The Civil Chancellery of the Commander of the Armed Forces of the Kingdom of Poland and of the Separate Lithuanian Corps, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich

Collection description

Collection

Country:: Lithuania

Holding institution:: Lithuanian State Historical Archives

Holding institution (official language):: Lietuvos valstybės istorijos archyvas

Postal address:: Gerosios Vilties g. 10, 03134 Vilnius

Phone number:: (8 5) 213 74 82

Web address:: http://www.archyvai.lt/lt/lvia_naujienos.html

Email:: istorijos.archyvas@lvia.lt

Reference number:: f. 377

Title:: The Civil Chancellery of the Commander of the Armed Forces of the Kingdom of Poland and of the Separate Lithuanian Corps, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich

Title (official language):: Atskirojo Lietuvos korpuso ir Lenkijos kariuomenės vyriausiojo vado didžiojo kunigaikščio Konstantino Pavlovičiaus civilinių reikalų kanceliarija

Creator/accumulator:: Civil Chancellery of Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich

Date(s):: 1822/1830

Language:: Russian

Extent:: 864 files

Type of material:: Textual material

Physical condition:: good

Scope and content:: The collection includes various claims, appeals and reports by individuals and institutions brought before the Chancellery of the Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, as well as the chancellery's correspondence with various local and central government institutions. These materials reflect a wide range of social, economic and cultural phenomena.

The collection contains appeals by merchants and artisans (including a complaint by the non-Jewish guilds of shoe makers and hat makers in Vilnius about presumably illegal commercial activities of their Jewish competitors in the late 1820s) and complaints about Russian officials and Polish landowners. Some files refer to matters of taxation, including the box tax in various communities, as well as the military conscription exemption tax (prior to 1827). Some papers refer to allegedly unjust judicial decisions, such an appeal submitted in 1822 by Jewish women from the town of Mozeika whose husbands were sentenced to exile in Siberia by a Vilnius court.

Other papers mention Jewish lessors and contractors, such as the Jewish resident of Vilnius who leased the mill of Vilnius University and asked in 1824 for arbitration in a debt dispute. Some files include petitions by Jewish merchants and suppliers who wished to receive payments or reimbursements for their services, mostly during the Napoleonic Wars (including an appeal by a resident of Merkine who provided supplies for the entourage of Tsar Alexander I in 1815).

Many files refer to the Jewish community of Vilnius and mention various legal, business and communal affairs, including a complaint from 1822 against Jews who rented houses on streets where they were forbidden to reside.

The collection also includes papers that refer to cases of Jewish apostasy and conversions to Judaism. A plea from 1822 mentions a baptised woman and her son who were allegedly kidnapped and reconverted to Judaism by the Jewish community of Telsiai. An 1823 report mentions appeals on behalf of Jewish residents of the town of Vidzy who were accused of involvement in the conversion to Judaism of two peasant girls and sentenced to exile in Siberia.

Other materials refer to various criminal activities, such as a report from 1827 on a retired soldier who was burned to death by Jewish smugglers and forgers from Vilnius who maintained illicit ties with local police. Numerous other reports and appeals mention cases of counterfeiting, robbery and contraband.

A substantial number of documents refer to the recruitment of Jewish soldiers (commenced in 1827), including complaints about cases of injustice or fraud and various appeals, such as a complaint by a widow from Vilnius in 1828 against the local Jewish community, which allegedly drafted her son into the army in spite of his baptism.

Papers that reflect the government's policies towards the Jews include correspondence concerning the resettlement of Jews from rural areas.

Archival history:: After the death of Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich in 1831 his private and official papers were divided between several institutions and are now divided between archives in Bialystok, Hrodna, Kiev, Moscow, St Petersburg, Vilnius and Warsaw. The papers of his chancellery which referred to the area of Vilnius were transferred there and are now kept with other collections from the Tsarist period in the Lithuanian State Historical Archives. Other parts of the chancellery's papers found their way to archives in Hrodna (NIAB) and Kiev (CDIAK). Some related documents are also kept in St Petersburg (RGIA).

Administrative/biographical history:: Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich (1779-1831) served between 1816 and 1830 as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Kingdom of Poland and commander of the separate Lithuanian Corps. He resided in Warsaw and functioned, in practice, as the highest Russian administrative authority in the areas of former Polish rule. The Civil Chancellery, which was established in Warsaw in 1822, was responsible for the administrative supervision of the western border governorates of the Russian empire: Hrodna, Minsk, Podolia, Vilnius, Volhynia, and the oblast of Bialystok. It ceased its activity in autumn 1830 with the outbreak of the Polish uprising.

Access points: locations:: Poland; Vilnius

Access points: persons/families:: Pavlovich, Konstantin

Subject terms:: Conversion to Judaism; Crime; Guilds; Jewish soldiers; Military; Napoleonic wars; Real estate; Residency issues of Jews; Trade and commerce

System of arrangement:: The collection is arranged on a chronological basis.

Access, restrictions:: The collection is open for reference at LVIA.

Finding aids:: A basic inventory is available online in Lithuanian. More detailed inventories in Russian are available at the LVIA. Records and descriptions of the Jewish-related materials of the collection are also available at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People.

Links to finding aids:: https://eais-pub.archyvai.lt/eais/faces/pages/forms/search/F3001.jspx?_afPfm=-7dec7f9e

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

fullscreen: The Civil Chancellery of the Commander of the Armed Forces of the Kingdom of Poland and of the Separate Lithuanian Corps, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich

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