Metadata: The Censorship Committee 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. 1240
- Title:
- The Censorship Committee of Vilnius
- Title (official language):
- Vilniaus cenzūros komitetas
- Creator/accumulator:
- Censorship Committee of Vilnius
- Date(s):
- 1801/1865
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 259 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The majority of Jewish-related materials in the archival collection of the Censorship Committee of Vilnius originate from the period between 1827 and 1865 (in 1827 the first permanent Jewish censor, Wolf Tugendhold, commenced his work in Vilnius; in 1865 the committee was closed and reorganized).
The collection contains a multitude of documents on government policies concerning Jewish printing in the Russian empire. Of particular interest are orders and directives of the Ministry of Popular Enlightenment (which supervised the censorship of Jewish books prior to 1865); data on the Jewish book trade (such as rules regarding the book trade in Vilnius from 1834), Jewish print houses (such as a directive from 1836 concerning the closing of Jewish printing houses with the exception of the Romm house in Vilnius) and the reviewing of certain Jewish books and manuscripts, such as Hoshen Mishpat and the Talmudic tractate of Hulin, mentioned in correspondences from the 1830s and early 1840s. Some documents mention efforts to curtail the printing of Hasidic and Kabbalistic texts (papers from the mid-1830s mention an account by Professor Savitsky of the University of Kiev and his Jewish companions, who proposed a project to oppose the dissemination of Hasidic literature). Later documents include complaints about competition to the legally recognized Jewish printing houses in Vilnius and Zhitomir (such claims are raised in correspondence from 1859). Other papers mention the illegal export of Jewish books and the taxation of legally imported volumes.
Some documents refer to the employment of Jewish censors (Tugendhold, Rosen and others), including correspondence on their hiring, personal files and documents referring to their retirement.
The collection also includes lists of forbidden books, lists of books reviewed by the censors in Vilnius, the censors' reviews and correspondence on various works (such as correspondence on Sefer Hasidim by Israel Axenfeld from 1841) and minutes of the censorship committee.
Documents from 1862 mention the Tsar's permit to establish new Jewish printing houses and a plan to tax them, which was prepared by the censors Tugendhold and Rosen. Papers from this period also include pleas from various individuals to approve the establishment of new printing houses (including a plea by S.J. Fuenn and A. Rosenkrantz from Vilnius, which was accepted in 1862).
Documents from this period also refer to Jewish periodicals, such as Ha-Maggid, issued in Prussia and mentioned in correspondence from 1858, Ha-Karmel, issued by S.Y. Fuenn in Vilnius from 1860, and Ha-Kohavim, a short-lived journal issued in Minsk by Y.M. Wolman and Y. Brill in the mid-1860s.
- Archival history:
- Prior to the 1917 revolution the records of the Russian administration in Vilnius 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 censorship committee was established in 1804, along with similar institutions in other parts of the Russian empire. Until the late 1820s the committee functioned under the auspices of the University of Vilnius and was officially called the Censorship Committee at the University of Vilnius. In 1827 the committee was re-established as the Censorship Committee of Vilnius, a separate institution under the Vilnius educational district. For a short period between 1863 and 1865, prior to its closure and reorganisation, the committee was placed under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior.
- Access points: locations:
- Vilnius
- Access points: persons/families:
- Axenfeld, Israel
- Fuenn, S J
- Rosenkrantz, A
- Subject terms:
- Censorship
- Education
- Hasidic Judaism
- Jewish press
- Kabalah
- Printing
- Publishing
- System of arrangement:
- The collection is arranged in chronological/thematic sections.
- Access, restrictions:
- The collection is open for reference at LVIA.
- Finding aids:
- A basic inventory is available online in Lithuanian (for online access see the website of the Lithuanian Archives). More detailed inventories in Russian, as well as thematic and alphabetical indexes, are available at LVIA. 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
- 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