Metadata: The Private Coeducational Hebrew Teachers' Seminary "Tarbut" in Vilnius
Collection
- Country:
- Lithuania
- Holding institution:
- Central State Archives of Lithuania
- Holding institution (official language):
- Lietuvos centrinis valstybės archyvas
- Postal address:
- O. Milašiaus 21, LT-10102, Vilnius
- Phone number:
- (8 5) 247 7830
- Web address:
- http://www.archyvai.lt/lt/lcva.html
- Email:
- lcva@archyvai.lt
- Reference number:
- f. 222
- Title:
- The Private Coeducational Hebrew Teachers' Seminary "Tarbut" in Vilnius
- Title (official language):
- Privati mišri žydų mokytojų seminarija „Tarbut“ Vilniuje
- Creator/accumulator:
- Private Coeducational Hebrew Teachers' Seminary "Tarbut" in Vilnius
- Date(s):
- 1921/1941
- Language:
- Hebrew
- Polish
- Lithuanian
- Russian
- Extent:
- 1,295 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The Teachers’ Seminary of Tarbut in Vilnius was established in the early 1920s and functioned through the interwar period. The seminary's archive is composed of various administrative materials and data on students and educational activities. The majority of materials in the collection are from the late 1920s and the 1930s; a part of the seminary's archive is held by YIVO archives in New York (Collection RG 23).
The administrative materials include correspondence with the Polish authorities on such issues as the appointment of teachers, educational plans, exams and financial issues and the circulars and instructions issued by the Polish educational authorities. Lists of students and graduates are also included in the collection, as well as student letters and applications.
A substantial part of the collection is composed of data on the seminary’s educational process: protocols of the pedagogical council (with discussions of various disciplinary and administrative matters), class journals with grades and attendance records, lesson and educational plans, protocols of exams and lists of students' achievements. Several files include diplomas of the seminary's graduates with the graduates' photographs.
The collection also includes several hundred personal files of the seminary's students, listed in alphabetical order in the inventories.
Some materials, originating from 1940 and 1941, reflect the seminary's activities after the annexation of Vilnius to Lithuania. Correspondence from this period mentions a kindergarten for refugee children organised by the seminary.
- Archival history:
-
The Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940 put an end to the legal activities of Jewish organisations in Vilnius, including Jewish educational institutions. Exact information concerning the fate of the collection after the Soviet takeover and during the Nazi occupation is not available. During the Soviet period it was deposited at the Central State Archive of the Lithuanian SSR in Vilnius, predecessor of the modern Central State Archive of Lithuania.
The documents of Tarbut in Lithuania (Kaunas) and of the area office of Tarbut in Vilnius comprise separate fonds in the Central State Archive of Lithuania, LCVA f. 552 and f. 295 respectively. Some of the documents from the seminary in Vilnius is also held by YIVO in New York (Collection RG 23).
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Tarbut was established in Moscow in 1917 as a Zionist cultural and educational society, with the goal of developing Hebrew-language culture and education. In Soviet Russia Tarbut was outlawed in 1919, but it was able to continue and broaden its activities in Poland, Lithuania and several other countries in eastern Europe. The Teachers' Seminary of Tarbut in Vilnius started with teachers' courses, established in the city in 1921. In the following years, the courses were reorganised into a pedagogical seminary that functioned until World War II. In the 1930s a preschool teachers' seminary was established under the auspices of the teachers' seminary. Both institutions were closed after the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940.
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of two inventories arranged in chronological / thematic order. The Seminary students' personal files are listed alphabetically.
- Access, restrictions:
- The collection is open for reference at LCVA.
- Finding aids:
- Inventories in Polish and Russian are available at the Lithuanian Central State Archive. The inventories are also accessible at the Lithuanian Archives' website. Inventories and descriptions in Polish and Hebrew are 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=3b0b03f9.1
- 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
