Metadata: City Government of Tartu
Collection
- Country:
- Estonia
- Holding institution:
- State Archives of Estonia
- Holding institution (official language):
- Eesti Rahvusarhiiv
- Postal address:
- Tallinn, Maneeži 4, 15019
- Phone number:
- (+372) 693 8668
- Web address:
- http://www.ra.ee/
- Email:
- rahvusarhiiv@ra.ee
- Reference number:
- f. 2966
- Title:
- City Government of Tartu
- Title (official language):
- Tartu Linnavalitsus
- Creator/accumulator:
- City Government of Tartu
- Date(s):
- 1918/1944
- Language:
- Russian
- Estonian
- German
- Extent:
- 12,708 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection of the city government of Tartu includes a broad range of materials that reflect various aspects of city life between 1918 and 1944: education, welfare, infrastructure, transportation and finances. In some cases, residents’ personal files are available (for instance, personal files of pension recipients). Materials from the World War II period also mention such issues as damage caused by hostilities and evacuations.
The materials of this collection reflect three distinct periods in the history of Tartu: the German occupation in 1918, the interwar period and the German occupation during World War II.
The materials from 1918 include correspondence, memos and other documents which refer to Jewish communal activities and institutions. The files include correspondence with the German authorities on various issues, such as the size of the Jewish population of Tartu, the local Jewish officials, national and religious organisations, the local Jewish mutual help society for artisans and petty merchants and the local Jewish elementary school (these papers include, along with other data, lists of pupils and teachers).
Later Jewish-related materials from the 1920s and 1930s include correspondence and other documents relating to Jewish communal institutions and activities in Tartu.
The materials from the period of the German occupation of Tartu during World War II comprise lists, correspondence and other documents relating to assets and property previously owned by Jewish residents of Tartu.
Materials referring to Jewish residents of Tartu can be also found in other parts of the collection, which include materials of various organisations and institutions, such as personal files, which were kept by the social welfare services and are part of the current collection.
- Archival history:
- Despite their origin in Tartu, the materials of the 1918-41 Tartu city government were transferred to Tallinn during Soviet rule. The transfer was presumably part of a 1957 plan which aimed to concentrate materials relating to the period of Estonian interwar independence at the Central Archive of the Estonian SSR in Tallinn (known from 1948 untikl 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. In 1972 the materials of the Tartu city government between 1941 and 1944, which previously comprised a separate archive, were incorporated into the archive of the prewar city government.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The collection includes the papers of the institutions of local government in Tartu during three distinct periods: the German occupation in 1918, the interwar period and the German occupation during World War II.
- Access points: locations:
- Tartu
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of nine inventories arranged according to chronological / 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 in Jerusalem.
- 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
