District Police Board of Tartu

Collection

Scope and content:: The archive of the District Police Board of Tartu includes records on the surveillance of individuals suspected of various offences and general surveillance of groups and individuals, records of inspection of local businesses and places of entertainment, data on the inspection of sanitary issues and on the district's infrastructure and on population and migration statistics and registration. Investigations of accidents and disasters are also included in the files, as well as records of detainee interrogations.

Several files include Jewish-related materials: administrative paperwork on the legal status of the Jews, including a 1889 correspondence with the Governorate Board of Livonia; data on the registration of the Jewish population in the district (1894-1912); correspondence on residence permits for Jewish dentists, midwives and other professionals, and for Jews seeking to spend the summer in the district (1898-1917); correspondence on Jewish medical students seeking to take matriculation exams (1915), as well as other data on Jewish students in Tartu and student organisations (organisations of students on private Rostovtsev courses and private university courses in Tartu are mentioned); and data on illegal political activities in the last decade of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th, including the period of the first Russian Revolution.

Archival history:: In 1917 the records of the abolished Police Board were transferred to the Central State Archive of Estonia. Since 1945 the records have been kept at the Estonian Historical Archives, Tartu.

Administrative/biographical history:: The Police Board of Tartu was established in 1888 as part of a general reorganisation of the police in the Baltic governorates of the Russian Empire. It functioned until its liquidation after the second Russian Revolution in February 1917.

Subject terms:: Education; Education--Student organisations; Education--Students; Jewish political activity; Legal status of Jews; Professions--Crafts; Residency issues of Jews; Revolutions

System of arrangement:: The collection consists of one inventory, arranged in thematic-chronological order.

Access, restrictions:: The collection is open for reference at the Estonian Historical Archives, Tartu.

Finding aids:: Finding aids in Russian and Estonian are available at the Estonian Historical Archives.

For further reference see: Центральный государственный исторический архив Эстонской ССР. Путеводитель, Москва, Тарту 1969, 38-39; Arhiivijuht, I. Tartu 2003, 106-107.

Basic data on the collection is available at the web portal of the National Archives of Estonia: http://ais.ra.ee, Detailotsing – Leidandmed – EAA.330.

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

Author of the description:: Tatjana Schor, Historical Archives of Estonia, and Alex Valdman, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, 2015