Legal foundations of administration in Belarusian lands in the 14th-18th centuries
About the project
The project «The legal foundations of administration in Belarusian lands in the 14th-18th centuries» is a special rubric on the Archives of Belarus website, an internet resource of the state archives network in the Republic of Belarus. The project has been created to commemorate the Statutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the conferment of the Law of Magdeburg on the towns of Brest, Grodno, Polotsk, Minsk.
Purposes
The project aims to provide on the Internet more complete and accurate information on Belarusian history on the basis of archival documents illustrating the specifics of law making and enforcement and the advanced level of legal culture on Belarusian ethnic lands in the 14th-18th centuries.
Structure of the project
The page consists of three main sections:
- Background and overview
- Exhibition of archival documents and materials
- Archival publications
The exhibition shows documents and materials available from five archival institutions: the Belarusian State Archives-Museum of Literature and Art, the National Historical Archives of Belarus in Minsk, the National Historical Archives of Belarus in Grodno, the Belarusian State Archives of Films, Photographs and Sound Recordings, and the Belarusian Research Center for Electronic Records.
The exhibition is structured in two levels:
– List of records, including their title, date, type, language and location
index. On the right are links to view a full-size record. The records are
basically arranged in chronological order.
– Electronic copies of records.
The exhibition features over 470 electronic copies of archival records systematized in five thematic sections (29 internal groups).
The bulk of the exposition are textual records: mainly manuscripts, as well as prints and typescripts (original exemplars and 19th-century copies, in full text and fragments). The documents are written in Belarusian, Old Belarusian, Polish, Russian and Latin languages. The rest of the exposition (about 70 archival sources) are photographs, maps, drawings.
On display are the juridical documents created in different states that existed on Belarusian ethnic lands in the 14th to the 18th centuries: the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Empire. These are separate documents and their collections. Among them are the Acts of national and local importance, documents concerning rights of individual persons and those relating to church matters. The exhibition demonstrates documents of the advanced juridical thought of its time, particularly of the constitutional level – Statutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (including the 1588 original edition held at the Museum of the History of Mogilev) and Privileges of the Magdeburg Law conferring self-government on towns and boroughs. The exhibition describes 245 handwritten documents from the Collection of I. Grigorovich held at the Belarusian State Archives-Museum of Literature and Art; over 30 documents have been introduced into scholarly usage for the first time.
The exhibition also describes the national and state leaders and shows how feudal Belarus has been reflected in scholarly literature, journalism, arts and heraldry.
To highlight some key issues, we have used the material published in archival editions. The most informative among these are
three source
guides “Pomniki prava Belarusi в XIV-XVI vv.” (“Law documents in Belarus in the
14th-16th centuries”), prepared by the Belarusian Research Institute of Records
Management and Archival Studies (BelNIIDAD).
In addition, we offer links to other internet projects
posted on the Archives of Belarus website – special rubrics about Academician E. Karsky
and Professor M. Dovnar-Zapolsky and an article about the administrative and
territorial division of Belarus with information on the research topic.
On display are also ten printed editions that contain data on relevant documents on the topic held in Belarusian archives and/or developed with the support of Belarusian archival institutions.
The offered material is not exhaustive and further research is possible to enlarge the exhibition.
General coordination of the project – Department for Archives and Records Management of the Justice Ministry of the Republic of Belarus.
Main executor of the project, information contents, web design – Belarusian Research Center for Electronic Records.
Selection of records and making of digital copies – Belarusian State Archives-Museum of Literature and Art, National Historical Archives of Belarus in Minsk, National Historical Archives of Belarus in Grodno, Belarusian State Archives of Films, Photographs and Sound Recordings, and Belarusian Research Center for Electronic Records.
Notes
The use of the project materials requires a reference to the source of information – the Archives of Belarus Website and the individual archive which holds a record. For other issues regarding the use of data posted on the website, please contact the respective archival institution (see contact information on the website page “Archives and records authorities and the state archives network”).
For comments and opinions on the project please email: ed@archives.gov.by.