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Grand Duchy of Poznań later also called Province of Posen (Polish: Wielkie Księstwo Poznańskie, Prowincja Poznańska; German: Grossherzogtum Posen, Provinz Posen) were the territories of the historical province of Greater Poland, which comprised the western parts of the Duchy of Warsaw (Departments of Poznan, Bydgoszcz, partly Kalisz) and were ceded to the Kingdom of Prussia according to the Congress of Vienna (1815) with an international guarantee of self administration and free development of the Polish nation.
The monarch of the Duchy was the Prussian King (a Hohenzollern) and his representative was the governor-general: the first was prince Antoni Radziwill (1815-1831), married to Princess Luise of Prussia, the king's cousin. The governor was assigned to give advice in matters of Polish nationality, and had the right to veto the administration decisions, in reality however all administrative power was in the hands of Prussian over-president of the province.
The territory of the duchy was divided into 2 districts: Kreis Posen (Poznan District), Kreis Bromberg (Bydgoszcz District), and 26 counties administered by the landrats and the county councils. In 1824 the Duchy also received the provincial council (term started in 1827) but with little administrative power reduced only to advice matters. In 1817 Chelmno land was moved to West Prussia.
Up to 1830 the Prussian authorities were relatively tolerant to the Polish people, only the Prussian administrative schemes were introduced and the role of German language was strengthened in education.
Repression system after 1830
After the November Uprising (1830 in Congress Poland against Russia) which was significantly supported by the Poles from the Grand Duchy of Poznan, the Prussian administration under over-president Edward Flotwell introduced a system of police and repression against the Poles. He started to expel the Poles from administration, tried to weaken the Polish nobility by buying its lands, and after 1832 the role of the Polish language in education was significantly suppressed.
Milder period after 1840
to be continued
The Province of Poznań (German: Provinz Posen, Polish: Prowincja Poznańska) was a province of Prussia (1846-1918). Known as the "cradle" of the Polish nation, this region was the home to Poles, Germans, some Jews and a smattering of other peoples. Almost all the Poles were Roman Catholic, and about 90% of the Germans were Protestant. The small numbers of Jews were primarily to be found in the larger communities, mostly in skilled crafts, local commerce and regional trading. The smaller the community, the more likely it was to be either Polish or German. These "pockets of ethnicity" existed side by side, with more of them being German in the northwest, and more being Polish in the southeast. As the years progressed, the population became more German until the end of the 1800s, when the trend reversed (so called Ostflucht). This was despite efforts of the government in Berlin, which established a resettlement program to buy land from Poles and make it available only to Germans.
The land is mostly flat, drained by two major watershed systems; the Notec (German: Netze) in the north and the Warta (German: Warthe) in the center. Ice Age glaciers left moraine deposits and the land is speckled with hundreds of "finger lakes", streams flowing in and out on their way to one of the two rivers.
Agriculture was the primary industry, as one would expect for the 1800s. The three-field-system was used to grow a variety of crops, primarily rye, sugar beets, potatoes, other grains, and some tobacco and hops. Significant parcels of wooded land provided building materials and firewood. Small numbers of livestock existed, including geese, but a fair amount of sheep were herded.
When this area came under Prussian control, the feudal system was still in force. It was officially ended in Prussia (see Freiherr vom Stein) in 1810 (1864 in Congress Poland), but lingered in some practices until the late 1800s. The situation was thus that (primarily) Polish serfs lived and worked side by side with (predominantly) free German settlers. Though the settlers were given initial advantages, in time their lots were not much different. In simplistic terms, serfs worked for the lord and the lord took care of them. Settlers worked for themselves and took care of themselves, but paid taxes to the lord.
Typically, an estate would have its manor and farm buildings, and a village nearby for the Polish laborers. Near that village, there might be a German settlement. And in the woods, there would be a forester's dwelling. The estate owners, usually of the nobility, owned the local grist mill, and often other types of mills or perhaps a distillery. In many places, windmills dotted the landscape, reminding one of the earliest settlers, the Dutch, who began the process of turning unproductive river marshes into fields. This process was finished by the German settlers who were used to reclaim unproductive lands (not only marshland) for the host estate owners.
Changing hands
Originally part of the Kingdom of Poland, this area roughly coincided with the Polish region known as Great Poland. This area became
controlled by the Kingdom of Prussia during the Partitions of Poland. The first Partition (1772) took just the northern portion, north of the Netze (Polish: Noteć) river. The Second Partition added the remainder in 1793. Prussia lost control briefly during the Kosciuszko Uprising (1794).
Initially, it was called "South Prussia". Prussia (and later Germany) retained control until the end of World War I, with the exception of the period of time when Napoleon changed the landscape of Europe (1806-1815). The Duchy of Warsaw, was created following the Prussian defeat at the Treaty of Tilsit Polish people were the main ally of Napoleon in Central Europe, participated in the Great Poland Uprising of 1806 and supplied troops for his campaigns.
