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''Folwark''; german: Vorwerk; uk, Фільварок; ''Filwarok''; be, Фальварак; ''Falwarak''; lt, Palivarkas is a Polish word for a primarily
serfdom Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which develop ...
-based farm and agricultural enterprise (a type of ''
latifundium A ''latifundium'' (Latin: ''latus'', "spacious" and ''fundus'', "farm, estate") is a very extensive parcel of privately owned land. The latifundia of Roman history were great landed estates specializing in agriculture destined for export: grain, o ...
''), often very large.


History

Folwarks ( pl , folwarki) were operated in the
Crown of Poland The Crown of the Kingdom of Poland ( pl, Korona Królestwa Polskiego; Latin: ''Corona Regni Poloniae''), known also as the Polish Crown, is the common name for the historic Late Middle Ages territorial possessions of the King of Poland, includi ...
from the 14th century; in the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state that existed from the 13th century to 1795, when the territory was Partitions of Poland, partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg Empire, Habsburg Empire of ...
from the 15th century; and in the joint
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Crown of the Kingdom of ...
from the second half of the 16th century. Folwarks also developed in the Commonwealth-controlled Ukrainian lands. The institution survived after the 18th-century partitions of the Commonwealth until the early-20th century. Folwarks aimed to produce surplus produce for export. The first folwarks were created on church- and
monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whic ...
-owned lands. Later the folwark system was adopted both by the nobility (''
szlachta The ''szlachta'' (Polish: endonym, Lithuanian: šlėkta) were the noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth who, as a class, had the dominating position in ...
'') and by rich
peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasa ...
s (singular: '' sołtys''), but the ''sołtys'' positions were eventually taken over by the ''szlachta''.''
Gazeta Wyborcza ''Gazeta Wyborcza'' (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It is the first Polish daily newspaper after the era of " real socialism" and one of Poland's newspapers of record, covering the ...
'' newspaper wyborcza.pl 2012-08-22, Arkadiusz Pacholski, ''Jak Polak zhańbił Polaka, czyli niewolnictwo po polsku'

ow a Pole shamed a Pole, or slavery Polish-style/ref> The term "''folwark''" came into the
Polish language Polish (Polish: ''język polski'', , ''polszczyzna'' or simply ''polski'', ) is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group written in the Latin script. It is spoken primarily in Poland and serves as the native language of the Poles. In ad ...
in the 14th century from the German "''Vorwerk''", originally the fortified
advanced work An advanced work, advance-work or advanced outwork is a fortification or outwork in front of the main defensive building or castle.
of a castle, later an outlying
manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals ...
that managed a farm estate. The English translation would be "grange", the historical meaning of which is "an outlying farm with tithe barns belonging to a monastery or feudal lord". The development of folwarks was boosted by growing demand for
grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit ( caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legum ...
and by the profitability of its export, both to Western Europe and inside the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. This led to the exploitation of serfdom, when land-owners discovered that instead of collecting money-based
rent Rent may refer to: Economics *Renting, an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property *Economic rent, any payment in excess of the cost of production *Rent-seeking, attempting to increase one's share of e ...
and taxes it was more profitable to force the
peasantry A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...
to work on folwarks. Folwark-based grain export became an important part of the economy of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Folwarks were primarily an early-modern, post-feudal rural formation. They originated as land belonging to a feudal lord (early on a knight) and not rented out to peasants but worked by the owner's own hired labor or servants. The peasants toiled on the lots they rented from the lord, but in addition were obliged to provide complimentary labor for the lord on his folwark, originally a few days per year. From the 16th century, the amount of this mandatory free labor was radically increased and ''szlachta''-sponsored legislation imposed rigid conditions on the peasants, such as the prohibition on worker's right to leave a village and seek a new lord. The originally free peasants became serfs, and serfs then fell into a condition of extreme dependency and exploitation, known in Poland as ''wtórne poddaństwo'' econdary serfdom Their lords in turn had become dependent on such slave labor, which kept the folwark economy going and "competitive" on the European grain-markets.http://www.historycy.org portal, 2012-07-17, Przemysław Wielgosz, ''Pięćset lat kacetu. Ojczyzna-pańszczyzna'

ive hundred years of concentration camp. Fatherland-lord's land/ref> In Poland serfdom was regulated (and increased) by the Statutes of Piotrków (1496) and by the Privilege of Toruń (1520) (statutory privileges granted by kings to ''szlachta''). With the fall of prices of agricultural goods at the end of the 17th century, the folwark economy went into crisis, and the ''szlachta'' attempts to increase production by increasing the size of their folwarks (usually through appropriating peasant lands) and by demanding more labour (usually through increasing the peasant workload) only compounded the economic crisis and further worsened the fate of the peasants, who had been, until then, no poorer than their average counterparts in Western Europe. In Lithuania serfdom was fully established during the Volok Reform in the middle of the 16th century. Until the end of the 18th century folwarks remained the basis for ''szlachta'' economic and political power. After the abolition of serfdom in Poland from the late 18th-century onwards, folwarks used paid labor. Folwarks were abolished by the
People's Republic of Poland The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million ne ...
with the
Polish Committee of National Liberation The Polish Committee of National Liberation (Polish: ''Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego'', ''PKWN''), also known as the Lublin Committee, was an executive governing authority established by the Soviet-backed communists in Poland at the la ...
decree of 6 September 1944, concerned with agricultural reform. After the end of the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
folwarks were
nationalised Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to p ...
at the behest of the
Polish Workers' Party The Polish Workers' Party ( pl, Polska Partia Robotnicza, PPR) was a communist party in Poland from 1942 to 1948. It was founded as a reconstitution of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) and merged with the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) in 194 ...
, resulting in PGRs – state-owned collective rural enterprises (''
Państwowe Gospodarstwo Rolne __NOTOC__ A State Agricultural Farm ( pl, Państwowe Gospodarstwo Rolne, PGR) was a form of collective farming in the People's Republic of Poland, similar to Soviet sovkhoz and to the East German Volkseigenes Gut. They were created in 1949 as ...
'', 1949 onwards) or partitioned, usually with little or no compensation to their owners.


See also

*
Hacienda An ''hacienda'' ( or ; or ) is an estate (or '' finca''), similar to a Roman '' latifundium'', in Spain and the former Spanish Empire. With origins in Andalusia, ''haciendas'' were variously plantations (perhaps including animals or orchard ...
*
Ranch A ranch (from es, rancho/Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of a farm. These terms are most ofte ...
*
Manorialism Manorialism, also known as the manor system or manorial system, was the method of land ownership (or " tenure") in parts of Europe, notably France and later England, during the Middle Ages. Its defining features included a large, sometimes for ...
*
Serfdom Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which develop ...


Notes


References

{{Authority control Agriculture in Poland Economic history of Poland History of Poland during the Jagiellonian dynasty Social history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Economic history of Belarus Serfdom