In the magazine Unser Danzig published by ex-citizens of Gdańsk in the years of 1949–2008, one must pay attention not only to politically-engaged texts, but also to obituaries which present lives of the deceased and missing their lost fatherland. The aim of these obituaries is not only to inform about someone’s death, but also to acccept the regional origin of the deceased, which is presented by linguistic and paralinguistic means.

The article presents the content of non-published prose works by Stanisława Przybyszewska (1901–1935) from the Gdansk period of her oeuvre, i.e. from the period between 1923 and 1935. The author focuses on the widespread belief that Przybyszewska was interested only in the French Revolution and shows that this is erroneous: her works are much richer in topics, and are not limited solely to the play The Danton Case. On the basis of materials kept in the PAN Archives in Warsaw, the PAN Branch in Poznan and their digital copies kept in the Gdansk PAN Library, along with the description of manuscripts and typescripts, the author summarises the plot and issues discussed in such works as Asymptoty, Po omacku, Fons iuventutis, Twórczość Gerarda Gasztowta, Pasiphaë, Wybraniec losu, Eine realistische Studie, I Roma przeszła, Marcowy poranek, Sterylitas and Vanitas vanitatum, showing the extent to which Przybyszewska’s works can be useful in research devoted to the Polish literature from the interwar period as well as the history of the culture of the Free City of Danzig.

1905 was a milestone year for the Gdansk Municipal Library – its collections were relocated for the very first time in their history to a building erected especially for the purpose, and the entire institution stepped into the 20th century and the world of modern librarianship: a planned collection, scientific cataloguing and indexing, and streamlined circulation. The article presents the specific nature of work at the Library as a Prussian and German facility, as an institution of the Free City of Danzig (Gdansk) and during the two world wars, and shows how it changed over the period of forty years under the supervision of its subsequent directors – Otton Günther, Friedrich Schwarz, and Hermann Hassbargen. In 1945 the century-and-a-half long period of the history of the Gdansk Library as Danziger Stadtbibliothek, the successor of Bibliotheca Senatus Gedanensis and the predecessor of the Gdansk PAS Library, came to an end.

Until 1914 editors of Gazeta Gdańska were taken to court on thirty occasions and were sentenced to a total of RM 2,430 in fines and eight months and three weeks of imprisonment. Of the fifteen editors taken to court, Józef Konstanty Palędzki i Stanisław Wentowski came out with most convictions.

The article discusses the principles of composing inscriptions which might have been familiar to the inhabitants of 18th century Gdańsk. Johann Gottlieb Heinecke’s textbook on Latin stylistics, “Fundamenta stili cultioris”, was one of the most well-known sources of theoretical knowledge on this matter. There are testimonies of the use of the textbook by professors of the Academic Gymnasium: Gottfried Lengnich (1689-1774) and Gottlieb Wernsdorf (1717-1774). Johann Gottlieb Heinecke proposed that inscriptions be primarily divided into ones made in the old style and ones made in the new style. The old style was referred to as lapidaris, while the new one was called stilus recentior. The former assumed brevity and simplicity of expression, while the latter allowed more freedom in terms of the form adopted. The inscriptions made in this latter style also had a more complex and varied vocabulary. According to Heinecke, the optimal structure of an inscription should be tripartite. This universal pattern could have been used everywhere, e.g. in inscriptions on buildings, or on tombstones. This tripartite structure is also present in the extant epitaph of the aforementioned Gottlieb Wernsdorf himself.

Post-Versailles Europe saw the emergence of new, quasi-state territorial corporations (enjoying a great deal of autonomy, but not sovereignty). These included the Free State of Fiume/Rijeka (1919- 1924), Free City of Danzig/Gdańsk (1920-1939), Free State of Memel/ Klaipeda (which emerged between 1920 and 1923, before being incorporated into Lithuania with partial autonomy still remaining), as well as, slightly later, the autonomous Åland Islands (1922), and the Republic of Hatay (1938-1939). In theory, those international law constructs were supposed to resolve tensions (including those erupting on the grounds of nationality) between neighbours vying for control over strategic territories (and cities). However, they proved to primarily spark new conflicts of varying length. The article constitutes an attempt at comparing the geneses and development of the first three of the abovementioned “free cities”, as well as identifying their role in the newly-formed League of Nations. In addition, the article attempts to determine the degree to which the principle of national self-determination played a role in the establishment of these entities, as well as the methods used to ensure that the national minorities which found themselves within the borders of these “free cities” were protected.