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Administration and administrative thought in the late 18th and early 19th centuries -- The course of works on the preparation of administrative system reform -- The central government -- Ministries -- Territorial administration -- Attitude towards bureaucrats.

This article examines the reasons for the popularity of collegial decision-making in early nineteenth century Poland. Was it driven by the force of habit and the attachment to tradition, or were practical reasons more important? Was the popularity of collegiality connected to a deeply felt lack of control over the activities of the administration, particularly the local administration? The contribution focuses on the process of rebuilding the administration based on the one-man management principle imposed on Poles by Napoleon at the time of establishment of the Duchy of Warsaw. Particular emphasis is placed on the period between 1814 and 1815, that is during the operation of the so-called Civil Reform Committee, appointed following Napoleon's demise in connection with Tsar Alexander I's plans to transform the Duchy into the Kingdom of Poland. ; This article examines the reasons for the popularity of collegial decision-making in early nineteenth century Poland. Was it driven by the force of habit and the attachment to tradition, or were practical reasons more important? Was the popularity of collegiality connected to a deeply felt lack of control over the activities of the administration, particularly the local administration? The contribution focuses on the process of rebuilding the administration based on the one-man management principle imposed on Poles by Napoleon at the time of establishment of the Duchy of Warsaw. Particular emphasis is placed on the period between 1814 and 1815, that is during the operation of the so-called Civil Reform Committee, appointed following Napoleon's demise in connection with Tsar Alexander I's plans to transform the Duchy into the Kingdom of Poland.

Autor artykułu skupił się na zagadnieniu reorientacji poglądów na administrację w polskiej myśli politycznej w ciągu zaledwie kilku lat istnienia Księstwa Warszawskiego, zwłaszcza w jego końcowym stadium (1813–1815). Utworzony przez Napoleona Bonapartego organizm państwowy powstał na fali entuzjazmu i wiary Polaków w odrodzenie narodowe i urzeczywistnienie oświeceniowej wiary w sprawczą siłę rządu, zdolnego do podźwignięcia kraju z upadku i wprowadzenia na drogę cywilizacyjnego postępu. Wkrótce jednak okazało się, że Księstwo Warszawskie stanie się państwem, którego kilkuletnie istnienie naznaczone będzie ciągłymi wojnami i pogarszającą się sytuacją gospodarczą, wpływającą na wzrost negatywnych ocen struktury państwowej oraz tęsknotę za dawną tradycją ustrojowo-prawną. O zmianie stosunku do biurokracji świadczą obszernie cytowane w tekście wypowiedzi zarówno ziemianina z Lubelszczyzny Joachima Owidzkiego, osoby powszechnie znanej i szanowanej w tym regionie, jak i byłego jakobina Józefa Kalasantego Szaniawskiego, wyrazistego przedstawiciela elity intelektualnej i politycznej. Natomiast za podsumowanie zmiany stosunku do urzędników, jaki dokonał się w tych czasach, może służyć tekst profesora Szkoły Prawa Franciszka Ksawerego Szaniawskiego, który zauważa, że totalna krytyka "stanu urzędniczego" wynika ze skłonności do przesady. ; The author of the article focused on the issue of reorientation in views about administration, which occurred in the Polish political thought over a mere few years of existence of the Duchy of Warsaw, especially at the last stage of its existence in 1813–1815. Th is state entity created by Napoleon came into being on the wave of enthusiasm and faith in the national rebirth of Poles and in the Enlightenment belief about the agency of the government, capable of lift ing the country from collapse and of setting it on a path of civilizational progress. Soon, however, it turned out that at the same time it became a state whose short-lived existence of only a few years would be marked by constant wars and a declining economic situation, negatively aff ecting the society's assessments of the state structures, as well as kindling a yearning for the old political traditions. Extensively quoted statements of both a landowner from the Lublin region, Joachim Owidzki (a person widely known and respected in this region) as well as the former Jacobin Józef Kalasanty Szaniawski (an expressive representative of Polish intellectual and political elites) documented the change in the attitude to the bureaucracy; whereas the text of the School of Law professor Franciszek Ksawery Szaniawski could serve as a summary of this change. He noted that the total criticism of the "clerical state" resulted from a tendency to exaggeration.

