Metadata: Chancellery of the Governor-General 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. 378
- Title:
- Chancellery of the Governor-General of Vilnius
- Title (official language):
- Vilniaus generalgubernatoriaus kanceliarija
- Creator/accumulator:
- Chancellery of the Governor-General of Vilnius
- Date(s):
- 1783/1912
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 151,272 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection contains the records of the Chancellery of the Governor General of Vilnius, the chief Russian military and civilian administrator in the approximate area of modern Lithuania and northern Belarus. The collection covers the years from 1783, more than a decade before the Russian annexation of the area as part of the Third Partition of Poland, to the abolition of the Governorate General of Vilnius in 1912. Its materials not only depict the activities of the local government, but also hold information on a broad range of economic, social and religious issues which were brought before the Russian officials. The documents refer mostly to Vilnius, Kaunas, Hrodna and their surrounding areas, but also to other localities throughout the region, such as Minsk. The collection comprises two distinctive subsections: one contains the documents of the general department of the chancellery from 1783 to 1912, and the other the archive of its political department from 1831 to 1912.
The collection of the general department contains a substantial body of materials that give insight into the interactions between the Russian authorities and the Jews, and sheds light on numerous aspects of Jewish life in the region. These materials include claims and appeals brought before the Governor General, such as complaints about the actions of civil and military officials including soldiers, appeals against Jewish communal institutions or individuals in Vilnius and many other localities, appeals following cases of apostasy, complaints against members of the Polish land-owning gentry, requests for allocations from the kosher meat tax (korobka) funds surplus and appeals on many other personal, financial and legal questions.
Government correspondence and memoranda on issues related to the Jewish population refer to such topics as printing and censorship of Jewish books and periodicals (the latter in the second half of the 19th century), Jewish merchants and contractors, taxation, travel and resident permits, Jewish farming, restrictions on the wearing of Jewish traditional dress, election of Jewish representatives (in 1817) and of the members of the Rabbinical Commission (from the late 1840s) recruitment of Jewish soldiers (from 1827), apostasy, Jewish hospitals and schools, state-sponsored education and reports on criminal activities such as smuggling, counterfeiting and espionage, particularly from the first decades of the 19th century (later reports are also included in the materials of the political department). Records from the 1810s include data on the 1812 war and its aftermath and documents from the early 1830s mention damage and casualties incurred in the 1830-31 Polish insurrection.
Some of the late 18th and early 19th century files contain data on the Hasidic schism and its social and communal implications in Vilnius and other localities. The Jewish community in Vilnius and its institutions are referred to in many documents throughout the collection.
The files of the political department include various materials concerning crime, politics and other issues relating to the Jewish population. Such documents include reports on the circulation of forbidden literature, printing and censorship; data on criminal activities, including illegal emigration; reports on Jewish religious activities and organisations including Hasidic communities and the yeshiva of Mir; and materials concerning the 1863-64 Polish uprising. Materials from the 1870s onward also contain data on such issues as political groups and societies (the organisation of illegal immigration and participation in various socialist and Zionist activities); the spreading of political propaganda; and anti-Jewish violence and restrictive legislation. The collection also includes papers on the surveillance and persecution of political activists. Early 20th century documents include information on events during the 1905 Russian Revolution: protest marches, strikes and riots.
- Archival history:
- Prior to the 1917 revolution the records of the Russian administration in Vilnius, including the materials of the Governorate General, were kept in a separate 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.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Governorate General of Lithuania was established in late 1794 and functioned throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries until its abolition in 1912. The borders of its jurisdiction changed slightly over the years, but for the most of the period it included the cities and environs (classified as governorates from the 1840s) of Vilnius, Kaunas and Hrodna.
- System of arrangement:
- The collection is divided into two sub-series: one contains the documents of the General Department of the chancellery (from 1783 to 1912) and the other includes the archive of the Political Department (from 1831 to 1912). The majority of the files in each sub-series are arranged chronologically. Inventories are arranged by calendar year in each of the sub-series.
- 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 in the archive. 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
