Tcherikower Archive YIVO Administration Records

The initiative for creating an academic institution dedicated to the study of Yiddish and East European Jewish culture came from the scholar Nahum Shtif. In a 1924 memorandum "Vegn a yidishn akademishe institut," he envisioned the structure, organization, and work of such an institution. On March 24, 1925, at a conference of Jewish cultural organizations in Vilna, Max Weinreich, a Yiddish linguist, was asked to prepare a statement of principles and an organizational outline for the future institute. At a second conference, which took place in Berlin on August 7-12, 1925, Weinreich's outline was accepted. A resolution was approved to begin preparations for the establishment of the new organization, to be called the Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut (known in English as the Yiddish Scientific Institute, and by its Yiddish acronym, YIVO).

The aims of the YIVO Institute were formulated as follows: to serve as the center for organized research into all aspects of Jewish history and culture; to train Jewish scholars; to gather library and archival source materials relevant to YIVO's scholarly objectives; to develop a broad base of support for the Institute in Jewish communities around the world.

The new institute was structured as four sections: Philological, Historical, Economic-Statistical, and Psychological-Pedagogical. While the Philological Section was headed by Weinreich in Vilna, the Historical Section and Economical-Statistical Section were both based in Berlin, headed by Elias Tcherikower and Jacob Lestchinsky respectively. The fourth section, Psychological-Pedagogical, became active belatedly under the leadership of Leibush Lehrer (New York). Each section produced its own series of the institute’s journal, Shriftn fun yidishn visnshaftlekhn institut (Writings of the Yiddish Scientific Institute). An organizational committee, consisting of Shtif and Tcherikower in Berlin and Weinreich and Reisen in Vilna, oversaw the work.

In the summer of 1926, after Shtif took a professorship in Kiev and Tcherikower, as the leading authority on the 1919-1921 Ukraine pogroms, was pulled away from Berlin to participate in the Sholem Schwarzbard trial in Paris, Vilna became the de facto center of YIVO. This was formalized at the 1st YIVO Convention, in October 1929, when YIVO was also officially founded. The Organizing Committee was replaced with an Executive Office (Max Weinreich, Zalman Reisen, and Zelig Kalmanovich) in Vilna that would handle the day-to-day administrative work, and a larger Central Board that included the section heads and other major supporters and collaborators. Though centered in Vilna, YIVO continued to operate as an international institute. The most significant branches were in New York, Berlin, and Warsaw. Friends of YIVO Societies existed in Poland, the Baltics, Germany, France, England, Belgium, North and South America, South Africa, and Palestine. The Societies’ primary purpose was to solicit support and organize fundraising events. YIVO also involved its large numbers of societies and friends in collecting publications and documentation for its library and archives and participating in research surveys and field work. YIVO volunteer zamlers, or collectors, documented and acquired valuable documentation from around the world, and sent it to YIVO.

With the outbreak of World War II, several YIVO leaders, including Jacob Lestschinsky, Max Weinreich, and Elias Tcherikower, already were or would soon arrive in New York. Others were less fortunate. Zalman Reisen was arrested and deported to Russia, where he died. New York was designated as the temporary headquarters of YIVO in January 1940. As Lithuania passed from Soviet to Lithuanian to Soviet control, YIVO attempted to continue its work, first under the leadership of Zelig Kalmanovich, then Moshe Lerer, then Noah Prylucki. All three would later perish in the Klooga concentration camp in Estonia. The Nazi invasion of Vilna in June 1941 marked the end of YIVO in Eastern Europe.