Księstwa Rzeczpospolitej: państwo magnackie jako region polityczny

EN[...] The magnate lordships and other properties, functioning within the framework of the Commonwealth reminded, as to their status, the properties, functioning within the framework of the German Reich. Along with other institutions, they formed the structures of the decentralised, pre-modern Commonwealth, where, side by side with the royal authority, constrained by the privileges of the particular strata, the noble and burghers self-government, developing on the grounds of these privileges, as well as the separate rule of the vassals and the clergy, there was also a place for the functioning of the structures of the magnate states, in many cases maintaining the traditions of the Lithuanian-Ruthenian duchies. In effect of the transformations of the 18th and 19th centuries this system was liquidated, and was replaced by a new political and systemic order. This liquidation took place with the participation of the partitioning powers. It seems, though, that the systemic shape of the Commonwealth, including the separate character of the magnate states, was anyway doomed to collapse. The partitioning powers only accelerated the process. After some time these powers, though, had to make room for the emerging nation states. It is highly probable that the poly-ethnic and feudal Commonwealth, along with the magnate states, functioning inside it, would have to face a similar fate. The broadly understood political and administrative traditions of the Commonwealth, though, were not entirely wiped out by the new system. The new provinces of the partitioning powers gained national autonomy, and even some features of the separate state organisms. This applied, first of all to the co-called Congress Kingdom (Polish Kingdom in the framework of Russian state). After the World War I these territories became the basis for the re-establishment of the sovereign Polish state.In the framework of the new political-administrative system of the beginning of the 19th century all of the noble and magnate properties became the basis for the new local administration. For quite some time the owners of the properties, even though incorporated into the new political system, preserved a part of the former authority over the inhabitants of their properties (the authority of the municipal head, including judicial matters, the remnants of soccage). This lasted more or less until the middle of the 19th century. Yet, also in the later period, after the appropriation of peasants, the noble estates, then limited to manor farms, constituted still the separate units of local administration. They also played a significant role in the socio-economic and cultural life. They preserved a particular significance in the Prussian part, where, in the context of the Prussian way toward the capitalism in farming, the noble manor farms preserved the biggest proportion of the area of the former noble properties. Further, these manor farms were assigned the status of the administrative units, equivalent to the rural municipalities, the so-called manor areas. This separate administrative status was maintained yet in the sovereign Polish state until 1934. So, until that time the owners of the manor farms preserved within the manor areas the authority of the municipal head, as well as maintenance and organisation of the local administration. [...] Some estates constituted still quite vast territorial complexes, encompassing dozens of neighbouring villages and manor farms. Being subject to the single-handed policy of their owners, they maintained their socio-economic separate character amidst the surrounding areas. Many of them continued the traditions of the former magnate states, and succeeded in preserving – or even acquiring – a privileged status. [...].The role of the noble and magnate properties in the framework of the political and administrative system of the Commonwealth, and of the new political-territorial units, having emerged on the area of the Commonwealth after the partitions, caused that their spatial shape and the socio-economic relations, which existed in them, exert an influence on the socio-economic life until today. The boundaries of the present-day administrative units in Poland (municipalities, counties, and even provinces) follow in many cases the course of the boundaries of the ancient magnate states. [...] The analysis of the geographical-political landscape of modern Europe enables the perception of a distinct sequence of phenomena, shaping the political landscape of modern Europe along the East-West direction. This sequence seems to explain the general conditions of development of the magnate states. We can distinguish two fundamental politico-geographical zones in Europe, the western and the eastern ones. [...] The middle-eastern zone. This zone developed owing to the selective reception of the western traditions, first of all by the higher classes (nobility). Lack of personal freedom of the majority of the population, with simultaneous high number of the nobility, enjoying particularly broad privileges and rights, at the expense of the subjects and the monarch (decentralisation). Poland, Hungary, Lithuania proper, Bohemia (until 1620). [...]. [From the publication]