Rola donosu w życiu Polaków zesłanych na Syberię po upadku powstania styczniowego

After the fall of the January Uprising there were about 20,000. Poles in Siberia. The Russian administration and the Siberian communities were not prepared to receive such a large group of Poles. In many places, especially in the initial period of exile, there were various types of misunderstandings between the Poles and the Russian administration and the Siberian community. We learn about them from denunciations. The informers came from both exiles and the local Siberian population. There was a fundamental difference between these denunciations. Poles, writing denunciations on their compatriots, counted on a reduction in punishment or even on release. Everyone was disappointed. The Siberian population, in turn, in their denunciations to the administration of various levels, claimed that Poles were preparing a general-Siberian uprising in order to detach this part from Russia that the local administration was too lenient with Poles, especially with people of noble origin. Finally, it was reported that Poles were preparing arsonist attacks on Siberian cities. The authorities were also warned that if Poles lived in large communities there was a danger of polonization of Siberian communities. For a historian, denunciations are important in the process of recreating the life of Siberian exiles, especially in the aspect of mutual relations between the Poles and the local population.

Donosy. Między normą a patologią relacji społeczeństwa z organami władz policyjnych. Refleksje nie tylko na przykładzie dziewiętnastowiecznych akt policyjnych: żandarmerii i ochrany

Informing — entangled in a legal category system, marked a temptation to seize power indirectly, to acquire its attributes — found its place and recognition in the reality of society’s life in the nineteenth century. This is confirmed both by the legal norms adopted in tsarist Russia as well as social norms that evolved in the country. Particularly elaborate in terms of their form and types were denunciations used by police institutions in tsarist Russia — for them denunciations were one of the most important sources of information as well as means of communication. Police denunciations, unique methods of their creation and acquisition, sometimes barely legal ways of using them prevailed over the established norms of contact and collaboration between police agencies and society. The multitude and frequency of denunciations in police records testified to the existence of numerous pathologies in the relations between society and the police. What emerges as pathological in the light of the denunciations is the area of social penetration carried out by the police, ways of gathering information and ways of using it. Despite their shortcomings and the difficulties involved in assessing such documents, police denunciations are one of the most valuable categories of historical sources, which cannot be left out of any reliable research.

Gubernator tobolski Aleksander Despot-Zenowicz w świetle donosów

Aleksander Despot-Zenowicz, a Pole who in 1863–1867 served as the Governor of Tobolsk, was remembered by Poles exiled to Siberia after the January Uprising as their protector, a person thanks to whom it was possible to reduce the hardship of exile to some extent. The prevailing opinion in the literature on the subject is that this led to a huge number of denunciations sent to the governor’s superiors, including Tsar Alexander II himself. DespotZenowicz was accused in them of favouring Poles or even of plotting to separate Siberia from Russia. Some believe that it was the denunciations that were the cause of his dismissal. In the article the author analyses the content of the surviving denunciations and assesses their impact on the governor’s career. It turns out that the number of denunciations was not so high (obviously, some may not have survived) and their impact on the evaluation of DespotZenowicz’s activity by his superiors was minimal. In some cases the denunciations were more detrimental to the informer than to the person informed against.

Donosy w Kancelarii Gubernatora Lubelskiego w ostatnich dekadach XIX w.

In its task of controlling the local population, the local Russian administration in the Kingdom of Poland gathered information from both official and unofficial sources. An important source, from the point of view of the Russian authorities, was denunciations. They provided information about various individuals and phenomena occurring outside the knowledge of the administrative apparatus. The denunciations finding their way into the hands of the Governor of Lublin concerned many issues of everyday life, from the functioning of state administration and its functionaries to crime and morality. Many of them were not left without some sort of response from the authorities — sometimes this was the way in which citizens drew the authorities’ attention to their problems, grievances etc., including those caused by representatives of the state administration.

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.

Rekursy do władz miejskich jako źródło wiedzy o gminie żydowskiej. Przypadek Krakowa z roku 1877

In the imperial times recourse to a higher authority was a common administrative practice. Thus it seems justified to consider whether recourse cases can be useful as a source of information about the situation in specific Jewish communities. All the more so given the fact that they featured detailed descriptions of the situations/procedures requiring interventions of the authorities and that every application was in somebody’s name. The author analyses the usefulness of the source, using as her example recourse cases from 1877.

Kontrola i ewidencja mieszkańców Łodzi . Księgi ludności stałej i niestałej oraz księgi domowe (1864–1914)

Despite changings forms and implementing provisions concerning registers, the essence of the record keeping system remained unchanged from 1810 until 1931. The record keeping duty lay with municipalities and communes, but in larger cities in particular record keeping was supervised by the police force. In the second half of the nineteenth century in Łódź it was precinct inspectors (from 1867 Land Guard officers) who provided city police chiefs with reports containing data on the number of permanent and non-permanent residents. Analysing the records and reports submitted to the police, I present how the authorities attempted to control the residents and what information about them they sought in particular. The police reports also provide an insight into the extent to which police officers were able to keep the registers in line with their recommendations and instructions. I point to the possibilities offered to scholars by an analysis of population registers. The registers to be found in the police-wartime section of the City of Łódź Records are one of the most complete collections of this type in Poland. I focus on the registers of permanent and non-permanent residents kept from 1864 and based on a detailed form.

I doveri della moglie secondo gli insegnamenti di alcuni predicatori e scrittori tardomedievali

The society of medieval Europe had specific expectations for marriageable girls. From an early age girls were taught how to be wives and mothers, for example by being entrusted with the care of their younger siblings. The girls learned everything they would need in the future by observation. According to the teachings of preachers and writers at the time, girls, irrespective of their social status, were not meant to remain idle, as there were fears that with too much free time on their hands, they might spend it contemplating their looks, practising gestures that were to attract the attention of men or spending time alone in the streets and squares, thus exposing themselves to a variety of dangers. A wife was expected to bear a lot of children, preferably boys, because the mortality rate among young children was high at the time. Wifely duties also included raising children, at least until they were taken over by, for example, a tutor hired by the father, managing the household and ensuring every possible comfort for the husband. As Gilbert of Tournai noted, it was the mother who was expected to bring up the children in faith and to teach them good manners. The duties of the wife obviously depended on her social standing — different duties were expected from the wives of noblemen than from women lower down on the social ladder, who often had to help their husbands, in addition to doing everyday chores.