Resumen de Quelleneditionen zur Geschichte der Ständevertretungen im Herzogtum Preußen, Livland und Pommern (Forschungsstand und Forschungsbedürfnisse)
In this article, Janusz Małłek summarizes the already published sources on the history of the Estates in the Baltic countries, from Szczecin to Tallinn, and then in this context he discusses what he sees as the outstanding research questions. The current state of research on the parliamentary institutions in Ducal Prussia is sufficiently advanced, owing to numerous monographs, and the most urgent remaining task, according to the author, is the editing of the materials from the period of the decline of the representative institutions in the eighteenth century. In contrast, reconstruction of the history of the parliamentary institutions in Livonia would require focusing the attention of editors on the period from 1535 to 1558 and from 1562 to 1710, since the sources for these periods so far edited are insufficient. The most pressing task is to start work on the most neglected sources, those on parliamentary institutions in the Duchy of Pomerania. The author does not deal in any depth with Royal Prussia because that would be a separate undertaking. The author concludes that the potentially excessively high cost of dealing with this incredible volume of material for editing could be avoided if computer resources were more fully utilized (Internet, CD-ROM, etc.).
