Metadata: Vilnius Imperial University
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:
- 721
- Title:
- Vilnius Imperial University
- Title (official language):
- Vilniaus Imperatoriškasis universitetas
- Creator/accumulator:
- Vilnius Imperial University
- Date(s):
- 1792/1833
- Language:
- Latin
- Polish
- Russian
- Extent:
- 1,409 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The collection consists of the Vilnius Imperial University records from 1792-1833 including: university instructions; reports of the university councils and faculty meetings; documents on the election of a professorship and applications for various vacancies; material on potential students; journals of students’ grades; materials on learning, behaviour of students and expulsions from the university; papers on graduates who received academic degrees; lists of teachers, students, graduates, etc. Some of these records includes Jewish-related documents that refer to Jewish students and teachers. For example, correspondence from 1804 on the Chaldean and Hebrew language teacher Yaacov Kalmanson (inventory 1, file 10). The file of 1808-1809 contains details on examinations prepared by Wulf Rosenfeld and Joseph Rozenson (inventory 1, file 15). The materials on students contain applications from 1819-1824 on the removal of Jewish medical students from the meshchane (the lowest order of the urban population) or merchants' estates and, by permission, to grant them the academic degree of doctors of medical sciences (inventory 1, file 40). Most of these applicants were students who had converted to Catholicism and who wanted to be accepted into the civil service. In addition, the collection contains information on Jewish schools in Vilnius (inventory 1, files 73, 493). A very valuable part of the collection consists of materials on Jewish printing houses in Vilnius and other places in the Russian Empire. For instance, one file from 1824-1829 mentions Jewish printing houses in the Volhynian Governorate (inventory 1, file 256). Another file from 1825 on people who wished to set up printing houses in Minsk and Vilnius contains certificates issued by the Vilnius Kahal and the Vilnius city police and correspondence from them addressed to Manes Romm about his reliability and about the activities of the family’s printing house. There is also an application from Zimel Nokhimovich in 1830 requesting the transfer of a part of his printing house from Grodno to Vilnius. (inventory 1, file 736). Another file from 1825-1828 mentions the contract between Vilnius Imperial University and Zimel Nokhimovich on the publication of the university’s calendars and on money settlements with Nokhimovich (inventory 1, file 258). The collection also includes papers on the activities of Jewish booksellers and one file from 1824-1831 that mentions the prohibition of the sale of books in Vilnius by Jews (inventory 1, file 749).
- Archival history:
- The records of the Vilnius Imperial University were handed over to the Central State Archive of the Lithuanian SSR in the late 1940s.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- In 1579, Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland Stephen Bathory transformed the Jesuit college in Vilnius into an establishment of higher education - the Academia et Universitas Vilnensis Societatis Jesu. In 1773, the Jesuit order was dissolved in Europe and the university was taken over by the secular authority. In 1795 the territories of Lithuania were annexed by the Russian Empire and in 1797 the university was renamed the Vilnius Principal School. In 1803, the university received a new statute and the title of Imperial University of Vilnius. The language of instruction was Polish, although Russian was added to the curriculum. The Imperial University of Vilnius was the first institution of higher education in the Russian Empire which began to accept Jewish students. As a number of students and professors became engaged in the anti–tsarist movement during the Polish Revolution of 1830-1831, Tsar Nicholas I ordered the closing of the university in 1832. It was not reopened until 1919.
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of two inventories.
- 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
