Paulina Ławniczak - Secretariat of State of the Duchy of Warsaw (1807-1813)


The office of the Duchy of Warsaw Minister Secretary of State was created pursuant to the adoption of 1807 Basic Law. The Secretariat of State for the Duchy of Warsaw was an auxiliary apparatus for the minister State Secretary, with its main office located in Dresden, in consequence to the duties of the service. Thus, the office operated between 1807 and 1813. The responsibilities of the minister determined all the most important duties of the Secretariat of State. The system by which the administrative office had functioned was subordinate to those responsibilities. The quality of work, given the overload of assignments, had, at times, left much to be desired. However, The State Secretary Office was the only way, the citizens were able to contact the monarchy. The so-called HRH Cabinet of Stanislaw August was similar to the Saxon Cabinet, and the Secretariat of State served as the chancellery of the Saxon king. Therefore, in the case of this particular Royal Chancery, we can expect the pre-existing order to be upheld rather than introduction of the new filing system, which is characteristic for the 19th century.

The most important argument for applying the well-proven solutions in the Secretariat of State, was the fact, that the Saxon king was adverse to dramatic change.

In spite of the fact that the Duchy of Warsaw had been introduced to modern political regime and way of operating the chancery, the Kingdom of Saxony was more conservative at the time. Fryderyk August was very cautious about the Duchy being reformed and he didn't intend to introduce the same kind of changes to the Saxon state. This could also be the reason for his being skeptical about the modern approach to case filing. With regard to that, the solutions used to organise the secretariat of State were similar to the ones popular in the 18th century, modified, in order to cater to the needs of the affairs of the Duchy of Warsaw. Polish royal chancery, which the Secretariat of State of the Duchy of Warsaw should be considered as, was modernized by well-developed reference tools. General lodgement records were only just being brought on into Stanisław's chancery.

Content of any copy of a given Royal Act, that is, the original document in the archives, as well as official copy - in other words - excerpt from the registry of the secretariat of state, should be consistent. According to the law, this was the responsibility of the Minister Secretary of State. Alas, many shortcomings have been discovered in that regard, while browsing the Council of State memorandums.