Metadata: Livonia governorate commission of municipal affairs (Riga)
Collection
- Country:
- Latvia
- Holding institution:
- Latvian State Historical Archives
- Holding institution (official language):
- Latvijas Valsts vēstures arhīvs
- Postal address:
- Slokas iela 16, Rīga, LV-1048
- Phone number:
- +371 20 017 505
- Reference number:
- 26
- Title:
- Livonia governorate commission of municipal affairs (Riga)
- Title (official language):
- Vidzemes guberņas Pilsētu lietu komisija (Rīga)
- Creator/accumulator:
- Livonia governorate commission of municipal affairs
- Date(s):
- 1877/1920
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 1,025 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The collection contains papers relating to a wide range of issues discussed in the Livonia governorate commission of municipal affairs, including supervision of trade, taxation, issues related to education, culture, construction of buildings, financial and transport issues and elections to the Russian parliament (the Duma) in Livonian cities and towns at the beginning of the 20th century. A few of the files in the collection contain Jewish-related materials. In the file of 1903, marked as secret, the issue of including Riga in the Jewish Pale of Settlement is discussed (inventory 1, file 113). This file includes, for example, a letter from the mayor of Riga (Gorodskoi Golova) to the Livonian governor with a request to prevent the possible inclusion of Riga into the Pale of Settlement, and a report from the mayor to the Minister of Internal Affairs, in which he noted that he would not object if the government decided to cancel completely the Pale of Settlement. He was concerned that once Riga was included in the Pale it would become a predominantly Jewish town and would attract a massive influx of poor Jews, which would be to the town's detriment. This would in turn result in a rise in the prices of small apartments in the city, which would negatively affect the well-being of the Christian workers. The collection also includes documents related to the establishment of a warehouse in Riga by Tsodik Rubin in 1910 and a complaint by a Jewish resident in Riga against the local authorities regarding the refusal to connect his house to the city’s infrastructures in 1913. In addition, the collection contains papers of 1905 on the participation of Jews in the elections to the First Russian Duma.
- Archival history:
- After World War II archival material from the Tsarist period was part of the Central State Archive of the Latvian SSR.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- In the spring of 1877 Alexander II signed a decree on the imposition of the municipal reform act of 1870 onto cities of the Baltic governorates resulting in the establishment of the Livonia governorate commission of municipal affairs. The commission was charged to supervise the activities of city self-government bodies such as city councils and city boards in Livonia. The commission was chaired by the governor and included senior officials of the Livonia local administrative and judicial authorities. In practice, this reform, and especially the subsequent municipal reform of Alexander III in 1892, expanded the powers of the governors and the dependence of municipal authorities on them. For example, the governor had the deciding vote when the commission was in deadlock and the right to veto a decision he disagreed with even if it was approved by a majority of the members of the commission.
- Subject terms:
- Antisemitism
- Duma
- Jewish-Christian relations
- Pale of Settlement
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of four inventories.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People
- Author of the description:
- Ilya Vovshin, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, 2018