Metadata: Theological and Masonic Manuscripts Fonds
Collection
- Country:
- Ukraine
- Holding institution:
- Rare Publications and Manuscripts Department of the M. Gor’kii National Research Library
- Holding institution (official language):
- Відділ рідкісних видань і рукописів Одеської національної наукової бібліотеки імені М. Горького
- Postal address:
- Ukraine, 65023, Odesa, ul. Pastera, 13
- Phone number:
- 380 (48) 723-4536
- Web address:
- http://odnb.odessa.ua/view_post.php?id=63
- Email:
- vrvr.onnb@gmail.com
- Reference number:
- F. 58
- Title:
- Theological and Masonic Manuscripts Fonds
- Title (official language):
- Фонд богословських і масонських рукописів
- Date(s):
- 1668/1907
- Language:
- Russian
- French
- Extent:
- 36 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
-
Among other things (masonic manuscripts, Russian Orthodox theological treatises, ecclesiastical documents, etc.), the collection includes two manuscripts that pertain to the blood libel against Jews: 1) “Research on Jews’ Murder of Christian Children and Use of their Blood” (81 sheets; undated), which coincides with the text of a restricted memorandum of the same title that was first published by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 1844 and later republished with the heading “Information on Jews’ Murders of Christians to Obtain Blood” (1878) and “Memorandum on Ritual Murders” (1913); in the latter case, the text has been ascribed to the writer and lexicographer Vladimir Dal’, although his involvement in composing it is a matter of historical controversy. 2) “Memorandum on the Accusation that Jews Use Christian Blood for Various Purposes, and Convince Persons of Other Faiths to Convert to Judaism and to Profanate Other Faiths, and on the Case in the City of Velizh of Persons Accused of These Things, Primarily the Case regarding the Soldier’s Son Emel’ianov Found Outside that City in 1823” (107 sheets; undated). [Sheet 32 of this manuscript is in the form of a sheet whose both sides are inscribed with a fragment of a composition in French about Jews.]Judging from the stamps on them, both of these anonymous manuscripts had previously been part of the personal library of Count A. G. Stroganov, who in 1855-63 was the Novorossiia and Bessarabia governor-general; and were later housed in the Novorossiia University library, to which Stroganov had bequeathed his valuable collection. Both works pertain to the so-called Velizh affair, a high-profile trial that took place in 1823-35 and involved a group of Jews of the city of Velizh (Vitebsk province; now in the Smolensk region) accused of ritual murder. While the author of the first manuscript recognises the blood libel as something based in fact, and describes “the Judaic faith’s custom of bloody sacrifice,” the second author, to the contrary, strives to defend Jews from this accusation in general, and the Velizh Jews who went through this ordeal in particular, expressing the “hope that the accused shall be released immediately.”
The fonds also contains the manuscript “Galiatovskii. Conversations on the True Messiah” (undated; in two parts, 256 and 390 sheets), a polemical composition by Ioannikii Galiatovskii (c. 1620-88), the Russian Orthodox Church figure and rector of the Kiev-Mogila Academy. The full title of this work is “The Righteous Messiah. A Conversation between a Christian and a Jew on the Advent into the World of the True Messiah Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Promised to People by God from the Beginning of the World.” Composed in the 1660s and published in the “Little Russian dialect” at the printing press of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery in 1669, and in Polish in 1672, this was a Russian Orthodox polemical treatise against Judaism, written in the form of a dialogue between a Jew and a Christian.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Dal’, Vladimir
- Galiatovskii, Ioannikii
- Stroganov, A. G.
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds is unstructured.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