After the fall of Napoleon in 1815 according to the Vienna peace congress, Great Poland returned to Prussia, and became the Grand Duchy of Posen (1815-1846), an autonomous province under Hohenzollern rule with the rights of "free development of Polish nation, culture and language", and outside the German Confederation. At this time the city of Posen was the administrative center and the site of the "prince Anton Radziwill of Posen". The province was renamed in 1846 to Province of Posen.
With the unification of Germany, the province of Posen became part of the German Empire (1871-1918) and the city of Posen was officially named an imperial residence city.
Most of it passed to Poland with the WW I Treaty of Versailles after Great Poland Uprising 1918 and become Poznan Voivodship. The part remaining in Germany formed Grenzmark Posen-Westpreussen with Schneidemühl as capital, until 1938, when it was divided between Silesia, Pomerania and Brandenburg.
Ethnic conflict
Due to the large number of resident Germans (first as settlers and then as occupiers) and the presence of powerful, warring nations on all sides and the internal strife between three major religious faiths, the area was often a battleground of ethnic conflict. (see Ethnic conflicts in western Poland.)
During the first half of the 1800s, the German population grew due to state sponsored colonisation. In the second half, the Polish population grew gradually due to the Ostflucht and higher birth-rate. The clash peaked during the Kulturkampf, when many Catholics Germans in Posen joined with ethnic Poles in opposition to the Protestant Prussian government.
Polish language were gradually removed from the schools and offices due to Germanisation.
Statistics
Area: 28,970 km2
Population
- 1816: 820,176
- 1868: 1,537,300 (Bromberg 550,900 - Posen 986,400)
- 1871: 1,583,843
- Religion: 1871
- Catholics 1,009,885
- Protestants 511,429
- Jews 61,982
- others 547
- 1875: 1,606,084
- 1880: 1,703,397
- 1900: 1,887,275
- 1905: 1,986,267
- 1910: 2,099,831 (Bromberg 763,900 - Posen 1,335,900)
Divisions
Note: Prussian provinces were subdivided into units called "Kreise" (singular "Kreis", abreviated "Kr.", English circle), which were similar to large counties in US terms. Cities would have their own "Stadtkreis" (English: municipal county) and the surrounding rural area would be named for the city, but referred to as a "Landkreis" (English: rural county). In the case of Posen, the Landkreis was split into two: Landkreis Posen West, and Landkreis Posen East. (Data is from Prussian censuses, during a period of state-sponsored 'germanization', and includes military garrissons.)
1 includes bilingual speakers
2 only religious jews, without regard of their native language
The Presidents (German: Oberpräsidenten) of Province of Posen
| Time in Office
| Name
|
| 1815 - 1824
| Joseph Zerboni de Sposetti 1760 - 1831
|
| 1825 - 1830
| Johann Friedrich Theodor von Baumann 1768 - 1830
|
| 1830 - 1840
| Eduard Heinrich Flottwell 1786 - 1865
|
| 1840 - 1842
| Adolf Heinrich Graf von Arnim-Boitzenburg 1803 - 1868
|
| 1843 - 1850
| Carl Moritz von Beurmann 1802 - 1870
|
| 1850 - 1851
| Gustav Carl Gisbert Heinrich Wilhelm Gebhard von Bonin (1.time in office) 1797 - 1878
|
| 1851 - 1860
| Eugen von Puttkamer 1800 - 1874
|
| 1860 - 1862
| Gustav Carl Gisbert Heinrich Wilhelm Gebhard von Bonin (2.time in office) 1797 - 1878
|
| 1862 - 1869
| Carl Wilhelm Heinrich Georg von Horn 1807 - 1889
|
| 1869 - 1873
| Otto Graf von Königsmarck 1815 - 1889
|
| 1873 - 1886
| William Barstow von Guenther 1815 - 1892
|
| 1886 - 1890
| Robert Graf von Zedtlitz-Trützschler 1837 - 1914
|
| 1890 - 1899
| Hugo The. Wich.Freiherr von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1840-1905
|
| 1899 - 1903
| Karl Julius Rudolf von Bitter 1846 - 1914
|
| 1903 - 1911
| Wilhelm August Hans von Waldow-Reitzenstein 1856 - 1937
|
| 1911 - 1914
| Philipp Schwartzkopf ?
|
| 1914 - 1918
| Joh. Karl Friedr. Moritz Ferd. v. Eisenhart-Rothe 1862-1942
|
Administrative Einteilung:
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This article is part of the Prussia portion of the Wikipedia Project "Historical States" which is structured upon the administrative organization of the Prussian government as it existed just before unification in 1871.
- Kingdom of Prussia (between 1815 and 1871, part of the German Confederation; between 1871 and 1920, inside the German Empire)
- Provinces <== YOU ARE HERE
- Admin. districts ("Regierungsbezirke") - usually two or three per province
- Counties ("Kreise") - around 30 - 40 per province
- Civil registration districts ("Standesämter"), similar to a township - usually 5 - 10 per Kreis.
de:Provinz Posen
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