Central Educational Authorities of the Kingdom of Poland

Collection description

Collection

Country:: Poland

Holding institution:: Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw

Holding institution (official language):: Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych w Warszawie

Postal address:: ul. Długa 7, 00-263 Warszawa

Phone number:: (+ 48 22) 831-54-91; (+ 48 22) 93, 635-45-32

Web address:: www.agad.archiwa.gov.pl

Email:: secretariat@agad.gov.pl

Reference number:: 1/253

Title:: Central Educational Authorities of the Kingdom of Poland

Title (official language):: Centralne Władze Oświatowe Królestwa Polskiego

Creator/accumulator:: Government Commission for Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment

Date(s):: 1804/1919

Language:: Polish; Russian; French; German; Latin

Extent:: 2.72 linear metres (231 folders, books, documents)

Type of material:: Textual material

Physical condition:: good

Scope and content:: The collection is comprised of fragmentary materials related to educational authorities dating from the beginning of the nineteenth century to 1915 including: the activity of the chamber of education and elementary schools; correspondence on former Jesuit-owned land; maintenance of schools; the organisation of the Government Commission for Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment; weekly reports of the governorate inspector on the Piarist Friars in Żoliborz district, Warsaw; teaching of students at the monastery boarding school (konwikt) in Łuków; problems of religious schools; budgetary issues; personal and personnel issues; and management of the Warsaw educational district.

Jewish affairs are covered in unit 40, Memorial regarding the School of Rabbis in Warsaw written by Abraham Buchner and submitted in 1859. Buchner, a retired former teacher at the school, proposed his remarks at the request of the Warsaw educational district’s chief educational officer. He explained why the school’s graduates did not become rabbis, the importance of the Talmud for traditional Jewish people and the traditional Jewish education system. He also proposed reforms meant to improve the school’s efficiency; for instance, he postulated that Jewish religious communities be deprived of the right to appoint and dismiss rabbis and that new rabbis be empowered to examine local ones. Buchner moreover proposed that a network of Mosaic (Jewish) schools be founded.

Archival history:: The collection has been formed from fragmentarily surviving documentation of central-level offices running education-related affairs; the Warsaw educational district was the last of these. 1915 saw the Russian authorities carry away into Russia a portion of the district’s archival resources. Based on the remaining small part, a Public Enlightenment Archive was made. After 1918, a small part of the fund taken to Russia in 1915 rejoined the Archive. As of 1939, some 40,000 units made up the fund. Around 80% of them were burned in September 1939; the remainder was destroyed in 1944. A fragmentary Central Educational Authorities fund presently kept at the Central Archives of Modern Records (AGAD) has been composed of items donated and purchased and of other accessions (including the sewn sheets of central-level educational authorities’ records from the archives in Moscow and Leningrad, supplied in 1963).

Administrative/biographical history:: The collection is composed of records from a total of twelve central-level offices responsible in the period 1804-1915 for management of educational and upbringing affairs within the Kingdom of Poland, which were established, transformed and dissolved one after the other. Chronologically, these include: Ephorat (1804-07); Educational Chamber (1807-10); Direction for the National Education (1810-15); Provisional Government (No. 1) of the Kingdom of Poland – National Enlightenment Department (1815); Government Commission for Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment (1815-32); Government Commission for Internal, Clerical, and Public Enlightenment Affairs (1832-39); Warsaw Educational District (1839-61); Government Commission for Religious Denominations and the Government Commission for Public Enlightenment (1861-64); Government Commission for Public Enlightenment (1864-67); and Warsaw Educational District (1867-1915).

Access points: locations:: Warsaw

Access points: persons/families:: Buchner, Abraham

Subject terms:: Education; Education--Schools and universities; Rabbis

Access, restrictions:: Collection partly available on microfilm.

Finding aids:: Online finding aid avialable.

Inventory available in the reading room of the archive.

J. Godlewska, ‘Centralne Władze Oświatowe Królestwa Polskiego 1815-1867’, in: Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych w Warszawie, Przewodnik po zasobie, vol. 2: Epoka porozbiorowa, ed. F. Ramotowska, (Warsaw, 1998) 223-234.

Małgorzata Kośka, Materiały do dziejów Żydów na ziemiach polskich w XIX w. w zbiorach Archiwum Głównego Akt Dawnych, w: Źródła archiwalne do dziejów Żydów w Polsce, ed. Bolesław Woszczyński and Violetta Urbaniak (Warsaw, 2001), 31-56.

Yerusha Network member:: Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute

Author of the description:: Marcin Wodziński; University of Wroclaw; 2015

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