Metadata: The Jewish Teachers Institute of Vilnius
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. 570
- Title:
- The Jewish Teachers Institute of Vilnius
- Title (official language):
- Vilniaus žydų mokytojų institutas
- Creator/accumulator:
- Jewish Teachers Institute of Vilnius
- Date(s):
- 1873/1915
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 32 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection contains the records of the Jewish Teachers’ Institute of Vilnius, a state-run institution which was intended to prepare teachers for the government-run Jewish school system.
The documents include various data on the institute's activity: lists of students, grades and personal data; records on exams, teachers' meetings and programmes of studies; and data on the institute's building and equipment, including correspondence on the establishment of an educational meteorological station in 1883). Correspondence from the late 1890s refers to the institute's exhibits at the Paris World’s Fair of 1900. Other documents include data on financial matters, such as the collection of tuition fees and the collection of the taxes which provided the funding for the institute (mostly the candle tax in various localities). Some files include data on the teachers at the institute: salaries, promotions, state service ranks and other information.
The papers also include disciplinary records and data on expelled pupils, such as a list of pupils expelled from various institutions between 1902 and 1910. Some documents mention revolutionary activities: correspondence from 1901 refers to a student arrested on suspicion of forbidden political activity; papers from 1903 mention students who were involved in illegal activities, such as a debate between Zionist and Bundist agitators held in Vilnius in 1903. Later correspondence mentions students' involvement in political activities – gatherings, demonstrations and so on – during the revolution of 1905-07. Official correspondence from 1912 mentions a letter by the Russian extremist right-wing League of the Archangel Michael (Soiuz Mikhaila Arkhangela) which claims the institute to be a "revolutionary nest."
The collection also contains data on Jewish elementary schools (including a Talmud Tora in Vilnius) which were put under the institute's supervision, including records from the late 1900s and early 1910s which list pupils of Jewish elementary schools throughout the educational district of Vilnius.
Files from the late 1870s include appeals by graduates of the former rabbinical school needing recommendations or documents from the institute's archive. Certain files in the institute's collection contain papers which originate from the last years of the rabbinical school’s operation.
- Archival history:
-
Prior to the 1917 revolution the records of the Russian administration in Vilnius, including the materials of state-run institutions of education, were kept in a government depository. In the early 1920s they were transferred to the newly established Vilnius State Archive, which became a part of the Central State Archive of the Lithuanian SSR in 1940. In 1957, together with other pre-revolutionary documentation, these materials were included in the Central State Historical Archive of the Lithuanian SSR, predecessor of the current State Historical Archive.
The materials of the rabbinical school which preceded the teachers’ institute constitute a separate collection (LVIA f. 577). Additional materials on the teachers’ institute can be found in the archive of the headquarters of the educational district of Vilnius (LVIA f. 567).
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Jewish Teachers’ Institute of Vilnius was established in 1873 as a result of a reorganisation of the Rabbinical School of Vilnius. The institute functioned through the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was closed during World War I. Between 1873 and 1885 a parallel institution existed in Zhitomir.
- Access points: locations:
- Vilnius
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of one inventory, which is arranged according to chronological/thematic order.
- Access, restrictions:
- The collection is open for reference at LVIA.
- Finding aids:
- Basic information in Lithuanian and an inventory in Russian are available at the online catalogue of LVIA. A more detailed inventory in Russian is 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.6
- 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
