THE ANTI-ALCOHOL LEGISLATION IN POLAND AND ABROAD FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE POLISH-LANGUAGE ABSTINENT PERIODICALS FROM 1843 TO 1914

Abstract

The Polish-language abstinent periodicals appearing from 1843 in the Grand Duchy of Poznan, Galicia and the Polish Kingdom and issued abroad by the Polish communities (Germany, the United States) did not enjoy much interest of the historians, medical historians or press experts and only recently they have got a monographic study. As from the presented article, the abstinence press can also be a source of the valuable information for legal historians. The creators of these arts wrote, among others on the subject of the anti-alcohol legislation in the Polish territories of the three partitions and in the world. They informed readers not only of the well-known and disseminated prohibition, but also less well-known decisions of the authorities regulating the production, sale, export, import and consumption of alcohol, such as: ‘lokalopacja’, the Pollard system or the Göteborg system. In Poland, at that time, the monopoly of alcohol sales or propination, which did not also escape the attention of the creators of the abstinent periodicals.