YIVO - Vilna Ethnographic Committee Records

Title: YIVO - Vilna Ethnographic Committee Records

Inclusive Dates: 1911-1940

ID: RG 1.2

Extent Information

7'7"; 17 5"lgl; 1 3"lgl; 1 2.5 lgl

Arrangement

Organization: Boxes 1-13 are arranged; Boxes 14-18 are unarranged

Arrangement: The Collection is arranged in 3 series: I) Ethnographic Committee of YIVO (folders 1-73); II) S. Ansky Jewish Historical Ethnographic Society (74-138); III) The Jewish Bureau of the Byelorussian Academy of Science in Minsk (139-171)

Creators

YIVO - Vilna

Administrative/Biographical History

The Ethnographic Committee was a subcommittee of the Philological Section of the YIVO Institute in Vilna. Originally, beginning in 1925, the Committee was jointly sponsored by the YIVO and the S. An-Ski Jewish Historical Ethnographic Society in Vilna (founded in 1919 by S. An-Ski and named for him following his death in 1920). The activities of the Ethnographic Committee consisted of collecting folklore materials, preparing and analyzing folklore questionnaires, corresponding with folklore collectors throughout the world, and maintaining a museum. Members of the Ethnographic Committee included S. Bastomski, Dr. Max Weinreich, N. Weinig, Nechama Epstein, Zalman Reisen, N. Chayes. In 1930, the name of the Ethnographic Committee was changed to the Folklore Committee. In 1938 the S. An-Ski Society merged with the YIVO Institute and its ethnographic materials were integrated with the archives of the YIVO Ethnographic Committee. These included records inherited from the Society's predecessor, the Society of Friends of Jewish Antiquity (founded in 1913 by S. An-Ski), as well as some records of the Jewish Historical and Ethnographic Society in St. Petersburg (founded in 1908 by Simon Dubnow). Finally, certain folklore materials from the Jewish Bureau of the White Russian Academy of Sciences in Minsk (founded in 1925 and dissolved in the 1930s) were merged with the YIVO materials during the Nazi occupation in Vilna. The records of the Ethnographic Committee of the YIVO Institute include materials from the above-mentioned organizations. Records of each organization are arranged in a separate series.

Subjects (links to similar collections)

Forms of Material (links to similar genres)

Documents
Documents - Letters
Documents - Records

Finding Aid Information

Inventory: Yiddish, 53 pp., English, 19 pp., typed

Administrative Information

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Description: Administrative files of the Ethnographic Committee: outlines of plans for the committee; correspondence of the committee with individual collectors; printed questionnaires on Jewish legends, Purim, Passover, Lag B'Omer, Shavuoth, children's folklore, as well as questionnaires on exaggerations and lies. Minutes of joint meetings of YIVO and the An-Ski Society, 1930. Folklore materials: folk plays, Purim plays, Yiddish and Hebrew folk songs, handwritten folktales, jokes, anecdotes, legends. Linguistic material such as notes on Yiddish grammar, Yiddish pronunciation. *S. An-Ski Jewish Historical-Ethnographic Society* Records include letters of Simon Dubnow and other correspondence of the Jewish Historical and Ethnographic Society in St. Petersburg. Minutes, reports, financial records of the Jewish Ethnographic Expedition in the name of Baron Horace Gunzburg, 1912, 1913, 1916. Minutes and correspondence of the Society of Friends of Jewish Antiquity. By-laws and minutes of the S. An-Ski Society, 1925-1938. Reports to Polish authorities about the work of the society. Membership notebook, financial accounts. List of donors and objects donated to the Museum, 1939. Materials relating to the An-Ski Museum, Vilna, 1913-1941, including administrative correspondence. Materials relating to the An-Ski estate, including correspondence regarding An-Ski's will. Correspondence with: individuals and organizations in Poland, Germany, the U.S.; Jewish Community Council of Vilna; German military authorities in Vilna, 1916-1918. Correspondence with various folklore institutes: Gesamtarchiv der Deutschen Juden, Berlin, 1930: Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology; Harvard University; Biblioteka Narodowa (National Library), Warsaw, 1931. Correspondence with various other libraries, cultural institutes, schools, newspapers. Folklore materials: stories, songs, lecture notes. *The Jewish Bureau of the Byelorussian Academy of Science in Minsk* Songs, tales, anecdotes, proverbs, and other folklore materials. Page proofs of Moishe Beregovski's unpublished *Yidish folklor lider*, Volume II, 1938.

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