Summary

The ninth volume of „The Suwalsko-Augustowski Yearbook” opens with three articles being an expanded version of the papers given at the session called “From the tradition of the Suwalki County 1918-1939”. In his article titled “About communal governments in the County of Suwalki in the years 1918-1920 Tadeusz Radziwonowicz discusses, on the basis of archival material gathered in the State Archives in Suwalki, the structure and activities of the Polish authorities, particularly communal and county governments in the first years of independence. He emphasises the attachement of the population of village communes to solutions introduced by Russians after the year 1864, difficulties caused by the German occupation, and Polish –Lithuanian rivalry in communes with mixed nationality population, as well as an influence of the 1920 war. Giving a lot of examples, he presented quite frequent instances of distrust towards the Polish authorities and doubts about their permanence, lawlessness and unlimited power of communal gatherings, and also a fight of commune administrators for influence of their power. The text is complemented with a list of the commune administrators in the County of Suwalki in the years 1912-1913 and 1918-1920, members of communal councils of the County of Suwalki elected in 1920, as well as commune delegates to the Suwalki Temporary County Council and Suwalki County Regional Council in the years 1919-1920.

Marek Sidor in his article The County of Suwalki in the inter-war period – legal grounds and organization of general administration and regional government discusses the organization of the Chief Office of the District in Suwalki, and also of the county government, that is the county regional council in the years 1918-1939.

The article by Andrzej Matusiewicz, titled The Suwalki chief officials and deputy chief officials in the years 1918-1939 contains short biographies of consecutive chief officials and deputy officials in Suwalki. They were prepared on the basis of extensive archival and library research. The text is a contribution to the formation of county authorities élites in the Republic of Poland II.

The section of studies and articles includes two texts. Andrzej Makowski (Szczebra. History of the village from World War I until the present) describes almost a hundred-year-old past of the parish village of Szczebra in the County of Augustow. The text consists of three parts comprising the years of 1914-1939, 1939-1945 and after 1945. The village was quite big with a church, elementary school, a seat of the forest inspectorate, as well as (until 1928) a seat of communal authorities. Making use of the archival materials and also stories told by the locals, the author describes broadly an influence of the most important events of the 20th century on the life of the village.

A conflict over the language of church services in the Sejny diocese and attempts to solve it is described by Jaroslaw Schabienski. The author concentrates on the events taking place at the beginning of the 20th century in the Sejny diocese, and first of all, in the decanates of Kalwaria, Mariampol, Sejny, Suwalki, Wilkowyszki and Wladyslawow. He explains the origin of the dispute and its course in the context of realisation of national ambitions of the Lithuanian nation.

The section of announcements is the most numerous. It opens with two texts by Wojciech Batura. Forty years of the Museum of Augustow Land is a text mainly based on archival material of the museum, complemented with documents from the Society of Augustow Land Lovers and supplemented with recollections of the author. A list of expositions of the Museum of Augustow Land and recollections of Zygmunt Ciesielski, the Bialystok ethnographer associated with the museum, are part of it. The other text, titled Karol Brzostowski – the inventor, has been written on the basis of the files of the Augustow Guberniya Government, which are stored at the Lithuanian State Archives in Vilnius. There is also an interesting official correspondence there, concerning his inventions. However, it has not been noticed by Karol Brzostowski’s biographers.

Anetta Ejdulis has presented The results of excavations on the site No 17 in Szczebra, County of Augustow, Podlaskie Province. The excavations were conducted in the years 1998 and 2000 by the District Museum in Suwalki. The site in Szczebra is a typical sand formation with traces of repeated colonization and it is not homogeneous chronologically. There is a mixed material in it.

Two episodes from the times of the Polish People’s Republic in Augustow land are presented in texts by Krzysztof Sychowicz (Security Service in a fight against “demons”) and Marcin Zwolski (The Augustow Resistance Group). Krzysztof Sychowicz describes attempts undertaken in the 1970s by the inhabitants of Kolnica to build a chapel in the village, and exertions of the Security Service aiming at torpedoing this initiative. Activities of the Augustow Resistance Group and its founders’ vicissitudes are presented by Marcin Zwolski. It is a story about a spontaneous opposition of six people against the introduction of martial law and suppression of “Solidarity” movement.

Non-material cultural heritage from Wigry and the surroundings is an account of field research conducted in March 2009 in the villages lying in the Wigry National Park. Beata Wasilewska- Klamka and Inga Kuzma, the authors, presented the condition of local community awareness as regards the Wigry Camaldolites, on the basis of over twenty interviews carried out among the members of the community.

The section of materials begins with a text by Adam Czeslaw Dobronski “Development of Suwalki- Augustow Lake District as a tourist area” – a conference in Suwalki on 21 November 1934. Tourism in the Suwalki-Augustow Lake District. On the basis of the minutes the author relates the conference held in Suwalki on 21 November 1934. At the conference, in the presence of many eminent state activists, tourist needs of both counties” Augustow and Suwalki were discussed. One of the results of the conference was the creation of tourist councils in both counties. Maciej Dariusz Kossowski, in the second text in this section, quotes and discusses the contents of a political report of the Home Army region No 7, cryptonym “Niedzwiedz” (“Bear”), covering the other half of August 1944.

In the section of reviews, Adam Cz. Dobronski discusses a work by Artur Markowski titled Between the East and West. Family and household of the Suwalki Jews in the first half of the 19th century, which was published in 2008. The volume also contains comments by Piotr Lapinski and Jan Nikolajuk, connected with the publication by the latter author and titled The District Border Guard “Suwalki”. Coming into Existence and Functioning, which was inserted in Volume VII of the “Yearbook”

A chronicle of activities carried out in 2008 by the Suwalsko-Augustowskie Scientific Society, the District Museum and the State Archives closes this volume.

Tłumaczyła: Elżbieta Rzemieniewska