Lietuvos Metrika - Lietuvos bajorų rūpestis XVIII a. pabaigoje

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Lietuvos Metrika; Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė (LDK; Grand Duchy of Lithuania; GDL); Šaltiniai, istoriniai; Lithuanian metrica; Historical sources.

ENIn the 1750s the Lithuanian Metrica was taken away from Vilnius to Warsaw. The Lithuanian boyars never lost sight of it, because they believed that "the Lithuanian Metrica is a hoard of donations and privileges of the boyarate" (the 1788 dietine of the Reczyca povet) and that it is their property and must serve their interests. The aim of this paper is to determine the attitude of the Lithuanian boyars to the state of the Metrica and the related problems at the end of the eighteenth century. The main source of the research is the instructions, issued at the dietines to the envoys/delegates of the Seim, enjoining them to present the attitudes of the boyarate to all the spheres of the state and society. These instructions show that in the eighteenth century the boyars very well understood the significance and value of the archives, both central state archives, the Lithuanian Metrica, and the local provincial ones. The evident interest in the Metrica was conditioned by its growing use in public life. Lithuanian boyars were well informed about the state of the Metrica in Warsaw, the work of the metricant Grzegorz Kaczanowski was highly esteemed in their envoys' instructions, and there were proposals to express gratitude to King Stanisław August for the organization of the Metrica complex. Simultaneously complaints were made about the inconveniences caused by keeping the Metrica in Warsaw - it was not under Lithuanian administration, and access to it was difficult and costly.As the general situation did not satisfy the Lithuanian nobility, they put forward proposals to change the state of the Metrica. In the instructions of 1788-1790 there were requirements for better financing of its organization. There were also other, more radical requirements. The 1786 dietines of the povets of Upytė and Trakai required the revindication of the Mctrica to Lithuania. During 1788 and 1790 the same request was exprcs-sed in the dietines of six more povets - those of Grodno, Kaunas, Lida, Mozvr, Reczvca and Smolensk. The main argument was the distance and the necessity' to return the Assessor's Court to Lithuanian and place it under Lithuanian rather than Polish jurisdiction. These requirements were part of the campaign to preserve Lithuanian statehood in the context of the state reforms in the Commonwealth of the Two Nations. These requirements were satisfied at least partially. True, that was effected as a result of the change in the political situation and the war with Russia, in which the adherents of the Confederation of Targowica, relying on Russia, ceded authority to the Reform party of the Four Years Seim. In the autumn of 1792 the government of the General Confederation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ordered the transfer of the Metrica to Vilnius. During the Rising of 1794 it was stored in St Casimir's Church; at the beginning of 1795 the Russian occupying forces were preparing for its transportation. However due to the efforts of the Lithuanian nobility the Metrica (or at least a part of it) remained in Vilnius. It was from here and not from Warsaw that it was taken by the occupiers to St. Petersburg during the disintegration of the Republic. [From the publication]