The Oliva Treaty of 1660, which ended the Second Northern War, does not evoke such emotions as other historical events of Polish history, for example, the 600th anniversary of the victory of Grunwald (Tannenberg) celebrated this year. One of the reasons of this situation is probably a fairly abstract way in which the treaty was conducted during an international congress and a similar, but substantially different form from The Treaty of Westphalia, although it was its 'continuation' after 12 years. In this situation, although the official name of the Oliva Treaty is the Polish-Swedish treaty, one should not be surprised that a copy of this treaty is stored in the Archives du Ministère des Affaires ètrangères (Paris) under the name: Traités Multilatèraux. It is worth to stress that this treaty covers a very wide territory, many sites (9) and the guarantors (5). The publishers of a website dedicated to European treaties - Institut für Europäische Geschichte Mainz (IEG): Europäische Friedensverträge der Vormoderne – found as many as 18 copies of this treaty in various European archives. More copies of The Oliva Treaty than enumerated above existed and still exist. Basic text Instrumentum pacis of May 3rd 1660, agreed by the commissioners, written in Latin (with errors) was prepared in five copies for Poland, Sweden, Brandenburg and The Holy Roman Empire. To this have to be added one copy for France, the lists of errors (of August 1660), the ratifications by the rulers (in Poland also by the Diet [Sejm]), and guarantors’ documents. Documents that have not been covered yet by the above mentioned project, i.e., papers of the Elector of Brandenburg commissioners, the Swedish ratification, accession to the Treaty by Leopold are stored at The Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw.
A small contribution to the kings’ seals used in the chancellery of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in modern times (mostly during Vasa dynasty reign). Apart from known – thanks to the Pieczęcie królów polskich (Seals of Polish Kings), issued by Marian Gumowski in 1920 – facts about the re-use of the former king’s seals (with needed modification – the name) by his follower (e.g. Wladislaw IV reused in 1633 his father’s seal from the year 1617) and some other examples of not strict heraldic presentation of the coats of arms (the Pogoń), the main problem is discussion about one of the twelve shields with coats of arms around the Great Seal of Lithuania. In the literature – M. Gumowski and lastly S. K. Kuczyński, Polskie herby ziemskie. Geneza, treści, funkcje, Warszawa 1993: who slightly questioned such an identification – a coat of arms with a stag is presented as the symbol of the Lublin voivodeship (or land). This voivodeship however did not belong to the Grand Duchy, it was the Crown land. The possibility recognized by the author is the probably identification of the animal as a moose. And the moose was on the coat of arms of Semigallia, which was a part of Livonia. Livonian title was used of on the kings’ Lithuanian seals, the status of the former Crowns fief was not strictly decided in the 17th century.
Frederick Augustus of the Saxon Wettin dynasty, Duke of Warsaw, created the General National Archive - the first Polish public archive by the Decree of September 2nd, 1808. Nowadays, the Central Archives of Historical Records is its successor. Among archival records are priceless relics - historical monuments - such as the Polish–Teutonic treatises that illustrate the role of the medieval Polish Kingdom. Thus, one question has to be asked: where all these historical monuments had been stored before, what had been there before the General National Archive was created? It is impossible to imagine a modern state, which was Poland in the time of the Jagiellonian Polish - Lithuanian Commonwealth, without an archive. Archivum Regni in arce Cracoviensi, the Cracow Crown Archives at the treasury of the Wawel Castle acted as the archive of the Polish Kingdom. The first mention about the archive at the Wawel Castle comes from the early 16th century; the archive was then divided into two sections: the documents regarding relations with the foreign countries and internal affairs - a later section Regni Poloniae. Diplomatic items were probably divided into groups relating to the individual states. The first inventory of this archive was drawn up around 1551 by the royal secretary Martin Kromer († 1589). And then, in the middle of the 16th century an important element of the archive is to be found: elaboration of the records. Thanks to Kromer the archive was ordered; records were grouped into chronologically structured sections. Almost 20 years later, another inventory was written by a committee, chaired by the royal secretary, Jan Zamoyski († 1605), who later became Chancellor and Grand Hetman. Subsequential inventories are dated back to the 17th c. and 18th c. At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, in the time of Sigismund III Vasa, the permanent residence of the royal court was transferred from Cracow city to Warsaw city. There was also created the Warsaw Crown Archives (Archivum Regni Secretius Varsaviense). It suffered heavy losses during „the Swedish Deluge” (1655–1660), when the archives along with the Crown Register were deported to Sweden. But soon the books of the Crown Register returned to Warsaw almost complete under the provisions of the Treaty of Oliva (1660). For the first time the issue of restitution of archives was raised in the international treaty. A table of contents of the Crown Register after revindication Synopsis variorum librorum seu conotatio, vulgo Metrica Regni dictorum, written in the late 17th century by the Crown Register clerk Stefan Kazimierz Hankiewicz († 1701), shows its state of that time. It is the oldest complete list of the Crown Register books of both joined series: minor and greater chancelleries. The first efforts to drawn up inventory of the Warsaw Crown Archives were made by a Crown Register clerk Ignatius Nowicki in the years 1760–1766. In 1765 the Cracovian part of the Crown Archives was moved to Warsaw. One year later the Archives of the Crown Treasury were created. Precisely from this period - the 60–ties of the 18th century - the doyen of the Polish archives Prof. Andrzej Tomczak dates back the creation of the Polish state archives. However, studies of other scholars (eg. I. Sułkowska–Karasiowa, W. Krawczuk) conducted on the history of the Crown Archives pointed out that the existence of inventories and summaries can lead to a slightly different perspective on the past of the Crown Archives, which was not common „file repository”, but the archive of the Polish - Lithuanian Commonwealth.
