Metadata: Telsiai District Court, Kaunas Governorate
Collection
- Country:
- Lithuania
- Holding institution:
- Kaunas Regional State Archives
- Holding institution (official language):
- Kauno Regioninis Valstybės Archyvas
- Postal address:
- Maironio g. 28B, 44249 Kaunas
- Phone number:
- +370 (837) 323 111
- Web address:
- https://www.archyvai.lt/lt/kaa_naujienos.html
- Email:
- kaunas@archyvai.lt
- Reference number:
- I-74
- Title:
- Telsiai District Court, Kaunas Governorate
- Title (official language):
- Kauno gubernijos Telšių apskrities teismas
- Creator/accumulator:
- Telsiai District Court
- Date(s):
- 1830/1873
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 2,164 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The collection comprises the records of Teshi (Telsiai) District Court. It includes: civil cases and criminal prosecution files; minutes, decisions and registers of different courts in the Telshi district; and metrical records. The collection contains various Jewish-related records. One part of these materials includes papers of judicial proceedings on various monetary and property disputes that arose between Jews or between Jews and non-Jews. The courts’ materials may also shed light on the interethnic relations in the region. For instance, a file from 1835 deals with a land dispute between Bernardinian (Cistercians) priests and Jews in Telshi (inventory 2, file 18). Another example is a file from 1848-1850 containing papers on monetary claims of members of the noble Lieven family against Mr. Levins (inventory 2, file 73). An important part of the collection comprises prosecution materials dated 1824-1826 in which some non-Jews are accused of conversion to Judaism (inventory 2, file 228). The documents in the collection also reveal crime among Jews including Jews accused of murder, smuggling, arson, etc. A file from 1853-1856 deals with the charges of Berel Ziv and others for abuses concerning tax-collecting (inventory 2, file 346). Materials of the early 1860s contain charges against Jews for vagrancy (inventory 2, files 431, 432). The collection also includes materials on a case regarding the burning of the Kretingen Jewish community books (inventory 2, file 369). While this is not evident in the inventory lists, it is reasonable to assume that one would find Jewish-related records also in minutes of the court’s sessions, court decisions and the court registers.
- Archival history:
- No information
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
District courts were first-instance judicial institutions in the Russian Empire, which consisted of elected members. In the Empire’s Western governorates, including Telshi (Telsiai) in the Kovno Governorate, the judges were elected only amongst nobles. At the same time, all members of the courts had to be approved by the governorate administration. Since the 1840s, in order to prevent the spread of the Polish influence in Western governorates, the Russian central authorities began to substantially restrict the rights of nobles to elect judges.
The judicial statutes of 1864 introduced a new judicial system in the territory of the Russian Empire, consisting of two groups of courts. These included peace courts and general judicial institutions such as regional courts and chambers of appeal. Thus, mainly in the 1870s, the functions of the district courts were gradually transferred to the new judicial institutions of peace courts and regional courts.
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of two inventories that are arranged in thematic-chronological order.
- Finding aids:
- Detailed inventories are available for free online access on the website of the Lithuanian Chief Archivist Service.
- 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:
- Ilya Vovshin, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, 2019