The present paper has been prepared under the project «Administrative Thought in the Kingdom of Poland 1814-1831» financed by the National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki) on the basis of decision no. DEC-2013/11/D/HS5/01901.

Publikacja recenzowana / Peer-reviewed publication ; U schyłku 1815 r. ukonstytuowały się władze konstytucyjne Królestwa Polskiego – Rada Administracyjna i Ogólne Zgromadzenie Rady Stanu – i przystąpiły do intensywnych prac nad rozwinięciem postanowień konstytucyjnych. Za sprawę priorytetową uznano organizację komisji rządowych. Minister spraw wewnętrznych i policji Tadeusz Mostowski już na drugim posiedzeniu Rady Administracyjnej 31 grudnia 1815 r. przedstawił projekt Zasad do organizacji władz ministerialnych. Podczas dyskusji nad tym projektem, który fi nalnie nie uzyskał sankcji namiestnika i nie został skierowany do dalszych prac, obradujący ministrowie skupili się na kwestii "usamodzielnienia" radców stanu "zawiadujących" poszczególnymi wydziałami w komisjach rządowych i "ustopniowania władz". Analiza tejże debaty stanowi główny przedmiot artykułu. Podczas gdy namiestnik Józef Zajączek przeciwny był usamodzielnianiu radców stanu i dążył do koncentracji władzy administracyjnej w rękach ministrów, jego oponenci – w analizowanej debacie głównie Tadeusz Matuszewicz – opowiadali się za przyznaniem radcom stanu kierującym wydziałami większej samodzielności. Polaryzacja stanowisk w tej kwestii stanowiła preludium późniejszego sporu o kolegialność w komisjach rządowych – pierwszej ustrojowej batalii o wykładnię konstytucji Królestwa Polskiego, którą na forum Rady Stanu toczył namiestnik z większością pozostałych jej członków. ; Right at the end of 1815, the constitutional authorities of the Kingdom of Poland – Administrative Council and the General Assembly of the Council of State – were established. Soon thereaft er, they undertook some intensive work on developing constitutional provisions. Th eir priority was the organization of governmental commissions. Th e Minister of Internal Aff airs and Police, Tadeusz Mostowski presented a draft concerning the Principles of organization of ministerial authorities just at the second session of the Administrative Council, held on 31 December 1815. In the course of discussions on the draft , which ultimately was not sanctioned by the viceroy and was not submitted for further proceedings, the ministers focused on the issue of giving more autonomy to state counsellors who headed individual divisions in governmental commissions, as well as on "grading the authorities". Th e analysis of this debate is the main focus of the present article. While viceroy Józef Zajączek was against granting autonomy to state counsellors and strove for the concentration of administrative power in the hands of ministers, his opponents – mainly Tadeusz Matuszewicz advocated the idea. Th e polarization of the opinions in this matter marked the prelude to a subsequent dispute on collegiality in governmental commissions – the very fi rst battle about the interpretation of the Kingdom constitution, waged by the viceroy against the majority of its members at the Council of State.

Tables -- Notes on Contributors -- 1 Introduction: Modernisation, National Identity, and Legal Instrumentalism --   //Michał Gałędek -- 2 Prenuptial Agreements of the Hungarian Aristocracy in the Early Modern Era --   //Zsuzsanna Peres -- 3 Revolution and the Instrumentality of Law: Theories of Property in the American and French Revolutions --   //Bart Wauters -- 4 English Commercial Law in the /Longue Durée : Chasing Continental Shadows --   //Sean Thomas -- 5 The Italian Destiny of the French Code de commerce (19th Century) --   //Annamaria Monti -- 6 The Reception of the French Commercial Code in Nineteenth-Century Polish Territories: A Hollow Legal Shell --   //Anna Klimaszewska -- 7 Development of the medical malpractice law and legal instrumentalism in the Antebellum America --   //Marcin Michalak -- 8 The Contractual Third-Party Notion: Beyond the Principle of the Relativity of Contracts: The Comparative Legal History as Methodological Approach --   //Sara Pilloni -- 9 Civilian Arguments in the House of Lords' Judgments: Regarding Delictual (Tortious) Liability in 20th and 21st Century --   //Łukasz Jan Korporowicz -- 10 /Usucapio in Era of Real Estate Title Registration Systems --   //Beata J. Kowalczyk -- 11 In the Name of the Republic: Family Reform in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century France and China --   //Mingzhe Zhu -- 12 The Private Law Codification as an Instrument for the Consolidation of a Nation from Inside: Estonia and Latvia between two World Wars --   //Marju Luts-Sootak, Hesi Siimets-Gross, Katrin Kiirend-Pruuli -- 13 Reluctant Legal Transplant: United States Moral Rights as Late 20th Century Honor Law --   //Steven Wilf -- Index.

The driving force of the dynamic development of world legal history in the past few centuries, with the dominance of the West, was clearly the demands of modernization ? transforming existing reality into what is seen as modern. The need for modernization, determining the development of modern law, however, clashed with the need to preserve cultural identity rooted in national traditions. With selected examples of different legal institutions, countries and periods, the authors of the essays in the two volumes 'Modernization, National Identity and Legal Instrumentalism: Studies in Comparative Legal History, vol. I: Private Law' and 'Modernization, National Identity and Legal Instrumentalism: Studies in Comparative Legal History, vol. II: Public Law' seek to explain the nature of this problem

While analysing the legislative output of the interwar Republic of Poland, most Polish researchers highlight the significant achievements of the so-called Codification Commission established in 1919, whose twenty years of efforts resulted in the drafting of a host of important codes and other acts of high legislative value. This output, however, could only be put to a very short-lived use in the 1930s. Its full potential was not unleashed until after the Second World War, in a completely changed political reality. On a day-to-day basis, the Polish state of the interwar period faced a number of issues that it either desired to overcome or was forced to do so. One of them was the crippled legal status of women, particularly jarring in the reality of the interwar times. Although the reborn Polish statehood, true to lofty democratic ideals, immediately took it upon itself to change the clearly underprivileged legal status of women, the final effect, that is the legislation in force as at the outbreak of the Second World War, looks meagre. The modern codification had not been adopted, the legal particularism in the scope of civil law had been maintained, the anachronistic codification of the preceding century upheld – the ideals of equal rights for women were made a very much imperfect reality. In this article, we attempt to trace the history of how this came to be by examining difficulties in introducing the principle of equality of women's rights. The example we have chosen serves to shed light on the mundane efforts to overcome the mounting problems with realizing ideas of modernization upon the underlying legal foundations of a country which, at first sight, seems utterly ill-prepared to tackle this task properly.

While analysing the legislative output of the interwar Republic of Poland, most Polish researchers highlight the significant achievements of the so-called Codification Commission established in 1919, whose twenty years of efforts resulted in the drafting of a host of important codes and other acts of high legislative value. This output, however, could only be put to a very short-lived use in the 1930s. Its full potential was not unleashed until after the Second World War, in a completely changed political reality. On a day-to-day basis, the Polish state of the interwar period faced a number of issues that it either desired to overcome or was forced to do so. One of them was the crippled legal status of women, particularly jarring in the reality of the interwar times. Although the reborn Polish statehood, true to lofty democratic ideals, immediately took it upon itself to change the clearly underprivileged legal status of women, the final effect, that is the legislation in force as at the outbreak of the Second World War, looks meagre. The modern codification had not been adopted, the legal particularism in the scope of civil law had been maintained, the anachronistic codification of the preceding century upheld – the ideals of equal rights for women were made a very much imperfect reality. In this article, we attempt to trace the history of how this came to be by examining difficulties in introducing the principle of equality of women's rights. The example we have chosen serves to shed light on the mundane efforts to overcome the mounting problems with realizing ideas of modernization upon the underlying legal foundations of a country which, at first sight, seems utterly ill-prepared to tackle this task properly. ; p. 231-260 ; While analysing the legislative output of the interwar Republic of Poland, most Polish researchers highlight the significant achievements of the so-called Codification Commission established in 1919, whose twenty years of efforts resulted in the drafting of a host of important codes and other acts of high legislative value. This output, however, could only be put to a very short-lived use in the 1930s. Its full potential was not unleashed until after the Second World War, in a completely changed political reality. On a day-to-day basis, the Polish state of the interwar period faced a number of issues that it either desired to overcome or was forced to do so. One of them was the crippled legal status of women, particularly jarring in the reality of the interwar times. Although the reborn Polish statehood, true to lofty democratic ideals, immediately took it upon itself to change the clearly underprivileged legal status of women, the final effect, that is the legislation in force as at the outbreak of the Second World War, looks meagre. The modern codification had not been adopted, the legal particularism in the scope of civil law had been maintained, the anachronistic codification of the preceding century upheld – the ideals of equal rights for women were made a very much imperfect reality. In this article, we attempt to trace the history of how this came to be by examining difficulties in introducing the principle of equality of women's rights. The example we have chosen serves to shed light on the mundane efforts to overcome the mounting problems with realizing ideas of modernization upon the underlying legal foundations of a country which, at first sight, seems utterly ill-prepared to tackle this task properly. ; s. 231-260

