Metadata: The Sapiehas
Collection
- Country:
- Ukraine
- Holding institution:
- Vasyl Stefanyk National Scientific Library of Ukraine in Lviv. Manuscripts Department
- Holding institution (official language):
- Львівська національна наукова бібліотека України імені В. Стефаника. Bідділ рукописів
- Postal address:
- Stefanyka St. 2, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine
- Phone number:
- +38 (032) 236-80-28
- Email:
- manuscr@lsl.lviv.ua
- Reference number:
- F. 103
- Title:
- The Sapiehas
- Title (official language):
- САПІГИ
- Creator/accumulator:
- The Sapiehas
- Date(s):
- 1600/1900
- Language:
- Latin
- Polish
- French
- German
- Extent:
- over 7,031 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
-
Materials housed in the fond (primarily in op. 2, vol. 2) that pertain to Jewish history and culture may be provisionally divided into the following thematic groups:
1) Documents reflecting the commercial and economic activities of the Jews of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Commonwealth, including originals and copies of privileges granted to the Jews of Poland: by King John III Sobieski, expanding the commercial rights of Jews (1694); by the Grand Chancellor of Lithuania Jan Fryderyk Sapieha, establishing equal rights for Jews and Christians in the conduct of trade and beer production (1730); and by the Podolian Palatine Wacław Rzewuski, issued to the residents of the town of Jezierzany (Ozeriany), making Jews and Christians equal in trade rights and in the ownership of taverns and apiaries (1742); etc.; documents on the expulsion of Jews from cities and the barring of Jews from engagement in trade, including a legislative act barring Jews from certain types of commercial activities and from owning taverns in the territory under the jurisdiction of the city of Grodno (1700); a copy of an edict issued by Countess G. Tekla, owner of the city of Jarosław, ordering the expulsion of Jews from that city (1678), etc.; agreements regulating financial relations between the church in Bazalia and the town’s Jewish community (1750), for Sh. Moshkovich’s rental of a tavern and winery in the village of Bereźnica (1756), etc.; documents pertaining to relations between the kahal and the monastery of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity (Trinitarians) in the city of Teofipol (1726-1800), including an agreement between the nobleman Chrzanowski and the monastery regarding an amount allocated to the kahal (1744); etc.
2) Materials about taxes and fees levied on Jewish communities, including receipts for payments of the “hearth tax” (podymne) levied on the houses of Jews and Christians in the townships of Lachowicze (Liachavičy) county (1635); on Jewish communities’ payment of the poll tax in the Korsuń starostwo (1688-1762); etc.; a resolution of local authorities rejecting rural Jewish communities’ demands regarding the regularizing of taxation in the Bar starostwo (latter half of the 17th and first half of the 18th c.); an order of K. Plater, owner of the Beresteczko klucz (privately owned estate), stipulating that taxes levied on the local Jewish community not be increased (1811); etc.
3) Fragments of court files, including a letter to Józef Julian Stanisław Sapieha, bishop- coadjutor of Wilno (Vilna, Vilnius), regarding an arrest of Jews in the city of Siemiatycze (1743); a copy of a letter from N. T. Łopatyński, prosecutor (instygator) of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, regarding the hearing of complaints filed by the Jewish community of the city of Minsk alleging that the starosta Pak was harassing the community (1753); copies of minutes of a meeting of the Kodnia Municipal Council on the robbery of Jews by Russian troops (1776); registers of damages caused by Russian forces to the Jewish population of Kock (1770s) and expenses incurred in the quartering of a Hussar regiment in Połock, including in the homes of Jews (1757); etc.
4) Documents on Jews’ conversion to Christianity, in particular, a declaration by [a group] of Jews from the community of Chornokozintsi on their conversion (1756); etc.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The Sapiehas (Polish: Sapiehowie) are an old magnate and princely family in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which was part of the Commonwealth. The peak of the Sapiehas’ power came in the late 17th century and the 18th century, when they played a major role in the political and economic life of the state. During this period, sixteen representatives of the Sapieha family occupied so-called “dignitary” positions; three were commanders-in-chief of the Lithuanian artillery, twenty-five were palatines, four were castellans, three were Grand Lithuanian hetmans, one was a Polish hetman, and two were bishops. Albeit having no formal rights to the princely title, representatives of the Sapieha family began using it in the 17th c. One representative of the family was made a prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1700. In 1768, the Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth approved the princely title for the Sapiehas, a right that was confirmed in the Kingdom of Poland (1822) and the Austrian (1840) and Russian (1874) empires.
In 1910, Władysław Leon Sapieha (1853-1920), a member of the Galician Sejm and the Austrian Parliament, transferred the family archive, which had previously been kept in a castle in Krasiczyn (now Poland), to the Ossolineum in Lwów. The archive contains several centuries’ worth of the family’s correspondence, as well as decrees, reports, letters, and similar records of Polish kings, nobles, and representatives of municipal and monastery councils. After the Second World War, the archive remained in Lviv/L’vov, although some of the documents ended up in the Czartoryski Library in Krakow.
- Access points: locations:
- Bazalia
- Beresteczko klucz
- Bereźnica
- Chornokozints
- Grodno
- Jarosław
- Kock
- Kodnia
- Korsuń
- Minsk
- Połock
- Siemiatycze
- Teofipol
- Subject terms:
- Antisemitism
- Antisemitism--Antisemitic legislation
- Christianity
- Christianity--Churches (institution)
- Conversion to Christianity
- Expulsion
- Financial matters
- Financial records
- Hospitality industry
- Hospitality industry--Inns
- Jewish community
- Kahal
- Legal matters
- Military
- Taxation
- Trade and commerce
- Trade and commerce--Alcohol trade
- System of arrangement:
- The fond includes two inventories in Polish and Ukrainian (op. 1 is in twelve volumes; op. 2, in two volumes), systematized by structure.
- Finding aids:
- Inventories are available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary