Wiktor Schramm’s voice in the discussion on the use of the Josephine cadastre in the study of agriculture and agricultural technology in Galicia in the 18th century (W. Schramm, “Rolnictwo polskie u schyłku XVIII wieku na tle metryk józefińskich,” Poznań

Wiktor Schramm (1885–1958) was a scholar and educator born in Olchowa and living in Poznań. He was a professor at the University of Poznań, its pro-rector, as well as the founder (1919) and head of the Department of Agricultural Economics (initially, Zakład Ekonomii Rolniczej and after 1945 – Katedra). His research interests included agriculture and agricultural economics, accounting, economic history and the organization and methodology of university teaching as well as the natural sciences and ethnography. The article summarizes the current state of knowledge about Schramm’s scholarly activities and presents his hitherto unpublished article as a voice in the discussion of the use of the cadastre, known as the Josephine metric, which was created in the late 18th century in the area of Galicia. It also discusses the metric itself, which is a contemporary source for researching the past and the changes that took place in Galicia from the 18th–21st centuries. Nowadays, the materials produced during the implementation of land surveys in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy of Joseph II are stored at the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv. The article points out the untapped potential of the Josephine metric in the study of such sciences as economic history, historical ethnography, demography, geography, natural sciences and others.