S. STARYKON-KASPRZYCKI: ALMANAC OF THE NOBILITY. TOM I [1939].

Description

This is the first edition of the first volume of the legendary coat of arms, a continuation of the great editorial enterprise undertaken by Stefan Janusz Starykoń-Kasprzycki (1903-1966). The publication was issued in 1939 by the M. Drabczyński Printing House in Warsaw .

The Almanac was a continuation of the “Polish Encyclopedia of the Nobility”, published by Starykoń-Kasprzycki in 1935-1938. After the end of that venture, the author undertook to publish the “Almanac of the Nobility” in the form of a quarterly. Unfortunately, the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 interrupted this activity – only the first volume (z. 1-4) was published .

The work is a continuation of the great tradition of Polish heraldry and genealogy begun by Bartosz Paprocki, Szymon Okolski, Kaspar Niesiecki, and continued in the 19th century by Adam Boniecki (“Herbarz polski”), Teodor Żychlinski (“Złota księga szlachty polskiej”) and Seweryn Uruski (“Family”). Starykoń-Kasprzycki’s almanac brought new genealogical materials, additions and corrections to earlier herbaria, as well as biographies of noble families that received confirmation of nobility in the Second Republic.

Volume I contains extensive biographies, genealogical tables and descriptions of coats of arms, compiled on the basis of documents from the General Archive of Historical Records, land archives and church metrics. It is an invaluable source of knowledge for historians, genealogists, regionalists and anyone seeking their roots. The publication was published on the eve of the greatest catastrophe in the history of Poland, which gives it special value as a testimony to the noble culture of the Second Republic, which disappeared irrevocably with the outbreak of war.

10189-25-AZ