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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Archiwum Księcia Ludwika Gruna Hessen-Homburga jako źródło do dziejów polskiej wojny sukcesyjnej w latach 1734–1735

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The article discusses part of the archival legacy of Ludwig Gruno prince of Hesse-Homburg. Born in 1705, he was one of the youngest sons of Frederick III James, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg, and spent all his adult life in Russia. He got involved in the military career, achieving the highest military degree of field marshal, and in 1735, he became general feldcejchmajster and head of the Main Chancery of the Artillery, thus becoming the commander of the whole Russian artillery. He was many times rewarded for his services, both materially and with the most important Polish and Russian orders. His career was hampered by conflicts with other commanders of the Russian army, and in 1745, his premature death. The prince’s archive was divided into 9 sections even before 1750, and distributed among archives and chanceries of the highest administrative bodies of Russia, the Corps of Cadets, and military units, following subject classification. Some materials connected with commanding the artillery, as well as those that were used in military campaigns, remained in the Main Chancery of the Artillery, and until the 19th century were inherited by successive offices supervising the artillery and military engineering troops in Russia, ending up in the archive established at the Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Signal Corps in St. Petersburg. Thanks to this, the so-called march chancery of the prince of Hesse-Homburg from the time when he was commanding the Russian troops in armed conflicts in the Caspian area and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the years 1733-1736 has been preserved almost intact. The article briefly describes the whole collection of approx. 1,000 documents divided into 4 archival units (marked ВИМАИВиВС, ф. 2, оп. ШГФ, д. 539, 540, 541, 542), and its significance in the study of the history of the war on the Polish succession. Especially valuable part is documents related to the activity of sejmiks in south-eastern voivodeships of the Commonwealth, as well as letters of Polish magnates, nobility, and clergy. They present the course of military activities in Podolia, Volhynia and Ruthenia, the organization and way of collecting war tribute allotted by Russians to provisions for the army, as well as the process of pacifying the area and forcing its residents to recognize August III Wettin as the rightful ruler.