The records in Series I consist mainly of research papers on topics relating to Jewish life in Eastern Europe, which were prepared in fulfillment of course requirements. Topics include literary analyses of major literary figures such as Mendele Moykher-Sforim and Yisroel Axenfeld, descriptions of individual towns in Eastern Europe, statistical materials on economic life, including agriculture and the leather trade, and research on daily life, including household budgets and family diaries. Among the 60 program participants there are some who survived World War II and continued to be active in Jewish culture decades later. These are the poet and publisher Avrom Sutzkever, the historian of the Holocaust Lucy Dawidowicz, (nee Libe Schildkret), the educator Yosl Mlotek, the Bundist leader Motl Zelmanowicz, and scholar Moishe Kligsberg.
In Series II there are administrative materials relating to the Aspirantur program, such as records of student meetings, notes from lectures and discussions, evaluations of research projects, applications from prospective students, and correspondence.
The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (Yidisher visnshaftlekher institut), established in Vilna in 1925, was divided into four academic sections: Philology, History, Economics and Statistics, Psychology and Education. In 1935 the YIVO Institute added a graduate training division known as the Aspirantur (graduate-level training program). Named in honor of Zemach Shabad (1864-1935), YIVO's chairman, the Aspirantur aimed to educate scholars who wished to pursue research and teaching careers in Jewish scholarship. It was part of a larger project, espoused by intellectuals such as Zalman Reisen, Chaim Zhitlowsky, and Shmuel Niger, of creating a university that would not only serve to educate Jews excluded from national universities by the quota system, but also train a generation of scholars to study Jewish culture for its own sake. In a period when producing knowledge about Jewish culture was highly politicized, the founders of the Aspirantur sought to train scholars in the most sophisticated methods of the social sciences and humanities who would serve the interests of the Eastern European Jewish population itself, unbiased by Zionist or assimilationist commitments. This project, Zalman Reisen stated, was an essential part of arguing for Jewish self-determination. 1 The YIVO Aspirantur program was thus a prototype for a national university that merged a concern for quality scholarship with the goal of promoting Diaspora nationalism. The teachers in the Aspirantur program included Simon Dubnow, Max Weinreich, Zelig Kalmanovitch, Zalman Reisen, Jacob Lestschinsky, Raphael Mahler, Philip Friedman, and Noah Prylucki.
Although the Aspirantur was not an accredited academic program and did not demand a formal university diploma it was "designed to provide graduate-level instruction for students with the equivalent of a university education" 2 and required its students to conduct independent scholarly work in the fields of the Jewish humanities and social sciences and in Yiddish language and literature. Students were also required to write papers summarizing their findings. Several of these papers were publicly presented and some of them were later published by YIVO.
Aspirantn, as the Aspirantur participants were called, would come to Vilna for a financially subsidized academic year. They would each choose a research topic and participate in seminars and classes led by YIVO affiliates. YIVO initially planned to accept ten students for the first year, but due to the program's overwhelming response, fifteen applicants were admitted. Enrollment continued to rise in subsequent years.
In 1937 a new division called the Pro-aspirantur, named in memory of Borukh Kahan-Virgili was added to the Aspirantur program, as a two-year preparatory program for prospective aspirantn who had not received a university-level education and were not yet sufficiently prepared to enter the Aspirantur program. The Pro-Aspirantur evolved into a teacher-training program, filling the educational void of the Vilna Teachers Seminary, which closed in 1931.
The Aspirantur was originally intended to be a one-year program, but the decision was made subsequently to allow "outstanding" students to return for a second year. By its fourth year, several of the participants were returning students who were attending the program for the second, third, and fourth time. Due both to the Aspirantur program's success and the limited professional prospects for young Jews in Poland in the late 1930s, it was not uncommon for students to remain longer than originally envisioned.
The Aspirantur and Pro-Aspirantur and several program faculty members and participants are described in greater detail by Lucy Dawidowicz, an aspirant (1938-1939) - then known by her maiden name Libe Schildkret - in her memoir, From That Place and Time: A Memoir, 1938-1947.
Reference
Kuznitz, C.E. The Origins of Yiddish Scholarship and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (doctoral dissertation, Stanford University)
Dawidowicz, Lucy. From That Place and Time: A Memoir, 1938-1947. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008.
