Metadata: Governorate Gendarmes' Board of Kaunas
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. 1227
- Title:
- Governorate Gendarmes' Board of Kaunas
- Title (official language):
- Kauno gubernijos žandarų valdyba
- Creator/accumulator:
- Governorate Gendarmes' Board of Kaunas
- Date(s):
- 1868/1917
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 1,089 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection comprises the papers of the Governorate Gendarmes Board of Kaunas. They include circulars and directives, financial and administrative documents, the board’s annual reports, data on the board's staff and papers of several local offices of the gendarmes (in Gargzdai, Kretinga, Šveksna, Jurbarkas, Taurage, Pasvitinys, Panevezys, Ariogala, Kedainiai).
Many files include data on Jewish involvement in revolutionary activities. These include records of interrogations of Jews suspected of belonging to Jewish and non-Jewish revolutionary parties including Bund, and RSDRP, records of searches and surveillance activities, files on individuals accused of illicit political activities, data on the distribution of proclamations, leaflets and illegal books and newspapers in various languages (Yiddish, Polish, Russian and Lithuanian), including illegal materials published by Jewish parties (such as a document published by the central committee of the Zionist-socialist party Poale Tsion on May 1 1912) and on illegal schooling activities.
The collection includes numerous materials on strikes, meetings and demonstrations held in Kaunas and other localities, including a Jewish workers' strike at Glaser's factory and a political demonstration of Jewish youth in Panevezys.
Jewish-related data can be also found in administrative documents. These include lists of suspects and correspondence on surveillance, arrests and other anti-revolutionary activities, lists of conscription evaders, reports of disguised agents of the Gendarmerie and copies of examined letters.
- Archival history:
- On 16 February 1954 the Moscow Central State Historical archives transferred the collection to a branch of the Lithuanian Central State Archives of the Lithuanian SSR in Kaunas. On August 8 1960, 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 Gendarmes Board of Kaunas was created in September 1867 and was responsible for the supervision of local gendarmes' boards throughout the governorate and the detection and investigation of political offences. The board was liquidated in March 1917.
- Access points: locations:
- Kaunas
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of three inventories arranged according to chronological/thematic order. Inventories 1 and 3 include the procedural records of the Governorate Gendarmes Board, while inventory 2 includes the personal files of the Gendarmerie's employees and certain administrative materials.
- Access, restrictions:
- The collection is open for reference at LVIA.
- Finding aids:
- For online data see the Lithuanian archives' website.
- 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:
- Galina Baranova, Lithuanian State Historical Archives, and Alex Valdman, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, 2014
