Metadata: Kherson 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 45
- Title:
- Kherson Province
- Title (official language):
- Херсонская губерния
- Creator/accumulator:
- Research Archive of the Russian Geographic Society
- Date(s):
- 1798/1916
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 21 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
- Housed in the category are historical-geographical materials, and in particular, a manuscript by I. D. Palazhchenko titled “Historical-Geographical and Statistical Information […] on the City of Nikolaev, Kherson Province” (1850); ethnographic descriptions of various cities and counties of the Kherson province, including V. Negreskul, “Ethnographic Notes on the City of Kherson and its Environs” (1850); Count A. G. Stroganov, “Travel Notes from the Border of the Kherson Province to the Gulf of Kerch” (1857); etc. Materials on the history of Jews in Russia include a manuscript survey titled “A General Survey of the Kherson Province (Geography, Ethnography, Industry, etc.),” which, among other things, cites statistical data received from the Odessa city prefecture on the province’s Jewish population; there are descriptions of Jewish agricultural colonies indicating Jewish farmers residing therein, and the status of their tax payment according to an audit conducted by the official Z. Katsev during transfer of the administration of the colonies from the competence of the Kherson provincial leadership and the Novorossiia and Bessarabia governors-general to the trusteeship of the Ministry of State Properties (c. 1840); a manuscript by the “full-time student” G. Cherynov titled “Ethnographic information on the inhabitants populating the part of Kherson county in which the author has his residence, namely: from the border of the Ekaterinoslav province, Ekaterinoslav and Verkhnedneprovsk counties, southward with the Dnieper river on the right, to the minor city of Berislav, and from there westward to the Ingulets river, then northward along the left bank of the Ingulets to the border of Verkhnedneprovsk county,” which contains information on local Jews, and in particular, their language – a “distorted German” – whereas they are said to “speak with Great Russians and Ukrainians in the language of the place from which they had been expelled – in Belorussian or Lithuanian”; and on the clothing worn by men and women – “the Jewish men wear frock coats and kazankiny, or waistcoats with sleeves or without […] the women wear canvas blouses, corsets, and skirts; their coats are like the Ukrainian svita, reaching the lower back, made of cotton fabric … and in winter, coats of white hare-fur covered with cloth or cotton […] they wrap their heads with kerchiefs or wear “pearls,” which are like a kichka (1849); 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:
- Berislav
- Ekaterinoslav province
- Kherson province
- Nikolaev
- Odessa
- Russia
- St Petersburg
- Access points: persons/families:
- Cherynov, G.
- Katsev, Z.
- Negreskul, V.
- Palazhchenko, I. D.
- Stroganov, A. G.
- Subject terms:
- Agriculture
- Clothing
- Ethnography
- Jewish colonies
- Jewish languages
- Manuscripts
- Statistics
- System of arrangement:
- The category includes a single inventory systematised mainly chronologically.
- Finding aids:
- An inventory is available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary