Road Marking in the Polish Kingdom of the First Half of the 19th Century as a Factor in Economic Development

Abstract

The way the authorities of the Polish Kingdom treated local place and road marking as well as verst distances (Pol. wiorsta) indicates that this was a matter of serious concern already in the so-called constitutional period. An openly anti-state nature of the problem became apparent in 1833, when a decision was made to erase from the public sphere any signs of Polish national colours. When it was ordered that all villages be marked with posts bearing their names, it was decreed that such name plates indicate a given place name both in Polish and in Russian (since 1935). In 1843, the Governor ordered that roadside mile posts installed by local landowners have new bilingual inscriptions added, giving information about the “name of the place and number of houses.” Notably, the order to introduce Russian verst designations of distance had been issued long before the November Uprising, which demonstrates the diligence of the Russian authorities to sort out the system of road signs and place nameplates. This in turn is associated with a strong tendency for Russification visible everywhere, including the changing of road marking