Metadata: Mogilev 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 21
- Title:
- Mogilev Province
- Title (official language):
- Могилевская губерния
- Creator/accumulator:
- Research Archive of the Russian Geographic Society
- Date(s):
- 1786/1888
- Language:
- Russian
- Yiddish
- Extent:
- 13 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
- Housed in this category, besides responses to questionnaires based on agendas of the Imperial Russian Geographic Society, are manuscripts by members of the society, including: M. Kirilov, “Some regional words used in the town of Khotimsk” (1884); A. Kislovskii, “The town of Kostiukovichi, Klimovichi county” (1853); A. Petropavlovskii, “Spells, sayings, and beliefs recorded in Mogilev county, Mogilev province” (1902); statistical and demographic materials, and in particular, a “Statistical table – a report for 1826 on the Mogilev province”; a survey by A. Khmyzovskii titled “A survey of the Belorussian-Mogilev province and Rogachev county from the military and statistical standpoint” (1839); and an anonymous manuscript titled “An attempt at a statistical description of the Mogilev province” (1836). These manuscripts contain various data on the province’s Jewish population. There are also ethnographic notes that describe sayings, spells, songs, and folk customs of various ethnic groups of the local population, including Jews (1888-97); etc. Materials pertaining to the history of Jews in Russia are found mainly in the following files of this category: Dekhterev, “A statistical survey of the Mogilev province,” which cites statistical information on the province’s inhabitants “of the Jewish law, Hasidim, and Mitnagdim … merchants and townspeople of both genders,” and reports on Jewish commerce in the city of Mogilev, the local Jewish hospital, the relief society for indigent Jews, the stone synagogue in the city of Bykhov, etc. (1838). Extensive information on Jews is found in a copy of a 1786 manuscript by G. A. Meier titled “A Description of the Former County or Former Starostwo of Krichev”; in general chapters, this document reports on how “inhabitants of the starostwo of Krichev consist of townspeople, bakers, certain free merchants, Jews, and persons from the first two categories re-registered in other societies according to various trades”; and information is cited on Jews’ engagement in trade, and in particular, on the sale of hemp “to various cities,” and on the involvement of Jewish merchants in local fairs. Chapter 4, titled “On Jews. The Scattering of this People over the Whole Face of the Universe,” analyses the issue of Jews’ attitudes toward productive labour, and describes the structure of the Jewish population and issues pertaining to accounting for it statistically; Jews’ employment in commerce and trades; and the craft of the reznik, the kosher slaughterer; and gives detail on Jewish customs and the communal structure, mentioning the “Jews’ own court,” which is identified with the kahal; and on the liturgical tradition in the local synagogue, Jewish education, the Jewish calendar, Jewish holidays and the “Books of the Tanakh”; and Jews’ food, wedding rituals, clothing, and language, including a short Russian-Yiddish dictionary compiled by the author (1878); etc.
- 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:
- Mogilev
- Mogilev county
- Mogilev province
- Rogachev county
- Russia
- St Petersburg
- Access points: persons/families:
- Dekhterev
- Khmyzovskii, A.
- Kirilov, M.
- Kislovskii, A.
- Meier, G. A.
- Petropavlovskii, A.
- Subject terms:
- Aid and relief
- Clothing
- Education
- Ethnography
- Hasidic Judaism
- Health and medical matters
- Health and medical matters--Hospitals
- Jewish cuisine
- Jewish holidays
- Jewish languages
- Jewish languages--Yiddish
- Kahal
- Manuscripts
- Marriage and divorce
- Mitnagdim
- Music
- Ritual slaughter
- Statistics
- Synagogues
- Trade and commerce
- Trade and commerce--Clothing and textile trade
- 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
