Metadata: Assistant Head of the Bessarabia Provincial Gendarmerie Administration at the Izmail Border Post
Collection
- Country:
- Ukraine
- Holding institution:
- Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine in Kyiv
- Holding institution (official language):
- Центральний державний історичний архів України, м. Київ
- Postal address:
- 03110, м. Київ-110, вул. Солом'янська, 24
- Phone number:
- 380 (044) 275-30-02
- Web address:
- cdiak.archives.gov.ua
- Email:
- mail.cdiak@arch.gov.ua
- Reference number:
- F. 1152
- Title:
- Assistant Head of the Bessarabia Provincial Gendarmerie Administration at the Izmail Border Post
- Title (official language):
- Помощник начальника Бессарабского губернского жандармского управления на пограничном пункте в г. Измаиле
- Creator/accumulator:
- Assistant Head of the Bessarabia Provincial Gendarmerie Administration at the Izmail Border Post
- Date(s):
- 1879/1916
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 542 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
- Included is intelligence on the activities of Jewish political parties, in particular, on a prospective Zionist congress in Odessa; on the preparation of the Zionist Congress in Basel and the election of deputies; on the Eighth Bund Conference, and a Paris meeting of the Group to Aid the Bund; on a prospective conference of the Po’ale Tsiyon party; secret circulars on discovering Bund organizations in northwestern, southwestern, and southern Russia; on Bundist émigrés’ organisation in New York of a Committee to Collect Donations toward Revolutionary Aims; a copy of a report of the German consul in Jaffa on the positive influence Jewish immigration was having on the economy of Palestine; circulars of the Main Administration for Press Affairs with a listing of periodicals (Voskhod [Sunrise], Evreiskii narod [The Jewish People], Der Telegraf, Ha-zman [The Time], etc.) whose publications were subject to particular supervision; copies of circulars on prosecution and subsequent seizure and sequestration of books and periodicals (including the pamphlet “Martyred by Yids”; Tog Fragn, for publishing the article “The Beilis Affair”; Sholom Aleichem’s book Der Mabul; the journal Yidishe Velt, for the article “Class Struggle and Nationality Policy in Jewish Life”; etc.); on the need to prevent Jews from removing Russian gold from Odessa and Elizavetgrad; etc.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
A separate gendarmerie corps was established in Russia per a statute of 28 April 1827, according to which the empire was divided into gendarmerie areas; these were in turn divided into corresponding provincial departments headed by field officers [shtab-ofitsery]. Pursuant to the statute “On the Corps of Gendarmes” (9 September 1867), most of the gendarmerie areas were liquidated, replaced by gendarmerie administrations, which were in charge of political investigations and inquests regarding state crimes. In the territory of Ukraine, these bodies functioned, in particular, in the Volhynia, Ekaterinoslav, Poltava, Khar’kov, Kherson, and Chernigov provinces; and there was a separate gendarmerie in the city of Odessa.
At the same time, the post of assistant to the head of provincial gendarmerie administration was introduced. This official held jurisdiction over two to four counties; answering to him were non-commissioned officers at gendarmerie points in a number of cities and towns. The assistant heads also conducted inquests in political cases and monitored the activities of political parties and organizations, including Jewish ones, in the territory under their jurisdiction. Heads of provincial gendarmerie administrations were also in charge of fortress and port gendarmerie detachments, border gendarmerie points and temporary registration bureaus. In administrative terms, the gendarmerie administrations answered to the headquarters of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes, and as pertained to political investigations, originally to the Third Department of His Imperial Majesty’s Own Chancery, and from 1881 on, to the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Department of the Police.
Beginning in 1902, political-investigative functions in the provinces, including the conduct of surveillance and supervision of secret intelligence agents, were transferred to the investigation departments set up at this time (some cities also had investigation stations); in 1903 these were renamed secret political police departments [okhrannye otdeleniia]. In this arrangement, gendarmerie administrations, aside from their other duties (monitoring the local population and political-ideological tendencies in society; informing higher-up authorities of disturbances and abuses; secret police surveillance; monitoring persons crossing the border; etc.), remained in charge of conducting inquests. Later, in connection with the growth of the revolutionary movement, a network of district secret political police departments was established to combine political investigation efforts and coordinate activities of local secret political police departments and gendarmerie entities; these district secret political police departments answered to the head of the Department of the Police, and each held jurisdiction over five to ten provinces. In particular, the Southwestern District Secret Political Police Department, based in Kiev, held jurisdiction over the Kiev, Podolia, Volhynia, Poltava, and Chernigov provinces; the Southeastern, based in Odessa, held jurisdiction over the Kherson, Tavriia, and Bessarabia provinces (and was also in charge of the intelligence network on the Black Sea coast and the Balkan peninsula).
However, in practice, these district secret political police departments failed to meet expectations, and were dissolved pursuant to a circular of the Department of the Police of 1 March 1914; their functions were transferred to the investigative departments of provincial gendarmerie administrations. Gendarme and police functions were carried out on railroads and railroad rights-of-way by railroad gendarmerie police administrations (the Kiev, Odessa, Khar’kov, etc. administrations), established in late 1866 and having departments every 200 km, as well as non-commissioned officers at all major stations. At first immediately subordinate to the chief of gendarmes, and subsequently to the Department of the Police, these answered to the directors of local provincial gendarmerie administrations in carrying out inquests. Gendarmerie entities were liquidated by decree of the Provisional Government on 10 March 1917.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Sholem Aleichem
- System of arrangement:
- The fond includes two inventories systematised according to the structural-thematic principle.
- Finding aids:
- Inventories are available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
