Katarzyna Jaskółka-Leśniak

Evaluating documentation is crucial for the process of creating sources for scientific studies. The paper discusses the clash between the needs of administration and the expectations of researchers regarding the assessment of documents’ archival value conducted by state archives. It demonstrates two approaches towards evaluating documentation resulting from its usefulness for scientific or practical applications, as well as difficulties concerning the selection of archival materials. It also proposes a role for archive supervisors in the evaluation process, which should balance the needs of science and those of administration.

The Polish constitution and applicable international laws ensure that all Poles have the protection of ownership. There are, however, situations when citizens may be deprived of their property for the sake of public interest. In the case of expropriation, in accordance with current regulations contained in the law of 21 August 1997 concerning property, the acquisition of property may take place only for compensation and because of some kind of public benefit. Changes in property ownership in Poland were also regulated earlier by a range of legal acts. Based on the numerous laws and decrees concerning nationalisation which were passed after World War II, the Polish state came into possession of large areas of land, together with other belongings. A key task of the powers of the Polish People’s Republic was to nationalise the main branches of industry by taking control of industrial plants, trading and transport companies as well as banks. The institutions expropriated during this period in Poland were misused and often run without economic reasoning.
Based on the review of the type and state of stored documentation from the area of expropriation in the National Archives in Krakow conducted in 2014, it was stated that there are great variations in this type of documentation, depending on the area in which the expropriation took place.
The resources of the National Archives in Krakow (together with its local branches) contain documentation connected with expropriation measuring approx. 130 linear metres, however, there is also 1 005 linear metres of documentation from the years 1945–2014, stored in the archives of organisational units as archival reserves.
During the review of the condition and number of property expropriation documents, the documentation connected with enfranchisement from the same period was also analysed. Regulations for the legal state of property and farms were defined by the law from 1971, which sanctioned the informal sale of property within farms based on administrative decisions, the so-called land ownership acts. It was established that the archival reserves of this type of documentation that should be transferred to the National Archives in Krakow equal 578.55 linear metres.
The conducted review defined the number and state of stored documentation concerning expropriation and enfranchisement, as well as the way in which it is organised and registered and the amount of archival materials that should be transferred to the National Archives in Krakow. Preparation of a detailed register of this type of resource will undoubtedly help the effective realisation of an archival investigation in this area.