Folwark

For other uses, see Folwark (disambiguation).

Folwark (Belarusian: фальварак, Falvarak; Lithuanian: Palivarkas) is a Polish word for a primarily serfdom-based farm and agricultural enterprise (a type of latifundium), often very large. Folwarks were operated in the Crown of Poland from the 14th century and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since the 15th century, from the second half of the 16th century in the joint Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and survived after the partitions of the Commonwealth in the Russian Empire until the early 20th century. Purpose of folwarks was to produce surplus produce for export. The first folwarks were created on church- and monastery-owned grounds; later they were adopted by both nobility (szlachta) and rich peasants (singular: sołtys).

The term "folwark" came into the Polish language in the 14th century from the German "Vorwerk" (literally in fore-work, analogously: farm[house] before a manor or city).

Creation of the folwarks was boosted by growing demand for grain and the profitability of its export, both to Western Europe and inside the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This led to the exploitation of serfdom, when land owners discovered that instead of money-based rent and taxes it was more profitable to force the peasantry to work on folwarks. Folwark-based grain export was an important part of the economy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

In Poland serfdom was regulated (and increased) by the Act of Piotrków (1388) and Act of Toruń. With the fall of prices of agricultural goods at the end of the 17th century, the folwark economy was in crisis, and szlachta attempts to increase production by increasing folwarks' area (usually by appropriating peasant lands) and labour (usually by increasing work demand for peasants) only compounded the economic crisis and further worsened the fate of the peasants, who had been, until then, no poorer than their average counterparts in Western Europe.

In Lithuania serfdom was fully established during the Wallach reform in the middle of the 16th century.

Until the end of the 18th century folwarks remained the basis for szlachta economic and political power. After the abolition of serfdom in Poland (in 1807 by Napoleon and in land reform processes in the decades that followed), folwarks used paid labor.

Folwarks were abolished by the People's Republic of Poland with the PKWN decree of 6 September 1944, concerned with agricultural reform. After the end of Second World War folwarks were nationalised, resulting in PGRs – state-owned collective rural enterprises (Państwowe Gospodarstwo Rolne) or partitioned, usually with no or little compensation to their owners.

See also

• Hacienda
• Ranch
• Manorialism
• Serfdom