Metadata: Conscription Board of the City of Vilnius
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:
- 499
- Title:
- Conscription Board of the City of Vilnius
- Title (official language):
- Vilniaus miesto karo prievolės komisija
- Creator/accumulator:
- Conscription Board of the City of Vilnius
- Date(s):
- 1874/1915
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 1,755 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
Materials of the Conscription Board of the City of Vilnius include Ministry of Interior circulars and correspondence with different government institutions, minutes of board meetings, records of medical examinations, various conscription related exemptions, papers on organising conscription and searching for draft evaders, extracts from metrics and statistical data.
Important Jewish-related materials in the collection include exemption grants to Jewish recruits according to their marital status, education or health condition. In accordance with the 1874 statute on universal military duty, a six-year term of service was established in Russia and a relatively transparent system of exemptions was introduced. The documents in the collection include service records of Jewish recruits, requests of Jews for exemption and various personal certificates accompanying and supporting these requests. Some of the applications were based on the ruling that sons who were their family's only wage earners were exempted from military service. The collection includes an affidavit written in 1889 by a supervisor at the University of Kharkov affirming that Yitzhak-Meir Iozefovich had completed his medical studies (inventory 3, op. 110). Lists of Jewish conscripts for 1906-1905, metrical data of Jews and material on Jews who registered for recruitment at various stations in Vilnius are another important part of this collection.
- Archival history:
- In 1940, after the imposition of the Soviet rule in Lithuania, the consolidated Central State Archive of the Lithuanian SSR was founded in Vilnius. In 1957 the archive was reorganised and divided into two separate central state archives. One archive was renamed the Central State Historical Archive of the Lithuanian SSR and was limited to the pre-1918 period. Thus, the materials of the Conscription Board of the City of Vilnius were included in this archive, which preceded the current Lithuanian Central State Archives.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Conscription Board of the City of Vilnius was established in 1874 under the chairmanship of the mayor and in accordance with the military reform of 1874. The responsibilities of the board included, inter alia, to compile and to verify draft lists, to carry out conscription, to define the rights of the conscripts, to perform medical examinations etc.
- Access points: locations:
- Vilnius
- Subject terms:
- Jewish soldiers
- Military
- Vital records
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of three inventories that are arranged in chronological order.
- Finding aids:
- Detailed inventories are available 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
