Metadata: Kaunas General Сrafts Council, 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-195
- Title:
- Kaunas General Сrafts Council, Kaunas governorate
- Title (official language):
- Kauno gubernijos Kauno bendroji amatų valdyba
- Creator/accumulator:
- Kaunas General Сrafts Council
- Date(s):
- 1845/1895
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 284 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The collection of the Kovno (Kaunas) General Сrafts Council includes: correspondence on punishing artisans for violating the craft charter; materials on internal elections in the artisans’ guilds, accounting documents, master lists; and guilds’ registers of court sentences. Materials in the collection may shed light on the composition of Jewish artisans in Kovno, on the situation in Jewish craftsmen guilds, and on problems associated with their activities. The collection contains documents from 1882 on the formation of the Jewish shoemakers’ guild in Kovno (inventory 1, file 32). An important part of the Jewish materials are files on the elections of various Jewish guilds’ foremen, deputies and board members. Among such Jewish guilds can be noted, for example, guilds of Jewish blacksmiths, joiners, tin smiths, and painters. In addition, the collection contains similar materials on some Christian-Jewish guilds. For instance, a file dated 1881 contains papers on the elections of foreman, deputies and board members of the Christian-Jewish guild of shoemakers (inventory 1, file 29). Another part of the Jewish-related records in the collection are papers related to the prosecution of the Jewish guilds’ leaders for various violations of the artisans’ charter. The collection also includes financial documents of the Jewish guilds, lists of foremen and journeymen, and a register of the internal court sentences of a Jewish tailors’ guilds in 1867 (inventory 1, file 130).
- Archival history:
- No information
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The General Crafts Council was subordinate to a municipal council (the Duma) and a magistrate. The scope of its activities included: 1) taking care of sick craftsmen; 2) protecting the interests of various industries; 3) supervising admission to and withdrawal from membership in artisans’ guilds; 4) teaching artisans’ children and caring for the orphans of artisans; 5) controlling the quality of work and quality of the workshops; 6) levying taxes from artisans and supervise their duties; 7) adjudicating minor disputes among the artisans; 8) managing the craftsmen’s finances; 9) issuing passports to artisans; 10) judging juvenile artisans for petty violations. At the end of the 19th century the General Craft Council lost its former importance as a result of the erosion of the estates boundaries among the urban population in the Russian Empire.
- 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
