Metadata: Committee of the Society for Aid to Needy Writers and Scholars (Litfond)
Collection
- Country:
- Russia
- Holding institution:
- The National Library of Russia
- Holding institution (official language):
- Российская национальная библиотека. Отдел рукописей
- Postal address:
- 91069, Russia, St. Petersburg, ul. Sadovaia, д. 18, main building
- Phone number:
- (812) 310-28-56
- Web address:
- http://www.nlr.ru
- Email:
- office@nlr.ru
- Reference number:
- F. 438
- Title:
- Committee of the Society for Aid to Needy Writers and Scholars (Litfond)
- Title (official language):
- КОМИТЕТ ОБЩЕСТВА ДЛЯ ПОСОБИЯ НУЖДАЮЩИМСЯ ЛИТЕРАТОРАМ (ЛИТФОНД)
- Creator/accumulator:
- Committee of the Society for Aid to Needy Writers and Scholars (Litfond)
- Date(s):
- 1859/1922
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 28 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
- The fonds’ materials include logs and minutes of sessions of the Committee of the Society for Aid to Needy Writers and Scholars (Litfond) and appendices thereto, including materials that mention donations to the Litfond from the Barons O. G. and G. O. Gintsburg, L. M. Rozental’, I. G. Fronshtein, M. I. Gorvits, and a certain Rozenberg from the city of Zhitomir (1860), as well as a donation by P. Shtein and A. Slovinzon, Jews of the city of Ekaterinoslav (1862); etc.; minutes of a session of 21 March 1860 include a fragment of the last will and testament of the entrepreneur and public figure Lipman Feigin, who converted to Christianity in the late 1830s and authored several draft projects for reforms regarding Jews; a record dated 23 September 1860 contains a brief account of a petition to Litfond signed with the pseudonym Ploni-Almoni, resident of the city of Zhitomir, requesting monetary aid for the mathematician and poet Ia. M. Eichenbaum, inspector of the Zhitomir Rabbinical Seminary, and mentioning two books by Eichenbaum in Hebrew: A Description of Chess in Verse (An Epic Chess Poem) and Poems on Various Occasions; etc. The fonds also includes letters to committee members on various issues, and in particular, a letter from Litfond member L. M. Rozental’ to the treasurer A. A. Kraevskii to the effect that the former’s brother Iu. M. Rozental’ was remitting funds collected by subscription by the Kherson Jewish community to support the Litfond; there is also a subscription form enumerating twenty-nine members of the Kherson Jewish community who had made donations, including Rabbi F. Sh. Bliumenfel’d, the prominent entrepreneur M. Feker, and others (1861). Other documents include a letter on making M. A. Varshavskii a member of the Litfond, and on the ruling adopted at a committee session to make him a society member (27 April 1869); M. A. Varshavskii is also mentioned in the long narrative poem The Homesteaders [Khutoriane], which was sent to the Litfond by V. Gorodetskii (pseudonym: V. Bersenev), headmaster of a school in the village of Privoroty (Ushitsa county, Podolia province), and which takes place “in a corner of Podolia,” with characters that include Jews, among them the innkeeper Iankel’ (1869); there is a letter from A. D. Galakhov to P. I. Veinberg expressing gratitude for the organisation of a show to benefit the Litfond (a program of the amateur show at the Odessa Theater is appended; the performance included Jewish actors) (1860); etc. The fonds also contains documents of the Commission on the Burial of Ivan Turgenev, including a letter of the Committee of the Society for Mutual Aid and Charity of Russian Artists in Paris; appended is a subscription form to collect money toward setting up a fund and instituting a stipend for artists in Ivan Turgenev’s name, in which the society’s treasurer Baron G. O. Gintsburg was involved (1883-84).
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Society for Aid to Needy Writers and Scholars (unofficially called the Literary Fund or Litfond) was founded in 1859 in St. Petersburg on the initiative of the writer A. S. Druzhinin by representatives of the well-known Petersburg journals Sovremennik [The Contemporary], Otechestvennye zapiski [Fatherland Notes], and Biblioteka dlia chteniia [Library for Reading]: I. S. Turgenev, K. D. Kavelin, P. A. Annenkov, N. G. Chernyshevskii, A. V. Nikitenko, A. A. Kraevskii, S. S. Dudyshkin, A. D. Galakhov, A. P. Zabolotskii-Desiatkovskii, E. P. Kovalevskii, and A. S. Druzhinin himself. The Litfond charter was approved in August 1859. The society’s most immediate goal was to aid “orphaned families of writers and scholars, and writers and scholars themselves who due to advanced years or some other circumstance are unable to support themselves by their own works,” and also to “assist in the publication of useful literary works,” as well as provide “gifted young persons in need the means to finish their education and prepare for literary and scholarly careers.” In the view of the Litfond founders, the guiding principle regarding aid was “not so much compassion in the face of need and misfortune as society recognising its duty to support disabled persons of literature and science in virtue of the service they have rendered, and to render aid to gifted young people.” Writers and scholars could be members of the Litfond, as could anyone “sympathetic to Russian literature and knowledge.” Membership dues were at least 10 rubles a year, or a one-time payment of 100 rubles. A twelve-member committee elected for three years was in charge of the Literary Fund’s files. The chair of the Litfond was elected annually by the committee. Aid grants were decided upon by the committee, and could be one-time-only, ongoing, or permanent (a pension). The Litfond was funded by membership dues, donations, and income from publications, public lectures, shows, etc. The Litfond ceased activities in the early 1920s.
- Access points: locations:
- Ekaterinoslav
- Kherson
- Russia
- Zhitomir
- Access points: persons/families:
- Bliumenfel’d, F. Sh.
- Eichenbaum, Ia. M.
- Feigin, Lipman
- Feker, M.
- Fronshtein, I. G.
- Galakhov, A. D.
- Gintsburg, E. G.
- Gintsburg, G. O.
- Gorodetskii, V.
- Gorvits, M. I.
- Kraevskii , A. A
- Ploni-Almoni
- Rozenberg
- Rozental’, Iu. M.
- Rozental’, L. M.
- Shtein, P.
- Slovinzon, A.
- Turgenev, I. S.
- Varshavskii, M. A.
- Veinberg, P.
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds includes a single inventory systematised structurally.
- Finding aids:
- An inventory is available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
