The Role of Polish Territories in the European Trade in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Abstract

The role of the Polish territories in European trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been studied mainly in relation to the sixteenth century. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, particularly the first half of the eighteenth, remain considerably less examined due to the incomplete exploitation of Sound registers and port statistics.

This article surveys the participation of the Polish territories in European trade turnover in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, analyzing the commodity structure of Polish exports and imports, the role of Gdańsk and other Baltic ports, land trade, and the consequences of the partitions of Poland for the Polish trade position.

The study draws on published Sound Toll Accounts data, the statistics of Gdańsk trade turnover by Biernat and Hoszowski, Soom on Baltic grain trade, and Christensen on Dutch Baltic trade, supplemented by port records and literature on Polish land trade and Russian competition.

The analysis shows that the Polish territories supplied at least three-quarters of Baltic grain exports, with Gdańsk maintaining its leading position despite fluctuations from wars and Russian competition. Wood and forest products were the second most important export. The commodity structure of Polish foreign trade was typical for underdeveloped economies: raw materials on the export side, industrial and luxury goods on the import side. The Dutch navigation monopoly on the Baltic, broken only in the first half of the eighteenth century, kept freight profits outside Poland. The partitions of Poland and the Prussian trade convention after 1772 severely disrupted Polish trade flows and drained the treasury. The East-West commodity turnover through Polish territories served a bridging role between Russia and Western markets, but the nobility trade policy hampered the bourgeoisie and prevented Poland from achieving a surplus balance of trade.