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Authors: Norman Davies
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falter. It acted as host to a secret meeting held in the tsar’s former hunting lodge at Viskuli in the Belovezh Forest on 9 December 1991, when the representatives of Russia, Byelorussia and Ukraine declared the USSR to be extinct. The world’s largest state expired painlessly. It met a much easier death than that suffered by the grand duchy almost two centuries earlier.
Archives are, in a sense, the dust and ashes of a dead polity. They contain the records of monarchs who reigned, of institutions that functioned and of lives that were lived. Like boxes of family papers in the attic, they are an indispensable aid to accurate memory and to trustworthy history.
The condition of archives, therefore, gives a good indication of the strength of memory and the reliability of the history books. If archives are well ordered, one may conclude that the legacy of past times is respected. If not, it is likely that memory and history have been neglected. One of the first decisions of ill-willed regimes is to order the destruction or sequestration of their predecessors’ archives. In the case of the grand duchy, large parts of the archives have totally disappeared.
The Metryka Litevska or ‘Lithuanian Register’ is the commonest collective name for the original indexes/archival inventories of the grand duchy’s central chancery. Since it no longer exists in one place, it is difficult to estimate its size. But, at a minimum, it was made up of a thousand huge, leather-bound ledgers, and it contained six main divisions: Books of Inscriptions (i.e. summaries of laws and decrees), Books of ‘Public Affairs’ (records of the Chancellor’s Office), Sigillata (copies of documents issued under the grand-ducal seal), Court Books, Land Survey Books, and Legation Books relating to foreign affairs. The time-span stretches from the very early thirteenth century to the very late eighteenth century. The principal languages employed are ruski (Old Belarusian), Latin and Polish.
Locating and reconstructing the Metryka Litevska has demanded a fascinating saga of academic sleuthing that could only be undertaken with modern technology. It was long delayed, partly because the most interested parties had no access, and partly because Russian and Soviet archivists were following their own agenda. Nowadays, one can state with some confidence that the dispersal of the grand duchy’s records took place in nine or ten stages:
In 1572, following Union with Poland, the main body of documents (though not the registers) was taken by the last chancellor of the pre-Union grand duchy, Mikołaj ‘the Red’ Radziwiłł, and was housed in the Radziwiłłs’ palace at Nieświez˙. According to the Radziwiłłs, the priceless papers had been consigned to them for safe-keeping; according to others they were stolen.
From 1572 to 1740 the archives of the post-Union period, together with the older registers, were kept in the Chancery in Vilnius. Most papers relating to foreign policy were filed in the Metryka Koronna . The Metryka Litevska received numerous files relating to Muscovy and the Tartars.
During the Swedish invasion of 1655–6, large quantities of documents and inventories were plundered and taken to Stockholm. Part of the loot was returned by the Treaty of Oliwa (1660), but an important group of registers remained in Sweden.
In 1740 the grand-ducal Chancery and its records were moved to Warsaw; sometime later a joint Polish-Lithuanian archival administration was established. After 1777, since the majority of clerks could no longer read Cyrillic, Polish summaries were added to the contents of each ledger. A start was made on a huge project aiming to produce a full copy of the entire archive and to transcribe all the ruski texts into the Latin alphabet.
In 1795 the contents of Warsaw’s archives and libraries, together with the surviving registers, were seized by the Russian army, and transported to St Petersburg, where they were duly joined by the
Archives are, in a sense, the dust and ashes of a dead polity. They contain the records of monarchs who reigned, of institutions that functioned and of lives that were lived. Like boxes of family papers in the attic, they are an indispensable aid to accurate memory and to trustworthy history.
The condition of archives, therefore, gives a good indication of the strength of memory and the reliability of the history books. If archives are well ordered, one may conclude that the legacy of past times is respected. If not, it is likely that memory and history have been neglected. One of the first decisions of ill-willed regimes is to order the destruction or sequestration of their predecessors’ archives. In the case of the grand duchy, large parts of the archives have totally disappeared.
The Metryka Litevska or ‘Lithuanian Register’ is the commonest collective name for the original indexes/archival inventories of the grand duchy’s central chancery. Since it no longer exists in one place, it is difficult to estimate its size. But, at a minimum, it was made up of a thousand huge, leather-bound ledgers, and it contained six main divisions: Books of Inscriptions (i.e. summaries of laws and decrees), Books of ‘Public Affairs’ (records of the Chancellor’s Office), Sigillata (copies of documents issued under the grand-ducal seal), Court Books, Land Survey Books, and Legation Books relating to foreign affairs. The time-span stretches from the very early thirteenth century to the very late eighteenth century. The principal languages employed are ruski (Old Belarusian), Latin and Polish.
Locating and reconstructing the Metryka Litevska has demanded a fascinating saga of academic sleuthing that could only be undertaken with modern technology. It was long delayed, partly because the most interested parties had no access, and partly because Russian and Soviet archivists were following their own agenda. Nowadays, one can state with some confidence that the dispersal of the grand duchy’s records took place in nine or ten stages:
In 1572, following Union with Poland, the main body of documents (though not the registers) was taken by the last chancellor of the pre-Union grand duchy, Mikołaj ‘the Red’ Radziwiłł, and was housed in the Radziwiłłs’ palace at Nieświez˙. According to the Radziwiłłs, the priceless papers had been consigned to them for safe-keeping; according to others they were stolen.
From 1572 to 1740 the archives of the post-Union period, together with the older registers, were kept in the Chancery in Vilnius. Most papers relating to foreign policy were filed in the Metryka Koronna . The Metryka Litevska received numerous files relating to Muscovy and the Tartars.
During the Swedish invasion of 1655–6, large quantities of documents and inventories were plundered and taken to Stockholm. Part of the loot was returned by the Treaty of Oliwa (1660), but an important group of registers remained in Sweden.
In 1740 the grand-ducal Chancery and its records were moved to Warsaw; sometime later a joint Polish-Lithuanian archival administration was established. After 1777, since the majority of clerks could no longer read Cyrillic, Polish summaries were added to the contents of each ledger. A start was made on a huge project aiming to produce a full copy of the entire archive and to transcribe all the ruski texts into the Latin alphabet.
In 1795 the contents of Warsaw’s archives and libraries, together with the surviving registers, were seized by the Russian army, and transported to St Petersburg, where they were duly joined by the
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