Series I: Student Research , undated, 1934-1940
Subseries 1: Research Papers and Notes , undated, 1934-1940
Folder 3961: Ayzn, Avrom. Myth and Ideas in Moshe Kulbak's Works: Philosophical Motifs in Moshe Kulbak's Works , 1937
Folder 3963: Arnshteyn, Dovid. Jewish Male and Female Apprentices in Vilna , 1937
Final draft; notes; reports.
Yiddish, Polish, and German.
Folder 3963a: Arnshteyn, Dovid. Jewish Male and Female Apprentices in Vilna , 1939
Folder 3964: Arnshteyn, Dovid. Questionnaires to the work: Jewish Male and Female Apprentices in Vilna , undated
Folder 3965: Babicki, Jacob. Agricultural Research on Jews in East Galicia: Statistical Materials on the Stanisławów Region ; Jewish Colony in Lejpuny , undated
Data sheets on Stanisławów.
Polish.
Folder 3966: Babicki, Jacob. Statistical Materials about the Lwów, Stanisławów and Tarnopol Regions , undated
Data sheets on Lwów, Stanisławów, and Tarnopol.
Polish.
Folder 3967: Babicki, Jacob. Questionnaires about Petranka , undated
Data sheets and notes on Petranka, Czortowiec.
Polish, Yiddish.
Folder 3968: Babicki, Jacob. Statistical materials about Czortowiec, Lisiatycze, and other towns in the Stanisławów region , undated
Data sheets and notes on Czortowiec, Lisiatycze, Starunia, Petranka, Rakowczyk, Sarnki Gorne, Ruda, Wierzbowiec, Słobódka, Jackówka.
Polish, Yiddish.
Folder 3969: Babicki, Jacob. Questionnaires about towns in the Stanisławów region , undated
Data sheets, questionnaires, and notes on Czerniów, Pczany, Sarnki Gorne, and other towns in the Stanisławów region.
Polish.
Folder 3972: Berezin, Shlomo. Jewish Small Industry in Vilna , undated
Research notes on light industry, printing shops, knitwear industry, lithographers, mills, clay industry.
Yiddish, Polish, German.
Folder 3973: Berezin, Shlomo. Jewish Small Industry in Vilna , undated
Folder 3974: Berezin, Shlomo. Jewish Small Industry in Vilna , 1938-1939
Research materials and periodicals.
Russian, Polish.
Folder 3975: Berkman, Anna. Statystyka Żydów w Wilnie w 1795 r. (Statistics of Jews in Vilna in the Year 1795) , undated
Draft of research paper; tables and supporting evidence.
Polish.
Folder 3976: Hoyz, Gavriel (Gabriel Haus). The Vilna Ghetto at the Present Time. (The Sociological Aspect of Three Streets) , 1937-1938
Folder 3978: Valt, Leye. Short papers.* , 1940
Folder 3979: Warhaftig, David. Short papers.* , 1938-1939
Folder 3980: Zak, Leyb. Short papers.* , 1940
Folder 3981: Zelmanowicz, Motl. Short papers.* , 1940
Folder 3982: Tapuach, Shimshon. The Jewish Agricultural Settlement in Stojaciszki, Vilna Region , 1935-1936
Folder 3983: Tapuach, Shimshon. Land, Capital, Buildings: Agricultural Technology , 1937
Folder 3984: Babicki, Jacob. Jewish Agriculture in Stanisławów Region , 1935-1936
Questionnaires and data sheets on Żabie, Kamionka Mała, Rakowcyzk, Chomiaków, Słobódka Leśna. Drafts and reports.
Polish.
Folder 3984a: Tapuach, Shimshon. Correspondence regarding the Agriculture project , 1935-1936, 1939
Folder 3986: Berezin, Shlomo. Questionnaire about Jewish Gardening , along with reports and analysis , 1939
Folder 3987: Tykoczinski, Pinkhes. Jews in Eastern Europe during the World War , 1937-1939
Minutes, reports, correspondence, and materials.
Yiddish, Russian, Polish, German.
Folder 3987a: Tykoczinski, Pinkhes , 1937
Folder 3988: Tykoczinski, Pinkhes. Jewish Parliamentary Representation in the Polish Constituent Sejm , undated
Folder 3989: Tykoczinski, Pinkhes. Jewish Parliamentary Representation in the Polish Constituent Sejm , undated
Folder 3990: Yones, Eliyohu. Short papers.* , 1938-1939
Folder 3991: Lubacki, Khasye. Short papers.* , 1938-1939
Folder 3992: Lubacki, Daniel.* , 1939-1940
Folder 3993: Leizerowicz, Yankev. History of Secular Education of Jews in Russia in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century , 1940
Draft of research paper and associated notes.
