Sources for the history of Royal Prussia in fond of the Dukes Radziwill (fond 694) in the National Historical Archives of Belarus in Minsk

Abstract

Royal Prussia, being a province of the Republic of Poland, suffered greatly during the many wars campaigned in the last 500 years. The calamity of wars has been supplemented by accidental fires devouring the cities over that period. Along with cities, castles and manors, records amassed in them, were destroyed as well. As a result of this damage, but a little of the archival heritage remains intact. Two of the three provinces (voivodeships) of the former Royal Prussia lack the most basic sets of municipal and manorial court records. Those records had only been saved in the smallest of the Prussian provinces – Malbork province. The city archival records had been just slightly better handled. The books of the great Prussian cities – Gdansk and Torun survived and are in fair condition. City records of Chojnice, Malbork, Nowe, Puck and Sztum were also rather lucky. However the rest of them had suffered great damage more often than not. Considering the overall deficiencies of the resource database, it is crucial to cumulate and release information referring to the data concerning Royal Prussia, that are scattered over various archives and libraries both in the country and abroad. The importance of the latter ones lies perhaps mostly in the fact, that rarely do polish researchers get through to them because – at the first glance – what should you expect of archival materials kept in Riga, Minsk, Vilnius or Lvov, that refers to the history of Royal Prussia and its inhabitants? It is usual for the academics to carry out their research in Berlin and other german cities, with only most tentative glimpses cast on Russian archives they have yet to examine on the matter in question. But here? This article serves to summarise an archival research which has been carried out in the National Historical Archives of Belarus in Minsk, the point of which was to gather data on the archives build up and assembled by persons and offices that were in existence in the Royal Prussia between 16th and 18th century, originally located mostly in private archives of the province’s local gentry and nobility. The idea for such research to be conducted has arisen after looking into the history of the Radziwill family and the important role they played in Prussia, as well as examining other sections of the old Radziwill archives that are currently kept in the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw and the National Historical Archives of Belarus in Minsk.