The Potockis

Collection

Holding institution (official language):: Центральний державний історичний архів України, м. Київ

Scope and content:: Among materials housed are contracts concluded by representatives of the Potocki family or their estate stewards with Jews for the rental of estates, breweries, inns, and liquor licences, and contracts for delivery of various goods to the Potockis, and for the sale of grain; various individuals’ complaints regarding abuses committed by Jewish lease-holders; and mutual claims and complaints between the Potockis and Jewish lease-holders filed in various judicial instances regarding nonpayment of debts and violations of lease conditions. There is also information on the taxation of the Jewish population: records on the payment of taxes by and arrears lists of the Jewish population of the towns of Tul’chin, Nemirov, etc.; mutual competition-based complaints of Christian and Jewish traders and craftsmen; accounts and receipts issued to Jewish merchants for delivered goods; requests by Jewish subjects of the counts Potocki for compensation of material damages suffered by them during the haidamak uprising of 1768, and excerpts from castle and land books [grodskie, zemskie knigi] (writs, minutes of interrogations) on Jews accused of crimes.

Administrative/biographical history:: The name of the Potockis, a Polish gentry family, derives from the village of Potok, near Krakow. Well-known since the mid-thirteenth century, the Potockis especially came to prominence in the late sixteenth century, when Commonwealth Chancellor Jan Zamojski began to take the Potocki brothers under his patronage, valuing their military expertise. In the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries, Potockis occupied the most significant state and administrative posts in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and in the nineteenth century, in the Russian Empire, including in the Kingdom of Poland and Galicia. They had blood ties with the wealthiest and most influential Polish families: the Zamojskis, Lubomirskis, Radziwiłłs, etc. They owned a considerable number of towns and estates in Right-Bank Ukraine, with a significant population of Jews living in these properties.

Subject terms:: Crime; Financial matters; Financial matters--Debt; Haidamaks; Hospitality industry; Hospitality industry--Inns; Legal matters; Personal records; Professions; Professions--Crafts; Trade and commerce; Trade and commerce--Alcohol trade

System of arrangement:: The fond includes three inventories. Op. 1-2 do not have any express structure, while documents in op. 3 are systematised according to the thematic-chronological principle.