Kupcy, arendarze i rzemieślnicy. Różnorodność zawodowa Żydów w Wielkim Księstwie Litewskim w XVII i XVIII w

ENThe book is an analysis of the internal diversity of Jews living in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, seen from the economic perspective. I describe their professional diversifi cation and present economic diff erences between people practising various professions. I am also interested in what way Jewish leaseholders, merchants, and craft smen organized their everyday work. The source basis of the book is made up of documents issued by the central authorities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, private estates, and protocols of the Lithuanian Waad. Economic activity of Jews was influenced by legal regulations imposed both on the national level, and on the local one, that is in cities and towns. Resolutions of the Lithuanian Waad and religious laws of Judaism were also of high importance. A thorough analysis of the development of economic privileges in Wilno (today’s Vilnius) and Słuck (today’s Sluck in Belarus) reveals that limitations on Jewish economic activity were diff erent depending on commercial centre. In most of the cases, the Jewish position was determined by the strength of the burgher class. Regulations introduced by the Jewish authorities were mainly aimed at protecting the Jewish community against Christian attacks and eliminating an internal competition between Jews. A statistical analysis of professional diversity of Jews in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania shows that the largest group of Jews earned their bread as revenue leaseholders. Their number increased significantly in the second half of the seventeenth and in the eighteenth century. In this area Christians were significantly outnumbered by Jews.Revenue leaseholders collaborated with the nobility, the State Treasury, and religious communities. What was characteristic of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the weak involvement of Jews in full land lease of estates and their close cooperation with the State Treasury, still frequent as late as the second half of the seventeenth century. Most oft en, the object of lease were payments related to the production and retail sale of alcoholic drinks, revenues from towns and cities, mills, and fishponds. Usually, in their cooperation with the State Treasury, Jews were in charge of the collection of duties (tolls), and taxes on the production and sale of alcoholic beverages. They also took to trade, and habitually they dominated in local markets. The majority of Jewish merchants was especially felt in private towns, less important was their role in big royal cities. A group of Jews were engaged in international trade. Most oft en, commercial trips were organised to Prussian ports, and in this context the most important was Königsberg; they reached also to Breslau, Leipzig, Russia, and many cities of the Crown. The main export article of the Grand Duchy traded by Jews were hides and pelts, less common were agricultural produce or wood. To the Grand Duchy Jews imported in the first place cloth of various kind, spices, colonial goods, wine, and salt in smaller quantities. In local markets Jewish merchants played the part of agents selling exported goods to local population.Less important in the professional structure of Lithuanian Jews was craft smanship. Th e analysed statistical data reveal that in the majority of towns and cities there was only a small number of Jewish craft smen, practising the most basic professions. A comparison of Jews and Christians from the same settlements shows that the religious (ethnic) division was almost equal to the economic division. This means that Jews were earning their living in other professions than Christians. What was characteristic of Jews from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was an internal polarisation within their own professional groups. The financial elite was made up of state revenue leaseholders, general leaseholders, and far-reaching merchants. Much less wealthy, and thus far less infl uential in the Grand Duchy were local market merchants or urban and rural innkeepers. Less polarised was the group of craft smen, in their majority impecunious, who supplied mainly their fellows believers, and had a weak position in the Christian society. Th e basic and most important feature of economic activity of the Lithuanian Jews in the analysed period were their fl exibility and multi-functionality. This in practice meant that a majority of Jews had no specialised profession, but depending on economic circumstances they were able to perform various jobs. Jewish entrepreneurs were also very mobile. [...].