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Książę warszawski Fryderyk August z saskiej dynastii Wettynów, dekretem z 2 IX 1808 r. powołał Archiwum Ogólne Krajowe – pierwsze polskie archiwum publiczne. Obecnie jego kontynuatorem jest Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych. Znajdują się w nim bezcenne zabytki – pomniki dziejowe – np. traktaty polsko–krzyżackie świadczące o średniowiecznej roli Królestwa Polskiego. Trzeba zadać pytanie: gdzie te pomniki dziejowe były przechowywane wcześniej, co było przedtem? Nie sposób wyobrazić sobie nowoczesnego państwa, jakim była Polska w dobie unii jagiellońskiej, bez archiwum. Takim archiwum królestwa było Archivum Regni in arce Cracoviensi, czyli Archiwum Koronne Krakowskie przy skarbcu na Wawelu. Najwcześniejsza informacja o Archiwum na Wawelu, pochodzi z początku XVI w. Było ono wówczas podzielone na dwie części: dokumenty odnoszące się do stosunków z państwami obcymi i dotyczące spraw wewnętrznych – późniejszy dział Regni Poloniae. Dokumenty dyplomatyczne były prawdopodobnie podzielone na grupy odnoszące się do poszczególnych państw. Pierwszy inwentarz tego archiwum sporządził ok. 1551 r. sekretarz królewski Marcin Kromer (†1589). I tu, w połowie XVI w. trafiamy na istotny element archiwalny: opracowanie zasobu. Dzięki Kromerowi Archiwum zostało uporządkowane; archiwalia pogrupowano w działy usystematyzowane chronologicznie. Niespełna 20 lat później kolejny inwentarz opracowała komisja, której przewodniczył sekretarz królewski Jan Zamoyski (†1605), późniejszy kanclerz i hetman wielki koronny. Następne inwentarze archiwum pochodzą już z XVII i XVIII w. Na przełomie XVI i XVII w., za czasów Zygmunta III Wazy, nastąpiło przeniesienie stałej rezydencji dworu królewskiego z Krakowa do Warszawy. Tu też zorganizowano Archiwum Koronne Warszawskie. Doznało ono wielkich strat w okresie „potopu” (1655–1660), kiedy razem z Metryką Koronną wywieziono je do Szwecji. Jednak wkrótce Księgi Metryki Koronnej powróciły do Warszawy prawie w komplecie na mocy postanowień pokoju oliwskiego (1660). Po raz pierwszy w traktacie międzynarodowym poruszono kwestię rewindykacji archiwaliów. Sporządzony w 2. poł. XVII w. przez metrykanta koronnego Stefana Kazimierza Hankiewicza (†1701) spis ksiąg Metryki Koronnej, po ich rewindykacji Synopsis seu conotatio variorum librorum, vulgo Metrica Regni dictorum, wykazuje ówczesny stan Metryki Koronnej. Jest to najdawniejszy, kompletny wykaz ksiąg Metryki Koronnej obu połączonych serii: kancelarii większej i mniejszej. Pierwsze działania zmierzające do inwentaryzacji Archiwum Koronnego Warszawskiego podjął w latach 1760–1766 metrykant koronny Ignacy Nowicki. W 1765 r. krakowska część Archiwum Koronnego została przeniesiona do Warszawy. Rok później utworzono Archiwum Skarbu Koronnego. Właśnie z tym okresem – latami 60. XVIII w. – nestor archiwistyki polskiej, prof. Andrzej Tomczak wiąże powstanie polskich archiwów państwowych. Jednak badania innych uczonych (np. I. Sułkowskiej–Karasiowej, W. Krawczuka) prowadzone nad dziejami Archiwów Koronnych zwracają uwagę, że istnienie inwentarzy, a także sumariusza, skłaniać może do nieco innego spojrzenie na przeszłość Archiwum Koronnego, które nie było przecież zwykłą ‘składnicą akt’, lecz archiwum Rzeczypospolitej.
The marriage concluded in Vilnius in 1562 between John, Duke of the Finnland from the Hause of Vasa, and Katarzyna Jagiellonka, sister of the Polish King Sigismund Augustus, proved to be fateful for the history of Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. A son born from this marriage, the future King Sigismund III began Vasa dynasty in the Commonwealth. It is puzzling that little sources left to the same wedding and related events. The article summarizes a few references preserved in the archives of Polish and Lithuanian public and private provenance, which are preserved in the holdings of the Central Archives the Central Historical Records.
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