Metadata: Vitebsk Provincial Committee on Jewish Farmers
Collection
- Country:
- Belarus
- Holding institution:
- National Historical Archive of Belarus
- Holding institution (official language):
- Национальный исторический архив Беларуси
- Postal address:
- ul. Kropotkina, 55, Minsk, 220002, Belarus
- Phone number:
- + 375 (17) 286 75 23; 286 76 92
- Web address:
- https://niab.by/newsite/
- Email:
- niab@niab.by
- Reference number:
- F. 2552
- Title:
- Vitebsk Provincial Committee on Jewish Farmers
- Title (official language):
- ВИТЕБСКИЙ ГУБЕРНСКИЙ КОМИТЕТ О ЕВРЕЯХ-ЗЕМЛЕДЕЛЬЦАХ
- Creator/accumulator:
- Vitebsk Provincial Committee on Jewish Farmers
- Date(s):
- 1836/1868
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 300 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
- Documents housed in the fond may be provisionally divided into the following subject groups: 1) Records on the activities of the Vitebsk Provincial Committee on Jewish Farmers, including charter documents (1852); logs of meetings; indexes of open cases; logs of incoming and outgoing documents, and an inventory of the committee’s files (1852/1868); decrees, resolutions, and circulars of the Governing Senate and other supreme and central state institutions on various issues, in particular, on the resettlement of Jews to state lands (1835/1854); on Jews living within fifty versts of the western border (1858); files on the provision of documents and various information on the committee’s operations to the Vitebsk Provincial Administration, the Vitebsk Provincial Revenue Chamber and Chamber of State Properties (1852/1856, 1858); etc. 2) Correspondence of the Vitebsk Provincial Committee on Jewish Farmers with the Vitebsk Provincial Administration, the Vitebsk Municipal Duma, the Vitebsk Revenue Chamber, and other institutions (1852, 1857/1868). 3) Socioeconomic and statistical documentation containing information on the makeup and movements of the Jewish farmer population; family lists of Jewish farmers (1857/1860); data on Jewish landownership (1850s/1860s); etc. 4) Materials on the taxation of the Jewish population of the Vitebsk province, including records of the korobka (kosher meat) and candle taxes, as well as other duties and excises (1854, 1856/1858). 5) There is a considerable set of materials consisting of documents reflecting the process by which Jews were being resettled to lands allocated for this purpose, in particular, Jews’ applications for resettlement to the Ekaterinoslav and Kherson provinces and to state-owned homesteads in various counties of the Belorussian provinces; applications for settlement on privately owned lands; Jews’ applications for passports and relocation allowances and food provisions (1852, 1854/1856, 1858, 1860, 1862); First Department of State Property files on lands designated for the resettlement of Jews; descriptions of Jewish farms; etc. (1852, 1853, 1860s); applications for and correspondence on the enrollment of Jews in “the rank of agriculturalist” and on their removal from it (1853, 1859, 1860), as well as on the assignment of migrants to Jewish communities in the Novorossiia territory (1853, 1854, 1855, 1856); complaints by prospective settlers regarding various abuses on the part of Jewish community officials (1854); correspondence on the sale of settlers’ property (1855, 1859); files on the awarding of prizes to Jewish farmers (1856/1857); etc. 6) Materials on conscription call-ups, including lists; statistical information; complaints regarding improprieties in the conscription process; petitions for exemption from conscription; orders regarding the prosecution of draft evaders; plans regarding the delivery of recruits; etc. (1852/1854, 1860s). 7) Documents on the charitable activities of Jewish communities, in particular, indigent Jews’ applications for assistance in connection with fires and natural disasters (1854, 1858); files on fundraising to benefit Crimean War veterans who had been involved in the defense of Sevastopol (1856); etc.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The committee was established in 1852 for the purpose of organizing the resettlement of Jews from cities and towns to state and private lands in rural areas, as well as to organize Jews’ resettlement to other regions of Russia, including the Novorossiia territory. It was under the jurisdiction of the Vitebsk Provincial Chamber of State Properties and chaired by the Vitebsk civil governor. The committee also included the vice-governor, the director of the Chamber of State Properties, and an official of the governor’s office responsible for economic issues in the province. The committee kept records on Jews’ land tenure and use; reviewed Jews’ applications for membership in the farmer estate; allocated land plots and issued grants to aid in relocating; and heard migrants’ complaints regarding abuses on the part of Jewish community officials. No information as to when the committee ceased operations has been preserved among the fond’s materials. The latest documents housed in the fond date to 1868.
- Access points: locations:
- Ekaterinoslav province
- Kherson province
- Vitebsk
- System of arrangement:
- The fond includes a single main inventory and a supplemental one; these are mainly systematized chronologically.
- Finding aids:
- An inventory is available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary