Lecture and Seminar: Prof. Dr. Jacek Kochanowicz

Course description:

The lecture explores the dynamics of the introduction of second serfdom and the demesne economy in the Polish lands in the 16th to 18th century, the place of the peasant economy in the context of the demesne, the degree of peasant freedom, and the ways the peasants combined adaptation and resistance to the system at its apogee in the 18th century. The seminar part will be devoted to the discussions of problems covered by the lecture and the readings.

Mandatory readings:

• Gunst, Peter, ‘The Agrarian Systems of Central and Eastern Europe,’ in: Daniel Chirot (ed.), The Origins of  Backwardness in Eastern Europe: Economics and Politics from the Middle Ages until the Early Twentieth Century, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989, pp. 53-91.

• Kochanowicz, Jacek, ‘The Polish Economy and the Evolution of Dependency,’ in: Daniel Chirot (ed.), The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe. Economics and Politics from the Middle Age until the Early Twentieth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989, p. 92 130.

• Kochanowicz, Jacek, ‘Between Submission and Violence: Peasant Resistance in the Polish Manorial Economy of the Eighteenth Century,’ in: Forrest D. Colburn (ed.),  Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, Armonk, N.Y.: M.E.Sharpe, Inc. 1989.

Recommended readings:

• Aston, T.H.  and C.H.E. Philpin (eds.), The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. 

• Cerman, Markus, Villagers and Lords in Eastern Europe, 1300-1800, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

• Kula, Witold, An Economic Theory of the Feudal System. London: NLB, 1976 (originally published in 1962).