydów jest przypowieścią o nieistniejącym miejscu, zagubionym między dziewiętnastowiecznymi kamienicami a podwórkami dzielnicy nazwanej Łazarz. Niegdyś znacząca społeczność żydowska w Poznaniu zniknęła. Najnowszy cmentarz został założony w latach 30. XX wieku przy ul. Szamarzewskiego. On również już nie istnieje – obecnie znajdują się tam ogrody działkowe.

Donosy i zeznania ujawniające spiski niepodległościowe w Poznańskiem (1845–1847)

The article provides an analysis of denunciations and testimonies given to the Prussian authorities by Polish conspirators preparing an uprising against the partitioning powers ruling Poland in the nineteenth century: Prussia, Russia and Austria. The denunciations and testimonies led to an unmasking of the conspiracy, to arrests and to a failure of the uprising plans. The main objective of the article is not to discover new historical facts, although the author does point to several matters presented in the sources and hitherto not discussed in the literature. Instead, the objective is to demonstrate the problems of interpretation encountered by archivists and historians tackling the sources referred to in the title. The author seeks to draw attention to the factographic and interpretative difficulties and traps awaiting those studying this type of police and court records — in this case produced by the Prussian state in the nineteenth century. The information found in the available sources — police and court sources as well as descriptive sources produced by participants in the events — is insufficient to explain the reasons behind and circumstances in which the denunciations were made, revealing the preparations for a Polish uprising against the three partitioning powers — Russian, Prussia and Austria — in the mid-1840s. All delators presented in the article justified their action by citing reasons of a higher order — a desire to avoid the tragedy of a premature or unnecessary uprising (S. Mielżyński, H. Poniński) or to minimise the consequences of arrests — as well as broader political goals (F. Wiesiołowski, L. Mierosławski). As the available sources suggest, they stuck to their opinions and versions of events. Historians are left with conjectures concerning the intentions behind and circumstances of the denunciations, which do not justify unequivocal conclusions or categorical judgements.

Albert von Tucholka – dostawca broni dla powstańców styczniowych

In 1863, many inhabitants of East Prussia became involved in helping Polish insurgents. One of them was Albert von Tucholka, a merchant from Pisz, who bought weapons and ammunition in Eastern Prussia and delivered them to Poland. His activities were soon discovered by Prussian authorities. He spent almost three months in detention and the criminal proceedings against him were discontinued in May 1864.

Fr. Florian Stablewski’s Declaration of Loyalty to the Prussian Authority of 26 October 1891: Between Ambition, Necessity and Obedience

The Polish version of the article was published in Roczniki Humanistyczne 65 (2017), issue 2.
 The election of Florian Stablewski as Archbishop of Gniezno and Poznań was a result of many circumstances and decisions, directed mostly by the Prussian government. After Bismarck’s resignation in 1890, the Prussian authorities declared their readiness for ‘reconciliation’ (Versöhnung) with the Polish political elites in the Prussian partition, but with only the smallest possible concessions on their part. The nomination of the Polish candidate for archdioceses orphaned after the death of Juliusz Dinder was to be the first test of both parties’ intentions. An experienced politician such as Fr. Stablewski perfectly understood this and after rejecting Likowski’s candidature, he made public gestures towards the authorities, which were taken as an explicit declaration of loyalty and willingness to cooperate. Political support or even an inspiration for Stablewski was the political camp of Poznań conservatives led by Józef Kościelski, who personally undertook to force this candidate through at the Berlin court. The government, however, did not want to strengthen or make the Polish political camp independent. Therefore, upon expressing readiness to nominate Stablewski, they wanted to further maintain the status quo in Church and religious policy. A written commitment of the candidate to comply with these principles was to guarantee his full loyalty in the future. However, the declaration written by Stablewski was only an expression of his generally known and publicly expressed attitude of legality and loyalism. He reserved his full obedience only to his Church superiors: Cardinal Ledóchowski and the Pope.

