Metadata: People’s Commissariat of Education (Narkompros) of the BSSR
Collection
- Country:
- Belarus
- Holding institution:
- National Archives of the Republic of Belarus
- Holding institution (official language):
- Национальный архив Республики Беларусь
- Postal address:
- 220114, Nezavisimosti Ave. 116, Minsk, Belarus
- Phone number:
- +375 (17) 351-05-12
- Web address:
- https://narb.by/be
- Email:
- narb@narb.by
- Reference number:
- F. 42
- Title:
- People’s Commissariat of Education (Narkompros) of the BSSR
- Title (official language):
- НАРОДНЫЙ КОМИССАРИАТ ПРОСВЕЩЕНИЯ (НАРКОМПРОС) БССР
- Creator/accumulator:
- People’s Commissariat of Education (Narkompros) of the BSSR
- Date(s):
- 1920/1941
- Language:
- Russian
- Belarusian
- Yiddish
- German
- Polish
- Extent:
- 10,343 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
-
Materials in the fond that pertain to Jewish history are housed mainly in ops. 1-3, and may be provisionally divided into the following thematic groups:
1) Materials on the activities of the Jewish Section (Evsektsiia) of the BSSR People’s Commissariat of Education, including the charter of its central bureau, which at various times included Iu. Frankfurt, E. Frumkina, S. Mariasina, B. Volin (Fradkin), and others (1923), and staff identification documents (1922), etc.; recordkeeping documents of the Jewish Section’s central bureau (1920-26), reports of county departments of public education on the operations of local Jewish sections (1920-21); minutes of meetings of the collegium of the central board of the Jewish Section of the BSSR People’s Commissariat of Education (1921); correspondence regarding admissions to Jewish schools, the establishment of vocational schools for Jewish youth (1921), the work of Jewish children’s communes (1921), the organizing of a drama studio (1922), and on supplying the Minsk Jewish Vocational School with all necessary educational materials (1922); minutes of meetings of the main bureau of the Jewish Section of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (1921, 1922), in particular, on the conclusion of collective agreements with the Jewish population (1922); a report on the work of the Jewish Section of the Main Administration for Political Education (Glavpolitprosvet) of the BSSR (1921), and a list of literature for the library thereof; correspondence on publishing Yiddish-language books and on supplying Jewish institutions with Yiddish literature (1921-27).
2) Documents on measures taken by the BSSR People’s Commissariat of Education to combat traditional Jewish education and the influence of Jewish political parties on “young minds”; in particular, there is information on the private Jewish educational institutions Ezro and Midrash in Minsk (1919); a circular titled “On registering Jewish religious schools in the BSSR” (1921); a resolution of the BSSR Council of People’s Commissars (26 May 1921) “barring the teaching of religious doctrine to children of the Jewish nationality under the age of eighteen in cheders, Talmud-Torahs, and yeshivas”; rulings of municipal education boards to the effect that it would be “advisable” to close all religious schools in the cities of Bobruisk and Mozyr’ (1922); materials on the arrest of directors and teachers of Jewish national schools in Mozyr’ (1922); a letter prohibiting the distribution of Jacob Lestschinsky Yiddish-language pamphlet Our National Program: The United Jewish Socialist Party and other Jewish “nationalist and religious publications” (1922); etc.
3) Materials on the organizing of Jewish primary education in Soviet schools of the BSSR, including minutes of meetings on measures to eliminate illiteracy among the Jewish population, and reports by instructors of the BSSR Main Administration for Political Education (Glavpolitprosvet) on this subject; reports, by county of the BSSR, on illiteracy and sub-literacy among Jews (1922); reports and information on the work and condition of Jewish schools in particular cities and towns (1921-27), including Bobruisk (1921), Minsk (1921), and Orsha (1927); lists of personnel and students in schools of the BSSR (1921-28); and information on the admission of Jewish children to general-education schools (1926-27).
4) Information on the organizing of Jewish secondary and higher education and the professional development of Jewish teachers in the BSSR, in particular, correspondence on the opening and operation of a Jewish department, directed by M. Weinger (Venger), at the Workers’ Faculty (rabfak) of the Belorussian State University (1921-23), and on the organization and activities of the Jewish section of this university’s Education Department – at various times, this section’s teaching staff included the prominent Jewish scholars I. Sosis, Ia. Hromer, B. Orshanskii, M. Osherovich, M. Weinger (Venger), I. Gol’dberg, S. Rives, I. Ravrebe, G. Aleksandrov, M. Lur’e, L. Gol’dshtein, A. Volobrinskii, I. Cherniavskii, S. Kugel’, M. Pelep, V. Segalovich, and K. Svirskii-Ashkenazi (1923-29); documents on the establishment and operation of the Jewish People's University (1923-24), including an inventory log of the university’s property, budgets, correspondence, excerpts from minutes of sessions of the collegium of the BSSR People’s Commissariat of Education, documents on the transmission and receipt of reports of the Jewish People’s University, etc. (1925-26); correspondence of the BSSR People’s Commissariat of Education with the Minsk Jewish Polytechnic (1926-27), and information on its personnel (1922-24); reports on operations of the Minsk and Vitebsk Jewish Pedagogical Colleges (1922-27); documents and student lists from the Central Jewish Courses in Minsk (1927), and documentation on the staffs of the Jewish departments of the Vitebsk and Gomel’ Workers’ Faculties (1929), etc.; cost estimates and correspondence regarding the opening of courses to retrain teachers for Jewish schools (1921-24); lists of teachers and employees of institutions subordinate to the central bureau of the Jewish Section of the BSSR People’s Commissariat of Education (1921-23); and identification cards of employees of Jewish educational institutions in Minsk (1922-24).
