Jewish Pupils' Association Fraternitas Ossidia

Collection description

Scope and content:: The collection comprises the papers of Ossidia, a Jewish high school student fraternity founded in Tartu in 1926. The documents – correspondence, protocols and regulations – record the fraternity's activities between 1926 and 1931.

The collection includes the regulations of the fraternity, as well as the regulations of a parallel organisation, the fraternity Ivria in Riga. Correspondence with Ivria, the branch of Ossidia in Tallinn and other organisations is also included. Some letters refer to a merger between Ivria and Ossidia.

Other files include minutes of meetings and assemblies, where various issues – cultural (such as the tenth anniversary of Shalom-Aleichem's death), disciplinary (such as the wearing of the fraternity's badges), and organisational (such as elections of the fraternity's officials) were discussed. The minutes also mention lectures given at fraternity meetings, names of the meetings' participants and other data.

Other parts of the collection preserve requests from pupils who wished to join or quit the fraternity, lists of the fraternity's members, and lists of the members of Ivria in Riga.

Archival history:: Along with other Jewish-related materials, the papers of Ossidia were transferred to the Central Archive of the Estonian SSR in Tallinn (known from 1948 until the end of Soviet rule as the Central State Archive of the October Revolution and Social Development of the Estonian SSR, abbreviated to ORKA or TsGAOR ESSR), predecessor of the current Estonian State Archive.

Administrative/biographical history:: Ossidia, which can be read in modern Hebrew as Atidya, was a high school student fraternity adjacent to the Jewish student fraternity Limuvia, which was founded in 1925 and modelled after Jewish student organisations which had existed in Tartu since the early 1880s: the Jewish Musical-Literary Society and the Jewish Scientific Society. In the late 1920s a branch of Ossidia was organised in Tallinn, and from 1931 it functioned as an independent fraternity. Ossidia in Tartu and Tallinn maintained ties with parallel organisations in Riga (Ivria) and Kaunas (Massadea). Ossidia apparently ceased its activities in Tartu in the early 1930s.

Subject terms:: Correspondence; Education; Education--Student organisations; Education--Students

System of arrangement:: The collection consists of one inventory, which is arranged according to thematic order.

Access, restrictions:: The collection is open for reference at the ERA in Tallinn (in certain cases, online access might be available).

Finding aids:: Basic information and inventories in Estonian and Russian are available at the National Archives of Estonia (online access is available). An inventory in Russian is available at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People.

Links to finding aids:: https://ais.ra.ee/index.php?tyyp=2&otsing_id=20150916111916709791&sess_id=5e212ccd3bab52cd08d6001f07691d63&op=1&module=202&pealkiri=&naita_ridu=10&sort=&active=1&viitekood=eaa.402&leidandmed=&tasand=0&kokku=1&id=

Yerusha Network member:: Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People

Author of the description:: Alex Valdman, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, 2014