Metadata: K. A. Voenskii
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; tel.: (812) 310-28-56; fax: (812) 310-61-48; e-mail: office@nlr.ru http://www.nlr.ru
- Reference number:
- F. 152
- Title:
- K. A. Voenskii
- Title (official language):
- ВОЕНСКИЙ К. А.
- Creator/accumulator:
- K. A. Voenskii
- Date(s):
- 1715/1918
- Language:
- Russian
- Greek, Modern (1453-)
- Hebrew
- French
- Extent:
- 2001 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Scope and content:
-
The fonds includes lists of works by K. A. Voenskii (1908-17); his articles, reviews, and translations (1880s-1900s), and materials pertaining thereto (1715-1916); evaluations and reviews of K. A. Voenskii’s works (1899-1913); correspondence (1880s-1910s); biographical materials, including documents pertaining to K. A. Voenskii’s work activities (1876-1917); and documents collected by him (1741-1917). Materials pertaining to Jewish history are found mainly in op. 1 and 4. Op. 1 contains copies of documents collected by K. A. Voenskii for his historical studies. These include materials (manuscript copies) pertaining to the investigation in the case of the Vil’na Jew B. Neiman, who was carrying out secret missions for the Russian authorities in the Napoleonic Grand Duchy of Warsaw (April-May 1812), including a report from Lt. General P. Kh. Wittgenstein to War Minister M. B. Barclay de Tolly on the arrest of a suspicious Jew named B. Neiman (23 April 1812); minutes of the interrogation of Neiman, the accuracy of whose attestations was corroborated by reports to Barclay de Tolly from the Vil’na Civil Governor A. A. Lavinskii and Lt. General K. F. Baggovut; a file on “suspicious persons sent to the director of the military police Ia. de Sanglen,” including materials on Jews who were detained and a record of their oral testimony (June-August 1812); a copy of a report by Lt. Colonel G. Kempen to Ia. de Sanglen (22 August 1812) on the use of Jews in Russian reconnaissance and the recruitment of Jewish merchants residing in the city of Brody to such missions; a manuscript copy of a “Letter from Rabbi Zalman Barakhovich [i.e., Shneur Zalman of Liady (c. 1745-1812); founder of the Hasidic movement Chabad; in op. 1 he is mistakenly referred to as “Barakhovich Zal’man, a rabbi”] to all Jews dwelling in Belorussia” (in Russian; the translation is notarised by the Poltava Civil Governor P. Mogilev), which calls upon Jews to assist the Russian Army in any way possible, since Jews’ “sins” might “be cleansed” by “zealous exploits” (1812); a copy of a Russian translation of a letter from Dov Behr of Liubavichi (the Mitteler Rebbe; Shneur Zalman’s son, 1774-1828) to the influential Hasid M. Maisels on the flight of the family of Shneur Zalman of Liady in July 1812, his death in December 1812, and the prophecies and teachings of Shneur Zalman, who supposedly predicted the Moscow fire and the defeat of Napoleon; appended is a brief biographical outline on Rabbi Zalman (1813); draft materials of K. A. Voenskii connected with his involvement in a publication to mark the 100-year anniversary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Department of Religious Affairs; these contain different variants of a historical essay on the legal status of Jews and on state attempts to administer their “spiritual affairs,” and of an essay titled “Karaitism” (1909-1911); printed materials on Jews, and in particular, a copy of an anti-Napoleonic proclamation by the Holy Synod that contains accusations against Jews (December 1806); two newspaper clippings: a letter by the historian S. M. Ginzburg to the editor of the newspaper Severo-Zapadnyi golos (24 April 1911) requesting assistance from all “individuals and institutions” in selecting materials for his book on the participation of Jews in the Fatherland War of 1812, and the anonymous note “1812 and the Jews” (in Zhizn’ Volyni, 9 April 1911) criticising S. M. Ginzburg’s undertaking from an antisemitic standpoint.
Op. 4 contains materials about I. I. (I. O.) Liutostanskii (1825-1915), author of the books The Talmud and the Jews and On Talmudist-Sectarian Jews’ Use of Christian Blood, and in particular a copy of his Autobiography (undated); the copy is in part written in K. A. Voenskii’s hand, and denies the widespread opinion that Liutostanskii was of Jewish origin. It also reports on the controversial trial associated with his defrocking as a Roman Catholic priest, after which he dedicated himself to the denunciation of the Talmud and Jewry, and to converting Jews to Russian Orthodoxy; information about I. I. Liutostanskii, from the words thereof as recorded by K. A. Voenskii (1902); newspaper clippings containing reviews of Liutostanskii’s book The Talmud and the Jews (1902), and an obituary of Liutostanskii in which he is described as a Jewish convert to Christianity and an opportunist who slandered Jews (1915); a passage from the proofs of book one of the third edition of Liutostanskii’s The Talmud and the Jews that contains an illustrated insert depicting the Jewish religious leaders Rashi, the Maharal of Prague, Baal Shem Tov (Besht), and others (undated); a fragment from a memoir by Liutostanskii (May 1915) edited by K. A. Voenskii; and photographs of Liutostanskii (1867, 1876).
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Konstantin Adamovich Voenskii (1860-28) was a historian, censor, and director of the archive of the Ministry of Education. He graduated from the Alexander Lyceum. In 1888-96 he was a special-assignments official of the Courland Provincial Administration in the city of Mitava (now Jelgava); a special-assignments official of the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee (1896-1914); director of the archive of the Ministry of Education (1906-16); and a member of the council of the Main Administration for Press Affairs (1916-17). He emigrated in 1918. His publications included A Systematic Listing of Enactments and Documents of the Courland Ducal Archive in Mitava (Moscow, 1896); Napoleon and the Jews of Borisov in 1812: An Episode from the History of the Fatherland War (St. Petersburg, 1906); The Fatherland War in Russian Journalism (St. Petersburg, 1906-11); Enactments, Documents, and Materials for Political History and the History of Everyday Life of 1812 (St. Petersburg, 1909-12); and The Fatherland War of 1812 in Reminiscences of Contemporaries (St. Petersburg, 1911).
- Access points: persons/families:
- Baal-Shem-Tov
- Baggovut, K. F.
- Barakhovich, Zalman
- Barclay de Tolly, M. B.
- Behr, Dov
- de Sanglen, Ia.
- Ginzburg, S. M.
- Kempen, G.
- Lavinskii, A. A.
- Liutostanskii, I. I. (I. O.)
- Maharal of Prague
- Maisels, M.
- Mogilev, P.
- Napoleon
- Neiman, B.
- Rashi
- Voenskii, K. A.
- Wittgenstein, P. Kh.
- Subject terms:
- Antisemitism
- Antisemitism--Antisemitic propaganda
- Blood libel
- Chabad
- Christianity
- Hasidic Judaism
- Historical research
- Karaite Judaism
- Law enforcement
- Legal status of Jews
- Manuscripts
- Memoirs
- Napoleonic wars
- Newspaper clippings
- Orthodoxy (Christian)
- Photographs
- Proselytisation
- Talmud
- Testimony
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds includes four inventories (op. 3 is in two parts) systematised mainly by structure (op. 1 and 3) and alphabetically (op. 2 and 4).
- Finding aids:
- Inventories are available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
