The “Jewish Section” at state archives of the Feudal Era. Reconstruction and fate of the archival collection

The article is based on documents of State archive of Russian Federation and Russian state archives of ancient acts, as well as several guides to the state archives of Russia. It is devoted to almost unknown page of the history of functioning of Russian State Archives of Ancient Acts, named in 1931–1941 State Archives of the Feudal Era. In its structure there was the “Jewish section”, consisted of documentary materials, the fund formers of which were various Jewish companies, organizations and institutions, as well as the Jewish public and political figures and workers of culture. Those documents were at the secret storage because all the research in the field of academic Judaica was curtailed in the early 1930s. Therefore, the main task of the “Jewish section” was only collection and storage of documentary materials of the Jewish origin. The article provides a complete list of funds and founders of the “Jewish section”, its scope and timelines, and identifies the state archives, where to those documents were transferred. Transferring process of materials of the “Jewish section” to other archives began in Central State Archives of Ancient Acts in 1971, the last non-core funds were transferred from Russian State Archives of Ancient Acts in 1993. The author concludes that “Jewish section” in a certain way did its function, saving extensive complex of documentary sources on the history of Russian Jewry of the 18th – the first third of the 20th century for nowadays researchers.

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