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DOI Artikel:Kasprzak, Aleksandra J.: The Radziwiłłs of Nieśwież: a contribution to industrial "Mecenate" in the first half of the 18th century
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18948#0084
documents available confirm the industrial activity in the twenties and the
second half of the thirties when several workshops and manufactures were
established in Radziwiłłs’ estates. Initially this concerned only two estates:
Biała Radziwiłłowska and Naliboki in Oszmiana district, later also Urzecze
in the principality of Słuck. If not for the difficult political situation of
the Republic, the majority of manufactures and workshops established in
the seventeen twenties could have been founded by the Princess over ten
years earlier. Thus, the rather unusual interest the Princess took in economy
and industrialisation must have been wakened much earlier. Her convent
education was probably limited to a rudimentary education of a high born
lady but she was influenced by the people from the closest surroundings -
her husband’s family6 and the court - whom she emulated, consciously or
not. The people who influenced the Princess represented Polish-Lithuanian
practices on the one hand and the developing and blooming Saxon economy
on the other.
Anna RadziwiłPs activity can be divided into at least three periods: first,
before 1719 when her husband died; second, in 1719-1735, when she
supervised the estates until her sons reached maturity and third, in 1735-1746
when she invested in her estates given to her in perpetuity. During her
numerous travels around the country the Princess searched for craftsmen of
sorts and she ordered her co-workers who travelled abroad to do the same.
Weil acąuainted with economic situation of the neighbouring countries, she
used every opportunity, like natural disaster, to offer job to unemployed
artisans. As the Princess madę use of her court connections, the craftsmen she
employed usually came from Saxony, Dresden and some of them were
recruited from workers of the king’s Saxon manufactures.
Like most of the magnates in the first half of the eighteenth century, the
Princess concentrated on establishing specialised estate workshops aimed at
pałace renovation or development. Thus, among the most often mentioned
are stucco, painting or carpentry workshops, each employing from several
to a dozen or so craftsmen. At the same time the Princess madę successful
attempts at organising diversified, smali manufactures producing luxurious
goods, often providing only the owner and her closest family. Only some of
those manufactures produced for a larger market, with a considerable yearly
turnoyer.
then Deputy Chancellor of Lithuania and from 1699 the Grand Chancellor of Lithuania. Anna
Radziwiłł gave birth to fourteenth chiłdren of whom six (two sons) lived to maturity.
6 First and foremost Katarzyna Radziwiłł nee Sobieska (1634-1694), sister of king Jan III and
mother of Anna’s husband, a woman influenced by the first treatise on agronomy, published in
1675 and again in 1679, Ekonomika ziemiańska by Jakub Kazimierz Haur. The author, well aware
of neglect and destruction caused by the wars, advised the land owners to cut down the woods
and to establish enterprises using the timber: “znacznie w gęstych [...] juz lasy (a ledwie nie
puszczę) różnego gatunku zagaiły się, drzewa które bez pożytku wycinać, y wykopywać, z korze-
nia, nie iest przyzwoita, Browarami też y Gorzelnią, niepodobna taką wyprzątnąć [...] ziemię:
przeto iedni Kuźnicą, Hutą, Cegielnią, Popiołow, Smoły, Dziegciu, y węgli paleniem, [...] wypalają,
y wyprzątaią mieysca.”
78
second half of the thirties when several workshops and manufactures were
established in Radziwiłłs’ estates. Initially this concerned only two estates:
Biała Radziwiłłowska and Naliboki in Oszmiana district, later also Urzecze
in the principality of Słuck. If not for the difficult political situation of
the Republic, the majority of manufactures and workshops established in
the seventeen twenties could have been founded by the Princess over ten
years earlier. Thus, the rather unusual interest the Princess took in economy
and industrialisation must have been wakened much earlier. Her convent
education was probably limited to a rudimentary education of a high born
lady but she was influenced by the people from the closest surroundings -
her husband’s family6 and the court - whom she emulated, consciously or
not. The people who influenced the Princess represented Polish-Lithuanian
practices on the one hand and the developing and blooming Saxon economy
on the other.
Anna RadziwiłPs activity can be divided into at least three periods: first,
before 1719 when her husband died; second, in 1719-1735, when she
supervised the estates until her sons reached maturity and third, in 1735-1746
when she invested in her estates given to her in perpetuity. During her
numerous travels around the country the Princess searched for craftsmen of
sorts and she ordered her co-workers who travelled abroad to do the same.
Weil acąuainted with economic situation of the neighbouring countries, she
used every opportunity, like natural disaster, to offer job to unemployed
artisans. As the Princess madę use of her court connections, the craftsmen she
employed usually came from Saxony, Dresden and some of them were
recruited from workers of the king’s Saxon manufactures.
Like most of the magnates in the first half of the eighteenth century, the
Princess concentrated on establishing specialised estate workshops aimed at
pałace renovation or development. Thus, among the most often mentioned
are stucco, painting or carpentry workshops, each employing from several
to a dozen or so craftsmen. At the same time the Princess madę successful
attempts at organising diversified, smali manufactures producing luxurious
goods, often providing only the owner and her closest family. Only some of
those manufactures produced for a larger market, with a considerable yearly
turnoyer.
then Deputy Chancellor of Lithuania and from 1699 the Grand Chancellor of Lithuania. Anna
Radziwiłł gave birth to fourteenth chiłdren of whom six (two sons) lived to maturity.
6 First and foremost Katarzyna Radziwiłł nee Sobieska (1634-1694), sister of king Jan III and
mother of Anna’s husband, a woman influenced by the first treatise on agronomy, published in
1675 and again in 1679, Ekonomika ziemiańska by Jakub Kazimierz Haur. The author, well aware
of neglect and destruction caused by the wars, advised the land owners to cut down the woods
and to establish enterprises using the timber: “znacznie w gęstych [...] juz lasy (a ledwie nie
puszczę) różnego gatunku zagaiły się, drzewa które bez pożytku wycinać, y wykopywać, z korze-
nia, nie iest przyzwoita, Browarami też y Gorzelnią, niepodobna taką wyprzątnąć [...] ziemię:
przeto iedni Kuźnicą, Hutą, Cegielnią, Popiołow, Smoły, Dziegciu, y węgli paleniem, [...] wypalają,
y wyprzątaią mieysca.”
78