STATE BANKS OF THE VOLHYNIAN VOIVODESHIP, 1921–1939

Abstract

The article analyses the institutional development of the governmental banking sector in the Volhynian Voivodeship during the interwar period. It has been found out that during this time the local Polish authorities organized an acting system of private and state banks, which was functioning on the basis of the banking right which was enacted by the order of the President of Poland dated from the 17th March 1928. The establishment and functioning of the credit and banking system of independent Poland during two interwar decades was taking place at highly difficult times: inflation in 1918-1923, an economic crisis in 1925, the world economic crisis in 1929-1933. The main tasks of the state banks in the interwar Poland were: granting a loan for the landlords (big, middle and lower-class) and a financial help in the agrarian reform, which included three important elements – the parceling (selling small ploughlands to the countrymen), the consolidation (the union of separate parts of the peasant land into one) and the settlement (a resettlement of the polish military men and civil colonists across the Western Volhyn) and also the financial support of the land reclamation. Apart from that bank played the role of the state funds’ administrator that were appointed to help the agriculture (the recreation of the households that were destroyed by the war, the help in feeding of the cattle, fish) or appointed for special nationwide actions, connected with farming (the creation of the grain, bread reserves and elevators). The state banks in the period between two wars became the main financial reliance of the villages’ population and the programs, which were held with the assistance of their financial resources, brought the peasant farms closer to the market.