Metadata: Bojanowo Town Records
Collection
- Country:
- Poland
- Holding institution:
- State Archives of Leszno
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archiwum Państwowe w Lesznie
- Postal address:
- ul. Ludwika Solskiego 71, 64-100 Leszno
- Phone number:
- +48 65 526 97 19
- Email:
- info@archiwum.leszno.pl
- Reference number:
- 34/13/0
- Title:
- Bojanowo Town Records
- Title (official language):
- Akta miasta Bojanowo
- Creator/accumulator:
- Bojanowo Town
- Date(s):
- 1813/1950
- Language:
- German
- Polish
- Extent:
- 1.39 metres, 108 folders
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection includes documents produced by municipal authorities: copies of privileges, foundations, city limits, vocational school, gasworks, population, elections to the city council, minutes of meetings of municipal authorities, budgets, statements of accounts, loans, social workers, retirement homes, public wells, town development, town cleanliness, fairs and markets, schools, fire brigade, gas works, town electrification, horse breeding, population movement, advertisements, fairs, power plant, gas works, town future development plan, primary school, census, people's referendum, construction matters, associations etc.
The collection only contains a few Jewish-related records: Statut für den Kranken-Verpflegungs- und Beerdigungsverein zu Bojanowo, 1878-1918 (ref. no. 34/13/0 / - / 6) - hospital and Jewish burial society; Synagogengemeinde Schmückert. Altversorgungsanstalt, 1900-1926 (ref. no. 34/13/0 / - / 32) - care of elderly members of the Jewish community in Bojanów.
- Archival history:
- The materials of the State Archives in Leszno include town files from the period from the 19th century to 1950. Only a few materials are from earlier years. The Old Polish documents are kept in the State Archives in Poznań. The documents were produced and collected by the local magistrate during the Prussian rule. The situation was similar after 1918, when administrative files were issued by the magistrate and were subject to control by the newly created town council (1921).
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
After the occupation of Greater Poland by Prussia in 1793, the main aim of the authorities in terms of the municipal system was to limit the existing local government. During this period, the town system was shaped by the declaration of 18 April on the organisation and appointment of municipalities in so-called South Prussia. In the period of the Duchy of Warsaw, the town organisation was initially based on the constitution on towns adopted by the Four-Year Sejm (restored in 1807), and then the Napoleonic constitution of 1807 and the decree of 1809. In 1815, Prussian law was introduced in the Grand Duchy of Poznań (the so-called Allgemeines Landrecht), which completely abolished Polish legislation. The reform of Stein and Hardenberg of 1808, introduced in Wielkopolska in 1815, established the powers of the municipal self-government. From that time until the beginning of the 20th century, the mayor became the head of the magistrate - as the executive and managing body - with the town secretary as his deputy.
The magistrate was divided into two departments: municipal and police. The decisive body in matters of municipal property management and town management was the town council. The auxiliary bodies of the council were various committees and deputies. The powers of the council and magistrate were significantly reduced compared to the previous period by taking away the judiciary and partly the police from the municipal authorities. The new town ordinance of 1832 reduced the number of councillors and delimited the competences of the council and the magistrate, giving the latter more powers. It also strengthened state control. The municipal ordinance of 1853 subjected the town to even greater control by the state authorities (carried out by landrats) and police matters were handed over to the mayors. The Act of 1893 (supplemented in 1895) gave the towns some income from state taxes. In 1911, a law was passed which aimed to strengthen the position of self-government bodies by the voluntary joining of towns into unions.
In the 19th century, the state commissioned cities to run a registry office, collect state taxes and perform some military activities (conscription lists, military quarters, care for widows and orphans of fallen soldiers). Initially the scope of competences of the town authorities and their organisation in the territory of the former Prussian partition did not change significantly after 1918. Slight changes were introduced by the ordinance of the minister of the former Prussian district of 12 August 1921. At that time, the town self-government was the town council as a decision-making and controlling body, as well as the town council as the executive and state authority in matters within its purview. It was only after 1926 that the character of the municipal government partially changed as a result of the establishment of the State Police. At that time, municipal safety and public order committees were established in towns. On the basis of the Presidential Ordinance of 23 March 1933 on a partial change of the local government system, the name "municipal administration" was introduced, instead of the former “magistrate".
The voivode became the general supervisory authority for the towns removed from the counties, and the county department for the towns that remained under county control. The town council became a decision-making body only, while the head of the entire town administration and economy was the mayor. The following departments were present in city boards at that time: general and organisational, financial and budgetary, municipal economy, and administration (matters conferred by the state). During the Nazi occupation, due to the large percentage of the Polish population, most towns did not receive the rights of the German municipal law of 30 January 1935. Polish municipal governments were abolished and the German administration (Stadtverwaltung) was imposed on the towns, and smaller towns formed municipal administrative districts with neighbouring villages. The heads of the towns were commissioner mayors, under the authority of the landrat authorities.
In the period 1945-1950, the organisation of municipal authorities was based on the Act of 11 September 1944 on the Organisation and Scope of Activities of National Councils and on the Decree of 23 November 1944 on the Organisation and Scope of Local Self-Government. City national councils became the legislative bodies of the city self-government, planning public activities and exercising control over all units performing the functions of public administration. City national councils elected a chairman, a deputy and three members from among themselves, who constituted the presidium of the council. The councils established various committees for cooperation. Executive and management bodies were elected by the town boards, which consisted of the mayor, deputy mayor and members. There were the following departments: organisational, financial and budget, municipal economy and social administration. The existing organisation of municipal authorities was abolished by the Act of 20 March 1950 on local organs of uniform state authority. The functions of local boards were taken over by the presidencies of town national councils.
- Access points: locations:
- Bojanowo
- System of arrangement:
-
The collection is divided into 3 periods, each of which has a number of sub-series.
I. Period of Prussian partition, 1829–1918 (ref. no. 34/13/0 / - / 1–34 / 13/0 / - / 17)
II. Interwar period
1. General and organisational matters, 1918–1939 (ref. no. 34/13/0 / - / 18–34 / 13/0 / - / 22)
2. Financial and budgetary affairs, 1902–1937 (34/13/0 / - / 23–34 / 13/0 / - / 30)
3. Public health and social welfare, 1904–1935 (ref. no. 34/13/0 / - / 31–34 / 13/0 / - / 33)
4. Administrative and communal matters, 1901–1939 (ref. no. 34/13/0 / - / 34–34 / 13/0 / - / 70)
III. Polish People's Republic period
1. General and organisational matters, 1945–1949 (ref. no. 34/13/0 / - / 71–34 / 13/0 / - / 84)
2. Budgetary affairs, 1946–1948 (ref. no. 34/13/0 / - / 85–34 / 13/0 / - / 90)
3. Matters of municipal economy, 1940–1948 (ref. no. 34/13/0 / - / 91–34 / 13/0 / - / 104)
4. Administrative matters, 1844–1950 (ref. no. 34/13/0 / - / 105–34 / 13/0 / - / 108).
- Finding aids:
- A printed inventory is available in the Archive.
- Yerusha Network member:
- The Taube Department of Jewish Studies of the University of Wrocław
- Author of the description:
- Mikołaj Wojciechowski, Taube Department of Jewish Studies, University of Wrocław