Metadata: Grodno Province
Collection
- Country:
- Russia
- Holding institution:
- Russian Geographic Society
- Holding institution (official language):
- Русское географическое общество
- Postal address:
- 190000, Russia, St. Petersburg, per. Grivtsova, d. 10, litera A
- Phone number:
- (812) 315-62-82
- Web address:
- http://www.rgo.ru/ru
- Email:
- rgo@rgo.ru
- Reference number:
- Category 11
- Title:
- Grodno Province
- Title (official language):
- Гродненская губерния
- Creator/accumulator:
- Research Archive of the Russian Geographic Society
- Date(s):
- 1862/1914
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 20 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
- The category’s documents include manuscripts of ethnographic studies on particular rural areas [volosti] and counties of the province; information on trade in particular cities and towns, including a work by N. Smirnov titled “Information on the Ethnography of the Kosov Rural Area (Slonim county, Grodno Province)”; etc. Pertaining to the history of Jews in Russia are certain files and fragments thereof, and in particular, studies by P. Z. Bobrovskii titled “The Everyday Life of the People of the Grodno Province” and “Tribes and Features of Folk Life of the Inhabitants of the Grodno Province” (1862), which cite brief statistical and ethnographic information on the Jewish population of the Grodno region; there is an extensive memorandum by P. Z. Bobrovskii titled “A Look at the Condition and Significance of Jews in the Grodno Province,” in the introduction to which the author calls for an objective view on the status of Jews, but at the same time accuses Jews of religious and everyday insularity, “adherence to the Talmud,” and disinterest in engaging in productive labour; and includes a historical digression indicating that “Jews settled in the Grodno appanage [udel] in 1504,” as well as statistical data on the number of Jews in the province in comparison with data from France and England; and statements on the economic activities of the Jewish population, accusing Jewish merchants of conducting their affairs in a criminal manner; information on the employment of Jews in “trades for which Slavs have shown no particular talent”; and on the property status of Jews; the memorandum also describes the outer appearance and character traits of Jews, etc. (1862).
- Archival history:
- The Russian Geographic Society (RGO) was founded by imperial decree of Emperor Nicholas I and on recommendation of Interior Minister L. A. Perovskii on 6 (18) August 1845. The idea to establish the society was conceived by Admiral Baron F. P. Litke (subsequently head of the Imperial Academy of Sciences), tutor of Grand Prince Konstantin Nikolaevich, the future first chairman of the RGO. The mission of the RGO was to “assemble and direct the best young minds of Russia toward a comprehensive study of their native land.” The RGO combined specialists in geography and allied sciences, as well as travel enthusiasts, ethnographers, and public figures. In the course of its activities it was renamed on several occasions: from 1845-50, it was called the Russian Geographic Society (RGO); from 1850-1917, the Imperial Russian Geographic Society (IRGO); from 1917-25, the Russian Geographic Society (RGO); from 1925-38, the State Geographic Society (GGO); from 1938-92, the Geographic Society of the USSR (the All-Union Geographic Society; VGO); from 1992-95, the Russian Geographic Society; and from 1995 to the present, the All-Russian Public Organization “Russian Geographic Society” (VOO “RGO”). At different times, the society has been headed by representatives of the royal family, famous travellers, researchers, and statesmen. The hundreds of expeditions organised by the society have played an important role in the colonisation of the Arctic, Siberia, the Far East, Central Asia, Australia, and the world’s oceans and seas. Honorary members of the IRGO / RGO have included statesmen, public figures, and scientists of Russia – P. P. Semenov-Tian-Shanskii, Count S. Iu. Witte, N. I. Vavilov, V. I. Vernadskii, Baron F. P. Vrangel’, A. M. Gorchakov, V. I. Dal’, V. A. Obruchev – as well as Leopold II of Belgium, the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid, Carl Gustaf XVI of Sweden, King Oscar II of Norway, Shah Naser al-Din Shah Qajar of Persia, Baron Ferdinand Richthofen, Roald Amundsen, Fridtjof Nansen, and Thor Heyerdahl. Since 2009, the president of the Russian Geographic Society has been RF Defense Minister S. K. Shoigu. In 2010, the RGO Board of Trustees was established; it is headed by RF Pres. Vladimir Putin.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Research Archive of the Russian Geographic Society began to form archival collections (categories) in connection with the development, publication, and distribution to all provinces of the Russian Empire of seven thousand copies of the society’s ethnographic agenda. These were in the form of instructions for persons interested in providing the Russian Geographic Society with ethnographic materials. The agenda proposed that ethnographic descriptions of the peoples inhabiting the empire be prepared according to the following subjects: “1) with regard to appearance, 2) on language, 3) on everyday home life, 4) on features of social life, 5) on mental and moral capabilities and education, 6) on folk traditions and monuments.” The publication and distribution of the ethnographic agenda led to the Russian Geographic Society receiving a large quantity of ethnographic descriptions, and not only from members of the society, but also from local officials, representatives of the urban and rural intelligentsia (clergy, teachers, doctors), and peasants. In 1853 alone, the Imperial Russian Geographic Society received approximately two thousand manuscripts from various provinces. The materials received were originally stored in the society’s library or in the archives of its departments. Between 1863-67, the archives of the society’s departments were unified into a single overall Research Archive of the Imperial Russian Geographic Society. F. I. Istoman, secretary of the ethnography department, began the process of cataloguing the archive’s manuscripts in 1886. He systematised the manuscripts on Russia as a whole and set apart collections (categories) of manuscripts pertaining to major administrative-territorial units. Materials received by the society’s archive subsequently went to supplement already-formed categories. These were mainly materials sent from the local level containing answers to questionnaires found in various society agendas developed in the period of 1866-1913, for example, the “Agenda for the collection of local ethnographic information,” “The agenda for the collection of folk legal customs,” “The agenda for the collection of information on ethnography,” etc. In the 1910s, the ethnographer D. K. Zelenin analysed and described documents housed in the categories of the Research Archive; the inventories he compiled were published as A Description of the Manuscripts of the Research Archive of the Russian Geographic Society (pts. 1–3., St. Petersburg, 1914–16). The materials of the Research Archive were originally arranged mostly by province of the Russian Empire; in 1895, new categories started to be formed that included documents that did not pertain to any particular location or province; and collections of graphic materials started to be formed as well.
- Access points: locations:
- England
- France
- Grodno province
- Russia
- St Petersburg
- Access points: persons/families:
- Bobrovskii, P. Z.
- Smirnov, N.
- Subject terms:
- Antisemitism
- Ethnography
- Manuscripts
- Statistics
- Talmud
- Trade and commerce
- System of arrangement:
- The category includes a single inventory (in two parts) without any apparent structure.
- Finding aids:
- An inventory is available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
