Metadata: Gendarme Directorate of the Vilnius Governorate
Collection
- Country:
- Lithuania
- Holding institution:
- Lithuanian State Historical Archives
- Holding institution (official language):
- Lietuvos valstybės istorijos archyvas
- Postal address:
- Mindaugo 8, 03107 Vilnius
- Phone number:
- +370 5 219 5320
- Email:
- istorijos.archyvas@lvia.lt
- Reference number:
- 419
- Title:
- Gendarme Directorate of the Vilnius Governorate
- Title (official language):
- Vilniaus gubernijos žandarų valdyba
- Creator/accumulator:
- Gendarme Directorate of the Vilnius Governorate
- Date(s):
- 1828/1916
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 3,060 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection contains records of the Russian gendarmerie (political police) in the Vilnius Governorate that refer to various public, political, economic, criminal and judicial matters. The materials include: circulars of different governing institutions; reports on the political and economic situation in the governorate; papers on various incidents and the criminal situation; correspondence and documentation on wanted persons, distribution of illegal literature, strikes, political parties and revolutionary organisations; data on surveillance for politically unreliable persons and on arrests; complaints and requests lodged by individuals; data on conscription.
The collection contains numerous Jewish-related materials from the first half of the 19th century. These materials include proceedings on claims for the erroneous conscription of Jews by the representatives of the local Jewish authorities and complaints of Jews on violence and theft. The collection also contains materials from 1836 on the resettlement of Jews to the Tobolsk Governorate in Siberia (inventory 5, file 155), and in the file from 1839 referring to abuses of the Vilnius Kahal (inventory 5, file 307). The file of 1879 contains accusations of Rabbi Naftali Berlin in crimes against the state (inventory 2, file 660a), and other files of the 1870s mentions accusations of Jews in criminal activities such as theft and counterfeiting (inventory 2, files 577, 673).
An important part of the collection consists of documents relating to the activities of the Jewish socialist parties such as Bund, Zionist Socialist Labor Party (SS), Poalei-Zion and Jewish Socialist Labour Party (SERP) in the early 20th century. These records include data on the distribution and possession of materials of these parties and the political police agents’ reports on the surveillance for the activities of these parties, and for some members of the parties. Regarding the Bund, the collection also contains petitions and correspondence of 1902-1903 on prisoners accused of belonging to the Bund (inventory 1, file 428). Moreover, the agents’ reports in regard to the activities of these parties relate not only to the territory of the Vilnius Governorate, but also to many other parts of the Russian Empire, such as the cities of Bialystok, Minsk, Gomel, Dvinsk, and the governorates of Vitebsk and Grodno.
Documents on the political history of the Jews in Tsarist Russia includes materials on the activities of the Zionists and liberal Jewish political forces. For example, the collection contains correspondence on surveillance of the activities of the Zionists in Russia and correspondence about the surveillance for the Kovno (Kaunas) Congress of the Russian-Jewish liberal, Zionist and socialist public and political activists held in 1909 (inventory 1, file 153). The collection also includes the 1907 inquiry on charges against the editors of the Yiddish newspaper “Volkzeitung” (Zakheim) and the Hebrew newspaper “Ha-Zman” (Ben-Tsiyon Kats) regarding publication in these newspapers (inventory 1, file 966). In 1906, in contrast to an order issued by the Russian authorities, Ben-Tsiyon Kats published in “Hazman” the "Vyborg Manifesto" signed by several Russian politicians of the dissolved First Russian Duma, calling for public resistance and tax and draft evasion. For this publication, Kats was sentenced to one year in prison.
In addition, many of the records include documents on the participation of Jews in the general Russian revolutionary movement. These are, for example: materials on Jews who were members of the Narodnaya Volya circles; papers on the members of the Socialist-Revolutionary party; papers on Jewish anarchists; records on the prosecution of individuals for insulting the Tsar; documents on persons who were accused of running illegal printing houses, organising strikes and/or agitating among soldiers.
The collection includes materials on the Jewish pogroms in Mariupol, Belaia Tserkov’ and Orsha in 1905 (inventory 1, file 58), and papers on persons suspected of organising the movement of emigrants across the Russian border.
- Archival history:
- In 1914, due to the outbreak of the First World War, the records of the Vilnius Gendarme Directorate were transferred to Moscow. In 1918, the materials were given to the Moscow Historical Revolutionary Archive. In 1922 they were transferred to the October Revolution Archive in Moscow (the current State Archive of the Russian Federation - GARF). In the late 1940s the records were included in the Central State Archive of the Lithuanian SSR, and in 1957 they were handed over to the newly organised Central State Historical Archive of the Lithuanian SSR in Vilnius, predecessor of the current State Historical Archive.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- In 1863, following the Polish uprising, local gendarme brigades (political police) were created in the districts of the Vilnius Governorate. In 1867 new regulations referring to the Special Corps of Gendarmes in the Russian Empire were approved by the Emperor Alexander II. This was dictated by the need to create an extensive network of territorial gendarmerie bodies throughout the empire to fight effectively against the revolutionary movement. Instead of gendarme districts, each of which includes a few governorates in the Empire, gendarme directorates were created in each of the governorates. In addition, territorial district gendarme directorates were established in six North-Western Governorates and the Kingdom of Poland. In accordance with this decision, the Gendarme Directorate the Vilnius Governorate was established in 1867. The main functions of the gendarme directorates were suppressing unrest; search and arrests; inquiry and investigation of political affairs; monitoring of the political and economic situation; secret surveillance of the population, search for persons evading the authorities; counterintelligence; etc.
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of five inventories which are arranged thematically-chronologically.
- 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, 2018