Yiddish, Polish.
Folder 3993a: Feinman, Sol. Mendele-Moykher Sforim: Yiddish and Hebrew , 1942
Folder 3995: Linder, Menachem. The Suede-Leather Trade in Vilna , 1937
Folder 3995a: Linder, Menachem. The Suede-Leather Trade in Vilna , 1937
Folder 3996: Linder, Menachem. The Suede-Leather Trade in Vilna , undated
Folder 3997: Levin, Shloyme. Lithuanian Jews in the Uprising of 1831 , 1937-1938
Folder 3998: Lerner, Daniel. Ozdziutycze, a Jewish Shtetl in Volhynia , 1937
Folder 3999: Lerner, Daniel. Tarnopol: Description of a Shtetl in Eastern Poland , undated
Folder 4001: Natisz, M. (Michael Shutan) , 1936
Folder 4002: Natisz, M. (Michael Shutan) , 1936
Folder 4003: Nutkiewicz, Shloyme. The May-Regime and the Jewish Question in Poland , 1940
Work plan, notes, bibliography, report.
Polish, Yiddish.
Folder 4004a: Slucka-Kestin, Chava. School Holidays and Entertainment in the Life of Children , 1936-1937
Folder 4005: Szmuszkiewicz, Khane. Jewish Guilds in Vilna at the Beginning of the 19th Century , 1938
Folder 4006: Szmuszkiewicz, Khane. Jewish Guilds in Vilna , undated
Collection of excerpts from sources, card-index, materials, notes.
Russian, Polish, Yiddish.
Folder 4007: Pipe, S.Z. The Yiddish Art-Song among the People: Folklorized Forms of D. Edelstadt's "Der arbeter"(The Worker) , 1935-1938
Folder 4008: Piczaczer-Mann, Khane. Diaries about Children , 1936-1938
Includes diaries themselves, correspondence, notes, reports.
Russian, German, Yiddish.
Folder 4009: Piczaczer-Mann, Khane. Diaries about Children; Education of infants , undated
Folder 4009a: Piczaczer-Mann, Khane. Diaries about Children; Education of infants , 1938
Folder 4009b: Unidentified (farsheydens) , undated
Miscellaneous notes from several sources; unidentified by name and unnumbered; frequently incomplete pieces of research notes or letters.
Yiddish, Polish, German.
Folder 4010: Feygenberg, R. Essays, research-lectures, research activity reports.* , 1940
Folder 4011: Frydman, Lew. The Brush Industry in Poland , 1937
Draft.
Polish, Yiddish.
Folder 4012: Kowalski, Gershon.* , 1940
Folder 4013: Kaplanowicz, Shoel.* , 1939-1940
Folder 4014: Kligsberg, Moses. The Meaning of Normal Play among Children , undated
Folder 4015: Kruglik, Usher.* , 1939-1940
Folder 4016: Rovner, S. (Lastik, Shlomo) Der Yugnt Veker , 1934-1935
Folder 4017: Rivkind, Jacob. Family budgets in Vilna , undated
Statistical materials, research notes.
Yiddish, Polish.
Folder 4017a: Rivkind, Jacob. Family budgets in Vilna , undated
Additional research notes.
Yiddish, Polish.
Folder 4018: Rivkind, Jacob. Family budgets in Vilna , undated
Materials, address, card-index.
Polish.
Folder 4019: Rivkind, Jacob. Family budgets in Vilna , undated
Folder 4020: Rivkind, Jacob. Family budgets in Vilna , undated
Folder 4022: Rivkind, Jacob. Budgets of Jewish Families in Vilna , undated
Folder 4022a: Rivkind, Jacob. Budgets of Jewish Families in Vilna , undated
Folder 4023: Shulman, Eliyahu (Elias). The Growth of Yiddish Literature in the United States, 1881-1900 , 1936
Folder 4023a: Shulman, Eliyahu (Elias). The Growth of Yiddish Literature in the United States, 1881-1900 , 1936
Folder 4024: Schlossberg, Ber. Khaykl Hurwitz' Seyfer Tsofnas Paneyekh , 1936-1937
Folder 4025: Schlossberg, Ber , undated
Folder 4026: (No name). Die Anzahl der Juden in der ganzen Welt. (The Total World Jewish Population) , undated
With tables.
German.
