Metadata: The Prosecutor at the Court of Appeals 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. 446
- Title:
- The Prosecutor at the Court of Appeals of Vilnius
- Title (official language):
- Vilniaus teismo rūmų prokuroras
- Creator/accumulator:
- Prosecutor at the Court of Appeals of Vilnius
- Date(s):
- 1875/1918
- Language:
- Russian
- Lithuanian
- Extent:
- 10,851 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The archive of the Prosecutor at the Court of Appeals of Vilnius reflects the variety of cases brought before the court from its establishment in 1883 to its liquidation during World War I. A substantial part of the collection includes Jewish-related materials that reflect not only purely criminal activities, but also various illegal political activities that took place in the region during the eventful years before, during and after the 1905 Russian Revolution.
The political offences mentioned in the files vary from alleged defamations of the Tsar to cases of violence against representatives of the regime and terrorist attacks.
Several dozen files mention alleged cases of offensive discourse against the Tsar; other files mention slurs against Tsarist officials and defamation of the Christian faith and the Russian empire (a 1884 file mentions allegations against an attendant of a Jewish prayer house who reportedly refused to say a prayer for the health of the Tsar; another file records an investigation that was held when subversive scribbles were found on the Tsars' portraits in the Jewish Teachers' Institute in Vilnius).
Files from the 1880s onward mention investigations pertaining to persons suspected of assisting or belonging to underground revolutionary organizations: files from the 1880s chiefly mention the socialist revolutionary group Narodnaya Volya; many other political parties including the Bund, Po'ale Tsiyon and RSDRP are mentioned in records from the late 1890s and the 1900's (for instance, papers from 1911 mention an investigation into the Zionist leaders Boris and Isaac Goldberg, who were "suspected of participation in the Zionist organisation in Vilnius").
In many cases, individuals were investigated for involvement in revolutionary activities, including clandestine printing of political literature and its distribution. Documents from 1884-85 mention an investigation into an underground printing house which was run in Vilnius by Narodnaya Volya and records from 1905 mention printing equipment and weapons belonging to the Bund, found in an apartment in Minsk. In several cases, the papers include data on the smuggling of forbidden literature over the Russian border. A file from the mid-1880s mentions the arrest of Vladimir Iokhel'son, a member of Narodnaya Volya and future ethnographer, accused of smuggling forbidden literature into Russia. Several files mention distribution of political leaflets and pamphlets in the streets, synagogues, schools and army barracks. Several files mention the persecution of publishers accused of violating the censorship laws. These mention, among others, Ben-Tsion Katz, the editor of Ha-Zman, and editors and contributors to the Zionist journal Ha-Olam including Isaac Goldberg and Alter Druyanov.
The growing socialist movement in the region from the 1890s to the 1900s is reflected in a series of files that mention the establishment of workers' unions and the development of a strike movement throughout the region. Among other issues, the documents mention strike movements among the chimney sweeps of Vilnius and the organisation of workers’ unions by the Jewish bakers of Brest, the Jewish shopkeepers and bookkeepers of Kaunas and the Jewish hatters of Minsk. The files also mention revolutionary propaganda among apprentice tailors in Bialystok.
Revolutionary violence is reflected the collection. Some files mention bombs exploding or found in various localities; armed attacks against policemen and other officials; and attacks against employers (such as a 1907 attack on the Jewish owner of a factory in Brest who fired some of her employees) and persons suspected of collaborating with the authorities and employers (several files mention cases of violence, including the 1904 murder of Jewish strikebreakers in the area of Grodno). Several files mention robberies and expropriations executed by revolutionary activists (the Romm print house in Vilnius is mentioned as one of the businesses robbed). Several files mention anti-Jewish violence: assaults against Jews and pogroms in various localities.
The parts of the collection referring to non-political crime also include a multitude of Jewish-related materials. Many files mention alleged offences related to the registration of the Jewish population by local Jewish officials: erroneous civil records, issuance of forged documents related to military service and illegal issuance of passports. In some cases, documents describe cases of blackmail by local officials (as in the case of the assistant of the crown rabbi of Vawkavysk, who illegally collected money for burial services).
Other criminal cases include robberies and other acts of violence (for instance, files from 1910 mention a Jewish teacher from Vilnius suspected of sexual abuse); economic crime (such as forged indication of the weight of goods transported by railway: several cases from the 1900s and 1910s are mentioned in the files); espionage (several cases from the 1910s are mentioned). The technological progress in the region is reflected in several files from the 1910s which mention the investigation of car accidents.
- Archival history:
- The collection is kept in the Lithuanian State Historical Archives along with other materials from the period of imperial Russia.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Courts of Appeals were the highest regional judiciary instance in the court system introduced in Russia as part of the 1864 judicial reform. The Court of Appeals of Vilnius was established in 1883 as part of the introduction of the new court system in the Vilnius region and functioned until its liquidation during World War I.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Druyanov, A.
- Goldberg, Boris
- Goldberg, Isaac
- Iokhel'son
- Katz, Ben-Tsion
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of eleven inventories. Three inventories are dedicated to administrative issues, while the other eight include papers on criminal and on political issues from the governorates of Grodno, Kaunas, Minsk and Vilnius. The latter inventories are arranged in chronological order.
- Access, restrictions:
- The collection is open for reference at LVIA.
- Finding aids:
- Inventories are available at the Lithuanian State Historical Archives and online at the Lithuanian Archives' website.. A description of the Jewish-related materials is available at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem.
- Links to finding aids:
- https://eais-pub.archyvai.lt/eais/faces/pages/forms/search/F3001.jspx
- 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
