ЗІБРАННЯ ЗАПИСНИХ КНИГ ЄВРЕЙСЬКИХ ГРОМАД У ФОНДАХ ІНСТИТУТУ РУКОПИСУ НБУВ

Abstract

The author investigates the contemporaneous state of the collection of “notebooks” of Jewish communities (pinqassim) in the funds of the Manuscript Institute of the V. I. Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine. Such sources include the protocols of community meetings and records of remarkable events, which make pinqas an important source for the research of Jewish community. This article includes an updated list of 110 units of pinqassim, their copies and fragments, which are kept at the V. I. Vernadsky Library in Kiev. The list is followed by a review of pinqassim history in general and the described collection in particular. It also contains a short description of the presented materials. The collection of pinqassim allows to study these materials as a unique phenomenon of Jewish history and culture in Ukraine, which calls for a multidisciplinary analysis. A typical pinqas contains two types of information: a social records of a community and records of earlier and the most important and remarkable events in the community history. The pinqassim also recorded information about community members, verdicts, penalties and obligations imposed on members as well as details on their fulfillment. The pinqassim of the collection described in this article originated from different regions of Ukraine, Petersburg, Minsk, Elgava, and Dubrovno, the collection also includes one copy of pinqas from Milan. Most of the collection is represented by the pinqassim of Jewish communities from Volyn, Podillya and Kiev region, and one pinqas from Odessa. The chronological limits of the described collection also are quite broad: from 17th century to the year 1925.