Mateusz Mataniak

The article reconstructs the relations between the C. K. Directorate of the Krakow Police and the Galician Government during the period of constitutional rule in Austria (1867–1914). It presents how this Directorate handled tasks of the Galician Government in those matters related to security, peace, and public order, which were carried out by the government’s individual departments. It goes on to present the competencies of the Police Director, regarding the organization and activity of its subordinate structures, provision of equipment, uniforms, accommodation, etc., and also supervision of police officers (councilors, high-commissioners, commissioners, adjuncts, and official servants). It deals with military-police and civil-police guards, police departments, and police stations. In light of correspondence with the Galician Government it reconstructs in detail the competencies of the Directorate of the Police, including its roles of public safety, monitoring of social moods, supervising the conduct of ceremonies, controlling associations (including political parties) and the press, combating espionage, and prosecuting deserters, but also performing ordinary police activities such as prosecution of crimes, and combating prostitution, vagrancy, and begging. The work was based to a large extent on rich source materials stored in the national archives in Krakow, the Public Central Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv, and also the Public Archive of the Lviv Region.  

The article presents the settlement – in court – of disputes among the residents of Krakow, during the period of the Republic of Krakow (1815–1846), which concerned the easements of municipal property (central wall, right to a view). The introduction shows easements based on Roman rules, their most important divisions (natural, legal and contractual) as well as the ways of using them. Later in the article, there is an analysis of 14 court cases from the Free City of Krakow. The basis for this are the verdicts of the Tribunal of First Instance, the Court of Appeal and the Court of Third Instance, stored in the National Archives in Krakow (Archive of the Free City of Krakow), as well as records from the Jagiellonian University Archives, dedicated to the judicial activities of the Faculty of Law of Jagiellonian University, during the years 1817–1833. The work contains a great deal of information concerning property relations in Krakow. The article represents a contribution to the usage of French law (Napoleonic Code, Code of Civil Procedure ) in Polish land during the first half of the 19th century.

The review discusses the latest book on the situation of public finances in Galicia during the period of autonomy (1867–1914). The author, using numerous statistical studies, materials of the Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria, and the National Department as well as academic literature (nineteenth-century and modern), presents Galicia’s place in the Austro-Hungarian tax system and recreates the structure of its budgets, as well as the financial situation of local government, and the basic principles of the social security system. This is all offered against a broad constitutional and political, as well as socio-economic, background. The result of the work is several important research theorems, which significantly enrich knowledge about Galicia.

Organisation and range of competencies of the Salt Guards in the Free City of Krakow The article concerns the organisation and activities of the Salt Guards in the Free City of Krakow against a backdrop of the salt monopoly entered into by the authorities of the Republic of Krakow in the years 1815–1847. Salt was transported from the mine in Wieliczka. In the years 1816–1822 a salt monopoly was held by the private Salt Trading Company from Warsaw. Its partners, in exchange for the payment of fees, were awarded exclusive rights to transport and sell salt in the territory of the Republic of Krakow. It was also responsible for maintaining the Salt Guards, in cooperation with the police of the Free City of Krakow, preventing the smuggling of salt (“salt fraud”). In the years 1822–1842 the monopoly was granted to the government of the Kingdom of Poland. The contract conditions did not undergo major modification. The Salt Guards were subordinate, in terms of service, to the government of the Kingdom of Poland, and in terms of jurisdiction to the Senate of the Free City of Krakow. They wore uniforms with the emblems of the Free City of Krakow. It should be added that the principles behind the monopoly were connected with the conditions of the trading treaties between both countries (from 1823 and 1834). Due to the fact that they were not extended, from 1 June 1843, the sale of salt moved into the direct jurisdiction of the Free City of Krakow, which signed agreements with private entrepreneurs regarding the transport of salt to the city. They were Alfus Majer, Franciszek Ripper and Franciszek Dąbrowski. The Salt Administration of the Free City of Krakow was also established and consisted of: a head (M. Mączeński), scribe of the Salt Warehouse (O. Orłowski), controller (A. Oraczewski), warehouse guard, Salt Guards supervisor (W. Wilczyński) and over a dozen guards. The range of their duties was defined in instructions from 25, 27 and 31 May 1843. The head supervised the subordinate clerks, controlled the Salt Warehouse, and submitted reports to the Department of Public Income etc. The clerks of the Salt Administration were responsible for supplying the Salt Warehouse with salt. The guards had to prevent illegal attempts to transport salt to the Free City of Krakow and controlled the salt merchants etc. The Salt Administration functioned until 1847. It was liquidated due to the incorporation of the Republic of Krakow into the Austrian Empire and the resulting change in the owner of the salt monopoly. It should be added that income to the budget from the salt monopoly was quite significant during the whole period of the Free City of Krakow (from 120–195 thousand zloty per annum, in other words, 9–18% of the country’s total income). The work was based to a large extent on rich source materials stored in the National Archives in Krakow.

The article presents the origins and the system of the institutions supervising Churches established by the Sejm of the Free City of Kraków in 1833. Their responsibility was mainly to supervise parish properties, of which they informed the government, and to participate in the construction and redecoration works around the churches, parochial houses, vicarages, cemetries etc. Supervising institutions included collators, parsons, parishoners and District Commissioners who represented the Governing Senate. The article also reconstructs a few cases of construction and redecoration works connected with churches and parish buildings in Kraków and in the so called Kraków District in which supervising offices played their role. The study is mainly based on the archival documents from the National Archives in Kraków.