Joining Forces against ‘Strike Terrorism’: The Public-Private Interplay in Policing Strikes in Imperial Germany, 1890–1914

This article examines the blurred boundaries between public and private repressive practices in Wilhelmine Germany with a special focus on the legal and administrative framework drawn up to redistribute security tasks and delegate the use of violence to non-state actors. While the rapid escalation of political violence in Central and Eastern Europe after 1917 has been widely discussed in the recent historiography, the structure of violence in the pre-war period remains less explored, especially with regard to the public-private interplay in the policing of popular protests. After the first massive strike by Ruhr miners in 1889, the Prussian authorities began to support the formation of semi-private armed protection groups in an effort to tackle ‘strike terrorism’. The idea of privatizing repressive practices arose as a result of widespread fears of social and political disintegration. Yet, although it may seem paradoxical, the precondition for delegating the use of violence to non-state actors was Prussian administrators’ confidence in the state’s solidity and efficiency. The ambivalence in contemporary discourses concerning the vulnerability of the existing social and political order is crucial to explaining why the Prussian authorities implemented strategies for legally distributing arms to those groups that were considered part of the ‘loyal classes’. The mobilization against ‘strike terrorism’ involved not only officially organized armed groups, such as the Zechenwehren, but also more informal or extra-legal strategies such as private use of the municipal police, the distribution of arms to strike-breakers and the militarization of white-collar workers and supervisors.

Deklaracja lojalności ks. Floriana Stablewskiego wobec władz pruskich z 26 X 1891 – między ambicją, koniecznością i posłuszeństwem

The election of Florian Stablewski as Archbishop of Gniezno and Poznan was a result of many circumstances and decisions, directed mostly by the Prussian government. After Bismarck’s resignation in 1890, the Prussian authorities declared their readiness for ‘reconciliation’ (Versohnung) with the Polish political elites in the Prussian partition, but with only the smallest possible concessions on their part. The nomination of the Polish candidate for archdioceses orphaned after the death of Juliusz Dinder was to be the first test of both parties’ intentions. An experienced politician such as Rev. Stablewski perfectly understood this and after rejecting Likowski’s candidature, he made public gestures towards the authorities, which were taken as an explicit declaration of loyalty and willingness to cooperate. Political support or even an inspiration for Stablewski was the political camp of Poznan conservatives led by Jozef Kościelski, who personally undertook to force this candidate through at the Berlin court. The government, however, did not want to strengthen or make the Polish political camp independent. Therefore, upon expressing readiness to nominate Stablewski, they wanted to further maintain the status quo in Church and religious policy. A written commitment of the candidate to comply with these principles was to guarantee his full loyalty in the future. However, the declaration written by Stablewski was only an expression of his generally known and publicly expressed attitude of legality and loyalism. He reserved his full obedience only to his Church superiors: Cardinal Ledochowski and the Pope.

Niemiecka medycyna niematerialistyczna 1797–1848 w świetle historiografii z lat 1811–2014

German non-materialistic medicine arose in opposition to the main modernisation trends in European medicine, known for drawing their inspiration from the philosophy of the Enlightenment. The model of this non-materialistic medicine, referred to in historiography as a ‘romantic’ one, owed its existence to the efforts of the Prussian authorities who created it in 1797, relying on the assistance of local doctors and philosophers. It was introduced by the administrative order to the medical departments at German universities both in Prussia and in the rest of Protestant Germany. Because the model was at variance with the dominant European standards, its introduction into the University curricula met with opposition from many German doctors – those affiliated with universities and ordinary physicians. However, this opposition failed to affect the position held by the authorities who did not shy away from imposing the norms of scientific rationality on German universities. It was not until the Spring of Nations that this romantic model was removed from German academia. From 1849 onwards the clinical training remained in line with European standards. As the German romantic model – so far removed from the one prevalent at that time in Europe – received so severe a criticism from medical circles, the history of medicine showed no interest in it until the latter half of the twentieth century. Texts devoted to this appeared almost exclusively in German. The purpose of this article is to characterise the phases the historiography of German romantic medicine has undergone since 1811, i.e. since the inception of the professional historiography of German romantic medicine. The author’s aim is to highlight the principles that underlay each of the medical models presented in the article and to show the dependence of the way in which the models were evaluated in historiography on the existing medical knowledge.

Niemiecka medycyna niematerialistyczna 1797–1848 w świetle historiografii z lat 1811–2014

German non-materialistic medicine arose in opposition to the main modernisation trends in European medicine, known for drawing their inspiration from the philosophy of the Enlightenment. The model of this non-materialistic medicine, referred to in historiography as a ‘romantic’ one, owed its existence to the efforts of the Prussian authorities who created it in 1797, relying on the assistance of local doctors and philosophers. It was introduced by the administrative order to the medical departments at German universities both in Prussia and in the rest of Protestant Germany. Because the model was at variance with the dominant European standards, its introduction into the University curricula met with opposition from many German doctors – those affiliated with universities and ordinary physicians. However, this opposition failed to affect the position held by the authorities who did not shy away from imposing the norms of scientific rationality on German universities. It was not until the Spring of Nations that this romantic model was removed from German academia. From 1849 onwards the clinical training remained in line with European standards. As the German romantic model – so far removed from the one prevalent at that time in Europe – received so severe a criticism from medical circles, the history of medicine showed no interest in it until the latter half of the twentieth century. Texts devoted to this appeared almost exclusively in German. The purpose of this article is to characterise the phases the historiography of German romantic medicine has undergone since 1811, i.e. since the inception of the professional historiography of German romantic medicine. The author’s aim is to highlight the principles that underlay each of the medical models presented in the article and to show the dependence of the way in which the models were evaluated in historiography on the existing medical knowledge.

Socjotopografia przedmieść toruńskich w XIV–XVIII wieku – przypadek Żabieńca

The state of research on the transformations of urban space and the socio-topography of Polish towns in the Middle Ages and the Post-Medieval Period is still relatively poor.This also applies to the subject of the presented research – the suburbs of Toruń. Apart from the cartographic presentation in an atlas of Polish towns, outdated research results of the 19th-century German historians and the partly outdated findings of Tomasz Jasiński, Toruń’s suburbs were not the subject of monographic studies. And yet, the source database is quite extensive; there are both cartographic presentations – already known to researchers as the so-called Douglas’ plan from 1793, but also plans unused to-date of the Rybaki quarter, the plan of Geretowo, and finally plans and sketches of individual plots from the suburb areas. In addition, numerous lists of rents collected from suburban plots survived. They allow for the reconstruction of ownership and economic relations in this area at least in the 18th century. Toruń’s suburbs changed their appearance from the Middle Ages to the early 19th century. The system of medieval streets and plots were destroyed during the construction of the Post-Medieval town’s fortifications in the first half of the 17th century. Serious damage to the suburbs and the displacement of settlements from the areas situated farthest to the north was the result of the Polish-Swedish wars, especially the Great Northern War 1703–1710 and the accompanying epidemics in 1708 and 1710. The intensity of settlement of individual suburbs also changed. In medieval Toruń, the largest settlement centres were located in the St Lawrence’s and St George’s quarters, located to the north of the town walls, while in the 18th century they were situated in parts along the Vistula River – in Rybaki and Winnica. It is also worth noting that Toruń’s suburbs were inhabited mainly by Poles, which clearly distinguished their ethnic structure from the town within the walls. The share of the inhabitants of Polish descent in the suburbs increased steadily from the Middle Ages to the late 18th century. One of the most regularly built suburbs was Żabieniec – a part of Rybaki and it was inhabited from the Middle Ages to the late 18th century. It covered 22 plots in the Middle Ages and 24 plots in the late 18th century, to which Prussian authorities assigned the cadastral numbers 48–71 in 1793. In this article, the history of plots located in Żabieniec in the 18th century was reconstructed with an indication of the amount of rent paid to the town treasury, changes in the building, damage caused by the Vistula River floods and other events (e.g. gunpowder explosion). This reconstruction presents the professional and ethnic structure of the tenants of the plots in Żabieniec. It shows the possibilities for research on Toruń’s suburbs in the future.

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