Lev Aizenberg Papers
Scope and Content Note
The Lev Aizenberg Collections documents Lev Aizenberg’s professional activities as a lawyer in the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century. Even though he resided in Saint Petersburg, his main area for practicing law was in the Kursk Guberniya (Kursk Province, Rus. Курская Губерния).
Collected here are materials pertaining to a large number of cases involving Jews of Kursk and Kursk Province and their attempts to fight eviction orders and subsequent relocation back within the borders of the Pale of Settlement.
The collection consists of individual cases and includes court and legal documents, such as certificates, complaints, petitions, resolutions and verdicts, Powers of Attorney, statements, and rulings. Also included here are correspondence and anonymous letters by the local craftsmen and professional Guild members demanding eviction of Jewish craftsmen from Kursk and neighboring areas.
Many petitions are addressed directly to the Interior Minister, whereas resolutions are issued by the Interior Ministry and are addressed to the Governor of the Kursk Guberniya (Province), Nikolai Muratov, who was known to be notoriously anti-Semitic.
Dates
- 1912-1916
Language of Materials
The collection is in Russian with some Yiddish.
Access Restrictions
The collection has been digitized and is available online without restrictions. The physical collection is closed.
Use Restrictions
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Biographical Note
Lev Moiseevich Aizenberg (1870s-1940s) (Rus. Лев Моисеевич Айзенберг) was a well-known lawyer and barrister in Saint Petersburg. He was one of the leaders of the Jewish People’s Party (Rus. Еврейская Народная Партия), and a regular contributor to the magazine Evreiskaya Nedelya (Jewish Week, Rus: Еврейская Неделя).
Between 1898 and 1905 Aizenberg was part of the editorial board for the Vestnik Prava (Bulletin of Law, Rus: Вестник Права). Beginning in the early 1900 and until the outbreak of World War II his main area of law practice was helping Jews getting permits to stay out or to move out of the Pale of Settlement.
The Pale of Settlement was created in 1791 by Catherine II and its creation became very significant after the Second Partition of Poland in 1793. Jews were denied permanent residency outside the Pale and forbidden to settle in some large cities within the Pale of Settlement.
After the October Revolution, Lev Aizenberg remained active in the field of jurisprudence. Between 1923 and 1926 he was one of the editors of the Evreiskaya Letopis (Jewish Chronicles, Rus: Еврейская летопись), which was published in 4 volumes. In 1930s and 1940s Lev Aizenberg served as a consultant for the Leningrad Municipal Court.
Extent
0.5 Linear Feet
Abstract
The Lev Aizenberg Collection documents Lev Aizenberg’s professional activities as a lawyer in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century. Collected here are materials pertaining to a large number of cases involving Jews of Kursk and Kursk Guberniya (Province) and their attempts to fight eviction orders and subsequent relocation back to the Pale of Settlement
Arrangement
The collection consists of a single series.
- Aizenberg, Lev
- Certificates
- Clippings (information artifacts)
- Correspondence
- Jewish lawyers
- Jews -- Persecutions -- Russia
- Kursk (Russia)
- Office of the Governor, Kursk Province
- Official documents
- Petitions
- Powers of attorney
- Resolutions (administrative records)
- Russia
- Russia. Ministerstvo vnutrennikhʺ di︠e︡lʺ
- Saint Petersburg (Russia)
- Working class Jews
- Title
- Guide to the Papers of Lev Aizenberg 1912-1916 RG 59
- Author
- Materials processed, described and finding aid encoded by Yakov Il'ich Sklar in 2012. Materials prepared for digitization by Yakov Il'ich Sklar in 2015.
- Date
- © 2015
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Description is in English.
- Sponsor
- Processed, conserved and digitized as part of the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections project (2015-2022). Earlier work funded by the CJH Holocaust Resource Initiative from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany (2012).
Repository Details
Part of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Repository