Folder 4027: Miscellaneous papers. Parts of research results and lectures , undated
Folder 4065: Pipe, S.Z. The Yiddish Art-Song among the People: Folklorized Forms of of M. Gordon's "Di Mashke" (Whiskey) , undated
Folder 4066: Pipe, S.Z. The Yiddish Art-Song among the People: Folklorized Forms of D. Edelstadt's "Der arbeter"(The Worker) , undated
Subseries 2: Evaluations , undated, 1935-1940
Folder 4030: Brestowicki, Aaron. Nationality and the National Problem in Dr. Zhitlowsky's Work , undated
Folder 4031: Golinkin, Rokhl. The Vilna Kahal in the First Half of the 19th Century , undated
Folder 4035: Derwiansky, Yosef Dovid. The Rabbinical Seminary in Vilna (1847-1873) , 1935-1936
Folder 4037: Wrona, Irene , 1937-1938
Folder 4038: Teitelboym, Eliyohu. Teaching Singing in the Yiddish School , 1938-1940
Folder 4039: Munits, Khayim (Chaim Munitz). Jewish Attire in Eastern Europe, First Half of the 19th Century , 1936-1939
Folder 4042: Ehrlich, Alexander. The Main Problems of Business Cycle Theory , 1940
Folder 4043: Patt, Emanuel. Youth research , 1940
Folder 4046: Kantor-Lichtenstein, R. The Working Conditions of Jewish Bakery Workers in Warsaw , 1936
Folder 4047: Reyzen, Shoel. The Evaluation of the Jewish National Programs in Russia (1897-1907) , 1935-1936
Folder 4048: Schildkret, Libe (Lucy Dawidowicz). The Beginning of the Jewish Press in England , undated
Folder 4049: Schindelman, Esther. Polish Motifs in Yiddish Literature , 1937-1938
Series II: Administrative Materials , undated, 1934-1940
Folder 4050: Program founding documents, correspondence with students, evaluation of program , 1935-1936
Folder 4051: Notes for student evaluations; minutes of a meeting following graduation , 1936-1937
Folder 4052: Notes and minutes for planning and program administration meetings , 1937-1938
Folder 4053: Notes and minutes for planning and program administration meetings , 1938-1939
Folder 4056: Notes from the seminars of visiting professors , 1939-1940
Folder 4058: Report of the registration query regarding documentation of Jewish life worldwide , undated
Folder 4059: Notes and research , undated
Folder 4063a: Additional applications , 1935-1940
Folder 4063b: Additional applications , 1935-1940
Archival Reference Information
- German
- Hebrew
- Polish
- Russian
- Yiddish
- 1934-1940
- 1935-1940
The series are arranged by type of material, namely research papers or administrative materials.
The Record Group 1.3 is a segment of a larger block of the Vilna YIVO records within which all folders are numbered consecutively from # 1 to the end. The RG 1.3 begins at folder 3961 and ends at folder 4064.
The series are arranged by type of material, namely research papers or administrative materials.
The Record Group 1.3 is a segment of a larger block of the Vilna YIVO records within which all folders are numbered consecutively from # 1 to the end. The RG 1.3 begins at folder 3961 and ends at folder 4064.
- Correspondence
- Manuscripts
- Research Notes
- Theses
- YIVO Institute For Jewish Research (New York)
- Yidisher visnshaftlekher institut
- Yivo Institute for Jewish Research
- Education, Higher - Europe, Eastern
- Europe, Eastern
- Jews - Study and teaching
- Language and education
- YIVO (Vilna)
- Vilnius (Lithuania)
- Education, Higher - Europe, Eastern
- Europe, Eastern
- Jews - Study and teaching
- Language and education
- YIVO (Vilna)
- YIVO Institute For Jewish Research (New York)
- Correspondence
- Manuscripts
- Research Notes
- Theses
- Vilnius (Lithuania)
- Correspondence
- Manuscripts
- Research Notes
- Theses
- Education, Higher - Europe, Eastern
- Europe, Eastern
- Jews - Study and teaching
- Language and education
- Vilnius (Lithuania)
- Yiddish secular movement
- YIVO (Vilna)
- YIVO Institute For Jewish Research (New York)
Search in the "YIVO - Vilna Aspirantur Records" Archival Collection (RG 1.3)
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The Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections project is an international project to preserve, digitize, and virtually reunite YIVO’s prewar library and archival collections located in New York City and Vilnius, Lithuania, through a dedicated web portal. The project will also digitally reconstruct the historic, private Strashun Library of Vilna, one of the great prewar libraries of Europe.
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