Artykuł recenzowany / peer-reviewed article ; The French Code de commerce was adopted in the Polish territories in 1809 and remained formally binding for over 120 years. It was nonetheless transferred from post-revolutionary France into a feudal reality, where no commercial code had been in place before, without the necessary preparatory works, implementation of the legislation accompanying the Code de commerce or even an offi cial translation. Moreover, legal scholars paid scarce attention to it in the first decades. Taken together, all these factors aff ected its application. Being a contribution to the complex study of the issue, the present publication examines selected notarial deeds documenting individual commercial transactions to show how the process of practical implementation of the norms of French Commercial Code developed in the Polish territories ; Francuski Code de commerce recypowany został na ziemiach polskich w 1809 r. i obowiązywał formalnie przez ponad 120 lat. Przeszczepiony został jednak z porewolucyjnej Francji do realiów feudalnych, w których nigdy wcześniej nie obowiązywał żaden kodeks handlowy, bez koniecznych prac przygotowawczych, implementacji ustawodawstwa okołokodeksowego związanego z Code de commerce czy oficjalnego tłumaczenia i przy znikomym zainteresowaniu nauki prawa w pierwszych dekadach obowiązywania, co w znacznym stopniu wpływało na jego stosowanie. Niniejsza publikacja, stanowiąca przyczynek do kompleksowego studium tego zagadnienia, obrazuje, w oparciu o analizę wybranych aktów notarialnych dokumentujących poszczególne czynności handlowe, jak przebiegał proces praktycznej implementacji norm francuskiego Kodeksu handlowego na ziemiach polskich.

While analysing the legislative output of the interwar Republic of Poland, most Polish researchers highlight the significant achievements of the so-called Codification Commission established in 1919, whose twenty years of efforts resulted in the drafting of a host of important codes and other acts of high legislative value. This output, however, could only be put to a very short-lived use in the 1930s. Its full potential was not unleashed until after the Second World War, in a completely changed political reality. On a day-to-day basis, the Polish state of the interwar period faced a number of issues that it either desired to overcome or was forced to do so. One of them was the crippled legal status of women, particularly jarring in the reality of the interwar times. Although the reborn Polish statehood, true to lofty democratic ideals, immediately took it upon itself to change the clearly underprivileged legal status of women, the final effect, that is the legislation in force as at the outbreak of the Second World War, looks meagre. The modern codification had not been adopted, the legal particularism in the scope of civil law had been maintained, the anachronistic codification of the preceding century upheld – the ideals of equal rights for women were made a very much imperfect reality. In this article, we attempt to trace the history of how this came to be by examining difficulties in introducing the principle of equality of women's rights. The example we have chosen serves to shed light on the mundane efforts to overcome the mounting problems with realizing ideas of modernization upon the underlying legal foundations of a country which, at first sight, seems utterly ill-prepared to tackle this task properly.

This pertinent and highly original volume explores how ideas of Europe and processes of continental political, socio-economic, and cultural integration have been intertwined since the nineteenth century. Applying a wider definition of Europeanization in the sense of "becoming European", it will pay equal attention to counter-processes of disentanglement and disintegration that have accompanied, slowed down, or displaced such trends and developments. By focusing on the practices, agents, and experience of Europeanization, the volume strives to bring together the history of ideas and the history of human actions and conduct, two approaches that are usually treated separately in the field of European studies