Sources to the history of health resorts in the State Archive in Kielce

Abstract

The aim of the article is to discuss sources to the history of five health resorts: Busko Zdrój, Solec Zdrój, Ojców, Rabsztyn and Czarniecka Góra. The relevant sources from the State Archive in Kielce are presented chronologically in three groups, concerning the time of the partitions, the inter-war period and the Nazi occupation until 1945. The survey of the source material in-dicates that the Kielce archives contain valuable documents that can be useful in research on the history of resorts in the region. The documents concern fi rst of all the resorts in Busko and Solec; Rabsztyn and Czarniecka Góra are less amply documented, while Ojców is scarcely represented. The documents in question were produced primarily by state administration bodies and local authorities. Most of them come from the period after the partitions (from the 1830s to 1914), the interwar period and the post-WWII period. Prevailingly, these are written documents although some cartographic material, technical designs, drawings and photographs have also been found. They concern mostly administrative and fi nancial matters, and in some cases per-sonnel issues. The most common types are: statutes, rules, minutes of health resort committees, budgets and fi nancial reports. An important portion of the material are designs of sanatoria, hotels, villas and technical infrastructure. Very few data can be found on strictly medical matters or on social life, which health resorts have always been famous for. The archival records discussed in the article bring valuable data on the history of resorts between the Vistula and Pilica rivers, but they have to be supplemented with other types of sources, e.g. press information, diaries and personal relations.