Discussions on archives, archival materials, and archivists of the Polish Legislative Assembly 1919–1922

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present the results of the review of historical parliamentary documentation, preserved in the Sejm Library (the library of the Polish Parliament), concerning the works of the Polish Legislative Assembly, whose historical role was to develop and adopt the March Constitution (1921). Less than four years of the existence of the Assembly was a period of intensive work on regulating many areas of economic life, which in the newly created Polish state, just organizing its administration, required creation anew. This period also involved works on organizing the principles of a modern archival administration in Poland. Therefore, in search of references to archives, archival materials, and archivists, the author reviewed the documentation related to the Polish Legislative Assembly 1919–1922 available in the bibliographic database “Parlamentaria polskie 1919–2001ˮ, and the results of this review are described in the article. The review covered all documents available on the library's website (https://biblioteka.sejm.gov.pl/) containing: 342 transcripts (reports) of Assembly’s sessions; 3,697 parliamentary interpellations; 3,790 Assembly’s prints; and 2 bylaws. Other sources of information used in the article are archival materials from the Archives of Modern Records and the press from the period 1919–1922. In reviewing the documentation of the Legislative Assembly, issues relating to the professional group of archivists as one of the groups of public administration officials were not examined, as the author believes that this topic deserves to be explored separately.