Государственный архив Гродненской области
- State Archives of Grodno Region
- Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Grodnenskoy Oblasti
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History
The Archives was established as the State Archives of Bialystok Region in 1944.
In September 1944, following the cession of the major part of Bialystok Region to Poland and the establishment of Grodno Region as part of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR), the Archives was reorganized as the State Archives of Grodno Region under the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (from March 1946, Ministry of Internal Affairs).
In 1960 the Archives was placed under the authority of the archives division at the Grodno Region Executive Committee; from 1995, the archives and records management division at the Grodno Region Executive Committee; from 2006, the justice administration at the Grodno Region Executive Committee; from 2007, the main justice administration at the Grodno Region Executive Committee.
In June 2001 the Archives received the name of the scholarly institution "The State Archives of Grodno Region".
Archival and Other Holdings
Amount of holdings: 1.696 fonds, 5 collections, 512.882 items
Chronological scope: from 1919 to the present
Geographical coverage:
- Western Belarus as part of Poland (certain areas)
- abolished Vasilishki, Zheludok, Porozovo, Skidel, and Sopotskin districts
- the town of Grodno and the Berestovitsa, Volkovysk, Grodno, Zelva, Mosty, Svisloch and Shchuchin districts of the Grodno region
Contents: The earliest records date from the early period of Soviet power in Grodno Region, when the military and revolutionary committees came into existence (the 1920s). These are records concerning the creation of the Communist Party and Komsomol organizations in the region; instructions and proceedings of the district and village revolutionary committees on the issues of political, economic and social life; lists of localities, data on the number of settlements, estates and granges and the number of their inhabitants; materials relating to the Grodno theatre, and more.
The Archives holds a substantial complex of documents created by the Polish institutions that functioned in the Novogrudok voivodeship (except the Baranovichi and Volozhin districts), and in the Volkovysk and Grodno districts of the Bialystok voivodeship. The economic situation in the region, the agrarian reforms, the creation of small peasant farms (khutors), and the taxation policy are illustrated in the documents of the Novogrudok voivodeship administration, district councils, land offices and forestries.
The fonds of the teachers colleges and schools contain instructions issued by the ministry of religions and public education, the trusteeships of the Warsaw and Vilnius school districts, proceedings of school council meetings and state exams, lists of teachers and students, and more.
The reports and legal cases of the police judicial institutions and the Grodno prison contain information on workers' political and social movement and the mass meetings in 1935 and 1936 in defense of the revolutinary member S. O. Pritytski sentenced to death by the Polish court; information relating to poets M. Mashara, F. Pestrak, and V. Tavlai who stayed in the Grodno prison. Records of the Polish period are mainly in Polish.
Records of the Nazi Occupation, represented by the fonds of the institutions that functioned at that time in the occupied territory, illustrate the policy pursued by the German authorities.
The largest complex of the archive's holdings are the records of Soviet period. Records from the period 1939-1941 reflect the history of reunification of Western Belarus with the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic, the socialist transformations in economics and culture on the eve of the war. The main bulk of the post-war records are documents of the government institutions, public control, courts and prosecutor's, justice, planning and statistics, financing, state insurance, agriculture, forestry, construction and architecture, communal services, transport and communications, trade, public education, culture, arts, mass media, health care, welfare, physical culture and sports, labour and other social organizations. These records illustrate the main activities and functions of the mentioned organizations.
Records of the organizations and enterprises that functioned in the 1990s are represented in the fonds of the tax inspections, the committee on state property, open joint-stock companies, agricultural cooperative associations, etc.
The personal fonds contain records relating to the life of Ia. N. Marash, doctor of historical sciences, professor at the Kupala State University of Grodno; A. O. Makovelski, correspondent member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, native of Grodno; the writer A. Karpiuk; the director of the State Archives of Grodno Region, Merited Worker of Culture of Belarus A. N. Pleshevenia; professor, doctor of medical sciences V. I. Brzeski; director of the National Historical Archives in Grodno, Merited Worker of Culture of Belarus K. P. Batrakova; professor at the Kupala State University of Grodno, candidate of historical sciences V. N. Cherepitsa.
The Archives holds collections of records relating to the participants in the October Revolution of 1917, the Civil War, the revolutionary movement in Grodno Region, and the Partisan movement in the Second World War; records on repatriated civilians and Soviet prisoners of war, filtration cases on citizens who returned from Germany; personnel records for the years 1944-1962.
Finding Aids, Guides, and Publication
several catalogs and indexes, among which a "specialized card catalog: Persons deported to Germany", and a survey of records: The Jews and the Jewish question in Russia, 1915-1990.
Opening Times
Mon-Fri 8:30-17:30 Reference Desk Mon-Fri 8:30-19:00; Reading Room Mon-Fri 8:30-17:30
Copies
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United States Holocaust Memorial Museum holds copies of Holocaust-relevant archives from Gosudarstvennyĭ arkhiv Grodnenskoĭ oblasti