5) Documents on the organizing of vocational education among Jewish youth, including reports from Jewish labor schools in Orsha and Minsk (1920-21); orders, cost estimates, identification documents, and staff lists of the Minsk Jewish Agricultural Farm (1921-23); certificates of graduates of the Minsk Jewish Agricultural School (1924); staff lists of the Jewish agricultural vocational school “October” in Vitebsk (1929); etc.
6) Materials on the operations of Jewish kindergartens and children’s shelters, including information on Jewish kindergartens in Minsk and Vitebsk (1921); reports on the work of the Minsk Central Kindergarten (1923-24); minutes of staff meetings of the 1st Central Jewish Kindergarten in Vitebsk (1924-25); minutes of general meetings, and information and staff lists of Jewish children’s shelters in Minsk and Borisov (1921), correspondence on the admission of children from the Volga region to a Jewish children’s shelter in Borisov (1921); lists of employees and pupils of Jewish children’s shelters in the city of Minsk and Minsk county (1923); etc.
7) Files on the development of proletarian Jewish culture in the BSSR, including a list of culture personnel of the Jewish Section of the Main Administration for Political Education (Glavpolitprosvet) of the People’s Commissariat of Education (1921); a list of board members of the Jewish Communist Club of Minsk (1921); a synopsis of a report delivered at the 1st All-Union Congress of Jewish Culture Workers (1924); an operational plan of the Jewish culture inspector of the Borisov and Kalinin area education departments (1926-28); a list of performers in the Jewish troupe of the Belorussian State Theater, and correspondence with the Academic Center on the troupe’s personnel and activities (1921); a list of performers of a Jewish drama studio in Minsk (1921-22); minutes of meetings of the theater section on the work of the State Yiddish Theater (BelGOSET) (1921); correspondence with the Jewish group of the Belorussian Academic Theater and with the Jewish State Choir regarding repertoire and material support, and lists of performers (1922); staff lists of the Jewish Section of the Belorussian State Drama Studio (1923-24); a report on the work of the Jewish Drama Studio (1922); circulars of the Central Jewish Exhibition Commission on preparing exhibits on professional engineering (1923); reports on the work of the Jewish Historical Commission of the Academic Center of the BSSR People’s Commissariat of Education (1922); correspondence with the Belorussian State Publishing House (Belgosizdat) about the compilation of a Yiddish grammar textbook and on publishing collections of Jewish poetry (1923); etc.
8. Information on the BSSR People’s Commissariat of Education’s work with Jewish public organizations, including correspondence with the Jewish Public Committee to Aid Victims of the War, Pogroms, and Natural Disasters (Evobshchestkom) on assistance in organizing Jewish education; statistical information on children’s shelters of the Society for the Protection of the Health of the Jewish Population (OZE) in Belorussia (1919); correspondence with the Kultur-lige on acquiring Yiddish books (1923); etc.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Education Department established in January 1919 as part of the Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Government of the BSSR was reorganized the following month as a commissariat. In March 1919, in connection with the establishment of the Lithuanian-Belorussian SSR (LitBel SSR), the commissariat ceased operations, its functions transferred to the education department of the Minsk Provincial Military Revolutionary Committee and the LitBel People’s Commissariat of Education. On 9 July 1920, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Western Front ordered the establishment of the Minsk Provincial Revolutionary Committee (Mingubrevkom); departments of this body included that of public education, which on 26 August 1920 was renamed the Commissariat of Education (Kompros) of the BSSR. On 13-17 December 1920, the People’s Commissariat of Education (Narkompros) of the BSSR was established. Pursuant to rulings of the BSSR Council of People’s Commissars of 23 May 1921 and 27 August 1921, the People’s Commissariat of Education was reorganized according to the principle of maximal leadership centralization. Now established were the commissariat’s organizational and academic centers, its main administrations for social education (Glavsotsvos), political education (Glavpolitprosvet), and vocational-technical education (Glavprofobr). On 5 January 1923, the People’s Commissariat of Education established its Main Administration for Literature and Publishing (Glavlit). In connection with the Nazi occupation of the territory of the BSSR beginning in the summer of 1941, the BSSR People’s Commissariat of Education ceased operations, resuming them after the liberation of Belorussian territory in 1944. On 26 March 1946, the BSSR People’s Commissariat of Education was reorganized as the BSSR Ministry of Education.
- Subject terms:
- Aid and relief
- Anti-religious activity (Soviet Union)
- Children
- Communism
- Communism--Communist parties and organisations
- Correspondence
- Education
- Education--Schools and universities
- Education--Students
- Education--Teachers and professors
- Education--Vocational training
- Financial records
- Jewish languages
- Jewish languages--Yiddish
- Jewish political activity
- Libraries
- Literature
- Literature--Novels, poetry, and plays
- Personal records
- Publishing
- Statistics
- Theatre
- System of arrangement:
- The fond includes ten inventories systematized according to the chronological-structural principle.
- Finding aids:
- Inventories are available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary