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1

Professional Activity of Tradesmen in Greater Poland during the Inter-war Period

100%

Szymanska-Chlebowska Z.

Roczniki Dziejów Społecznych i Gospodarczych

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2005

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vol. 65

195-227

EN

The fundamental objective of this article is to suggest that the assorted forms of professional activity pursued by tradesmen of Greater Poland during the inter-war period were very broad. This particular, and rather new, field of study has been recently given much attention by social and economic historians. By referring to a number of key concepts (the environment, types of commercial firms, and entrepreneurship of tradesmen), the authoress discusses the various trends of economic involvement upon the example of individual and group undertakings. Entrepreneurship is presented within the perspective of significant economic events and phenomena: the creation of the economic foundations of Greater Poland after 1918, the establishment of new jointstock companies, inflation, the Great Depression, and the increasingly weak position of private trade during the state-controlled years. A detailed analysis inclines towards distinguishing two inter-war sub-periods essential for the functioning of Greater Poland tradesmen: 'emotion and economic euphoria' (1919-1929) and 'sense and economic calculation' (1930-1939). The characteristic features of the 1920s included a striving towards economic success, which led to the social promotion of numerous tradesmen. The situation changed with the Great Depression of the 1930s; financial prosperity eroded, revealing the entrepreneurs' tenuous position, their focus on rapid profit, the absence of economic acumen, and the excessive faith in their financial capacity. In addition, the deteriorating position of the tradesmen served to heighten the impact of the State upon the economy. This article also aids our understanding of tradesmen organisations, assessing their influence upon the socioeconomic life of Greater Poland in 1918-1939. The most relevant and noteworthy examples of their activity include the establishment of the Monetary Exchange and the Commodity and Grain Exchange, the opening and administering of the International Poznan Fair, involvement in Polish-German negotiations, the delineation of the activity of the Industrial-Commercial Chamber in Poznan, envisaged as an economic self-government institution, the establishment of the Trade Academy and other vocational education institutions, the development of the national and professional press, and participation in the work conducted by the Board of the Unions of Tradesmen's Associations of Western Poland. She also draws attention to the co-existence and co-operation of different economic environments, such as the traders of Greater Poland, and the financial and industrial circles.

2

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN TYSZOWCE IN SIXTEENTH-EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES (Gmina zydowska w Tyszowcach w XVI-XVIII wieku)

80%

Frykowski J.

Kwartalnik Historii Żydow

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2011

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issue 1(237)

91-106

EN

In the period reviewed in the article Tyszowce was a royal town situated in Belz voivodship. The town's convenient location and friendly legislation influenced the settlement of Jews at the locality already in the early 16th century. The first record of Jewish settlers dates back to 1528. From that moment, the number of members of this group steadily increased, with only brief exceptions. In the 16th and 17th century, the Jews accounted for between 16 and 49% of the town's population. Information about Tyszowce's Jewish community and its officials is fragmentary. The oldest mention about the synagogue in Tyszowce dates back to 1668. We can learn about the Jewish school from the register of damage caused to it by fire in 1645, about a hospital from an entry from 1762 and a mention of a bath was made three years later. Tyszowce Jews engaged in crafts, commerce and lease of mills, breweries, distilleries, wax shops, city taxes, duties, etc. Many of them operated in the food processing sector, as butchers, bakers, meadmakers or distillers. In addition to them there were tailors, hatmakers, fullers, a cordovan maker, furriers, wax collectors, pine tar makers and joiners. Barbers, teachers and musicians represented the service crafts. The sources demonstrate that the Jewish population was an active component of the Tyszowce community and made an everlasting contribution to the town's history.

3

Economic Ties between Wroclaw and the Towns of Southern Germany and Switzerland (Thirteenth-Fifteenth Century)

80%

Mysliwski G.

Roczniki Dziejów Społecznych i Gospodarczych

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2005

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vol. 65

127-165

EN

This article examines the history of the economic relations between Wroclaw and sixteen urban centres in south Germany and Switzerland in the thirteenth-fifteenth century. During the Middle Ages these relations were divided into three primary periods: (1) from the 1240s and the establishment of the first direct contacts between traders from Wroclaw and Ratisbon (Regensburg), and possibly also Passau, to about 1335, when Wroclaw became de facto incorporated into the Kingdom of Bohemia; (2) the period ending around 1394 when business exchanges between the merchants of Wroclaw and Ratisbon were most intense; (3) from ca. 1394, and the first influx of merchants from Nürnberg to Silesia; gradually (from 1418) the incomers won supremacy among the south German and Swiss merchants active in Wroclaw. The trade exchange consisted of natural commodities (fur, Polish cochineal, wax, tin, gold, copper, vitriol) and products of the leather and textile industry (linen, cloth), supplied by Wroclaw and through the local merchants. The merchants from south Germany and Switzerland exported numerous spices, exotic fruit, sweetmeats, medicines, dyes, sweet wine, assorted fabrics produced in the East, north Italy and south Germany, paper, pewter, devotional articles, jewellery and Nürnberg metal artifacts, all to Silesia. Credit contacts initiated in the 1380s developed throughout the fifteenth century. During the third period in the history of contacts between the Wroclaw, south German and Swiss merchants, traders from the first city ran up a debt of about 7 500 Hungarian florins (= more than 4 000 marks of Prague groschen). Their liability 'vis a vis' merchants from certain south German and Swiss towns totalled over 2 700 Hungarian florins (= about 1 521 marks), i.e. only around 36% of the value of their own debts. The origin and development of the economic contacts between Wroclaw and the towns of Southern Germany and Switzerland were caused by several circumstances: the active striving of the Silesian merchants to establish contacts with Rus', Flanders, and the towns of north Italy (Florence, Venice) and to attain an important position as mediators in trade between those regions and Central Europe. The south German and Swiss towns, whose representatives had been previously present in those countries, conducted via Bohemia and later in Silesia a commercial-financial expansion in the Sudeten-Carpathian and Baltic regions, in which Wroclaw, alongside Prague, acted as a transit point as well as the site for international financial settlements and seat for foreign firms. In the Late Middle Ages economic contacts with those regions helped Wroclaw to become one of the strong junctures between the great economic spheres of Europe: Baltic, Sudeten-Carpathian, upper German and north Italian.

4

CIESZYN AS AN ALTERNATIVE CENTRE OF COMMERCIAL EDUCATION IN AUSTRIAN SILESIA BEFORE 1918?

61%

Kadlec P.

Mesto a dejiny

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2023

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vol. 12

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issue 1

64 – 83

EN

The study deals with the issue of commercial education in Austrian Silesia in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It specifically focuses on schools oriented this way in the East Silesian centre of Cieszyn (Teschen), whose development is placed in the context of more general trends in the development of Silesian and pre-Austrian commercial education. It primarily focuses on the circumstances of the emergence of schools and their composition, organization, curriculum content and students. The study aims to assess to what extent Cieszyn fulfilled the role of an alternative centre for commercial education in Silesia during the observed period alongside the provincial capital of Opava, and to what extent the significance of local educational institutions crossed provincial borders and benefited the population of the southern regions of neighbouring Galicia.

5

REINHARD OF REIMS: PRAGUE MERCHANT AND EXILE IN THE SHADOW OF THE HUSSITE REVOLUTION

61%

Vodička O.

Mesto a dejiny

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2022

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vol. 11

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issue 1

39–58

EN

This study follows the life of the merchant Reinhard of Reims, who moved to Prague in the 1390s and amassed significant property and a fair amount of political power due to his business activities. When the Hussite Revolution began, however, he had to leave Prague, and all his assets remaining in Bohemia were confiscated due to his political and religious beliefs. Like many other Prague merchants, he found a new home in Wroclaw, Silesia, a major hub for international trade. Reinhard continued to conduct his trade from exile in Wroclaw, taking part in the retrieval of valuables from abandoned Czech monasteries and other activities of exiles from Bohemia. After a peace was reached and Emperor Sigismund took the Czech throne, Reinhard achieved the restitution of some of his confiscated property.

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Wrocławskie Kramy Bogate w świetle najnowszych badań archeologiczno-architektonicznych posesji przy Przejściu Garncarskim 2

61%

Krzywka M.

Śląskie Sprawozdania Archeologiczne

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2011

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vol. 53

283-304

EN

The latest study made in the block of buildings at the centre of the Market Square at No. 2 Przejście Garncarskie St. covered an area which according to archival maps, was the north-eastern fragment of the historical complex of rich merchants’ shops and the south-eastern fragment of the area with cloth merchants’ shops. The site of investigation lies between the Przejście Żelaźnicze (German name Eisenkram) running between the northern and the southern row of rich merchants’ shops, its earlier name recorded on R. Stein’s map as “Unter den Leinwandereissem” – which separated two rows of cloth merchants’ shops. The northern buildings of the rich merchants’ shops and southern cloth shops stood back to back. Investigation of these historic urban structures called for integration of the results of historical queries, archaeological and architectural studies. After all, the archaeological features represent relics of buildings, their development, or belonged to features and structures associated with the planning of urban space. The investigation made in 2008/2009 focused on an area which, according to archival maps and reconstructions made by historians - was occupied by rich merchants’ business premises (9), cloth merchants’ shops (4) and a building of unknown function. However, no evidence on the two latter was found. If they had existed in this location they must have above-ground structures without cellars. The earlier occupation levels had been destroyed by development of the 19th century but below the cellar level sunken features from the 13th c. (pits, production vats) were discovered dug into the natural layer, and younger rectangular pits filled with stones, finally, a well, backfilled during the 15th c., was found on site of the building with an unknown function. At the lowest level of the 14th c. cellar walls of the rich merchants’ businesses relics of wooden foundations of the earliest buildings dated by pottery to the 2nd half of 13th c. They must have been dug directly into the natural layer or had had cellar. Vaulted cellars built of brick and stone repeated the system of the older timber structures. Relics of medieval walls were identified within the 19th and 20th century walls of the building at the level of cellars, ground floor and first floor. Other findings included walls which divided the cramped cellar space into separate areas, pillars, and relics of 15th and 16th c. timber undercrofts dug into the ground. An unexpected find for the architects was a 14th c. stone portal between two chambers which suggests very early stage of joining chambers together in a period when they should have been functioning as separate commercial facilities. Analysis of the detailed drawn documentation and measurements, archival photographs and iconography available on the medieval commercial facilities made it possible to identify the architectonic features unearthed during fieldwork and a provisional reconstruction of the row of rich merchants’ business premises in the Market Square in Wrocław.

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2 Mesto a dejiny

2 Roczniki Dziejów Społecznych i Gospodarczych

1 Kwartalnik Historii Żydow

1 Śląskie Sprawozdania Archeologiczne

1 Frykowski J.

1 Kadlec P.

1 Krzywka M.

1 Mysliwski G.

1 Szymanska-Chlebowska Z.

1 Vodička O.

1 2023

1 2022