History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume 1 of 3. From the Beginning until the Death of Alexander I (1825). Dubnow SimonЧитать онлайн книгу.

a former Polish province on the left bank of the Vistula. It is to be distinguished from the well-known Brest-Litovsk, Brest of Lithuania.]

49

The parliamentary order of Poland was somewhat complicated. Each region or voyevodstvo (see above, p. 46, n. 1), of which there were about sixty in Poland, had its own local assembly, or sejmik (pronounced saymik), i. e. little Diet, or Dietine. Deputies o£ these Dietines met at the respective sejms (pronounced saym), or Diets, of one of the three large provinces of Poland: Great Poland, Little Poland, and Red Russia. The national sejm, representing the whole of Poland, came into being towards the end of the fifteenth century. Beginning with 1573 it met regularly every two years for six weeks in Warsaw or in Grodno. Before the convocation of this national all-Polish Parliament, all local Dietines assembled on one and the same day to give instructions to the deputies elected to it.

50

[Gnesen as seat of the Primate; Cracow as capital.]

51

[Warsaw was originally the capital of the independent Principality of Mazovia. After the incorporation of Mazovia into the Polish Empire, in 1526, Warsaw emerged from its obscurity and in the latter part of the sixteenth century became the capital of united Poland and Lithuania, taking the place of Cracow and Vilna.]

52

According to another version, they forged the contents of the royal warrant.

53

[With the gradual weakening of the royal power, which, after the extinction of the Yaghello dynasty, in 1572, was transformed into an elective office, the favorite designation for the Polish Empire came to be Rzecz (pronounced Zhech) Pospolita, a literal rendering of the Latin Res Publica. The term comprises Poland as well as Lithuania, which, in 1569, had been united in one Empire.]

54

They are referred to in his edicts as calumniae.

55

[The Arian heresy, as modified and preached by Faustus Socinus (1539-1604), an Italian who settled in Poland, became a powerful factor in the Polish intellectual life of that period. Because of its liberal tendency, this doctrine appealed in particular to the educated classes, and its adherents, called Socinians, were largely recruited from the ranks of the Shlakhta. Under Sigismund III. a strong reaction set in, culminating in the law passed by the Diet of 1658, according to which all "Arians" were to leave the country within two years.]

56

[Arendar, also arendator, from medieval Latin arrendare, "to rent," signifies in Polish and Russian a lessee, originally of a farm, subsequently of the tavern and, as is seen in the text, other sources of revenue on the estate. These arendars being mostly Jews, the name, abbreviated in Yiddish to randar, came practically to mean "village Jew."]

57

[Literally, lord: the lord of the manor, noble landowner.]

58

There is reason to believe that he is the hero of the legendary story according to which an influential Polish Jew by the name of Saul Wahl, a favorite of Prince Radziwill, was, during an interregnum, proclaimed Polish king by the Shlakhta, and reigned for one night.

59

[See pp. 29 et seq. Kiev was captured by the Lithuanians in 1320, and remained, through the union of Lithuania and Poland, a part of the Polish Empire until 1654, when, together with the province of Little Russia, it was ceded to Muscovy.]

60

See p. 55.

61

[Stephen Batory instituted two supreme courts for the realm: one for the Crown, i. e. for Poland proper, and another for Lithuania. The former held its sessions in Lublin for Little Poland and in Piotrkov for Great Poland (see p. 164).]

62

A second edition of the book appeared in 1636.

63

[In addition to the regular Diets, which assembled every two years (see above, p. 76, n. 1), there were held also Election Diets and Coronation Diets, in connection with the election and the coronation of the new king. The former met on a field near Warsaw; the latter were held in Cracow.]

64

[Moghilev on the Dnieper, in White Russia, is to be distinguished from Moghilev on the Dniester, a town in the present Government of Podolia.]

65

See pp. 72 and 73.

66

[Unanimi voto et consensu are the exact words of the document. See Bersohn, Dyplomatariusz (Collection of ancient Polish enactments relating to Jews), p. 51.]

67

[Literally, By-Kahals.]

68

[a = short German a. In Hebrew ועד.]

69

[Great Poland, Little Poland, Red Russia, and Volhynia. Volhynia at first formed part of the Lithuanian Duchy, but was ceded to the Crown, in 1569, by the Union of Lublin.]

70

In the middle of the seventeenth century their number was six.

71

Nathan Hannover, in his Yeven Metzula [see p. 157, n. 1], ed. Venice, 1653, p. 12.

72

[A Hebrew term designating public-spirited Jews who defend the interests of their coreligionists before the Government. In Polish official documents they are referred to as "General Syndics." In Poland the shtadlans were regular officials maintained by the Jewish community. Comp. the article by L. Lewin, Der Schtadlan im Posener Ghetto, in Festschrift published in honor of Dr. Wolf Feilchenfeld (1907), pp. 31 et seq.]

73

Towards the end of the sixteenth century Warsaw, instead of Cracow, became the residence of the Polish kings. The Jews had no right of domicile in Warsaw, and were permitted only to visit it temporarily. [See p. 85.]

74

[See p. 93, n. 1.]

75

[See p. 76, n. 1.]