Book of documents The Testaments of the Nobility and the Burghers in Belarus in Second Half 16th Century presented by the National Historical Archives of Belarus
On 29 January 2013 the National Historical Archives of Belarus and the Petrus Brouka Belarusian Encyclopedia Publishers host a presentation of the published collection of documents, The Testaments of the Nobility and the Burghers in Belarus in the second half of 16th century (from the deed books of the National Historical Archives of Belarus).
The National Historical Archives of Belarus continues a tradition of editing the records of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that require a deep knowledge of paleography and are not easily accessible to the unprepared reader.
The book presents 116 records of the last will of the citizens of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania included in the deed books of the municipal and land courts in the districts of Brest, Vitebsk, Minsk, Novogrudok and Slonim and the town of Mogilev for the period of 1559-1600.
The testament texts are accompanied with a detailed index of personal and geographical names and a glossary. The majority of records are in the Old Belarusian language, some of the testaments are in the Old Polish.
Among the participants at the presentation will be the representatives of the Department for Archives and Records Management of the Republic of Belarus, the Petrus Brouka Belarusian Encyclopedia Publishing House, the Institute of History at the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, the Belarusian Research Institute of Records Management and Archival Studies, the History Faculty of the Belarusian State University, the History Faculty of the Maxim Tank Belarusian State Pedagogical University, the National Historical Museum of the Republic of Belarus, and the mass media.
The book is the result of many years of work by the employees of the old deeds department at the National Historical Archives of Belarus: the department head Volga Babkova, the chief archivist Iryna Bober, the chief paleographer Albina Alyaksandrava. The scholarly edition was conducted by Alyaksandr Dounar, candidate of historical sciences.
Information on the book
Testaments (wills) provide a unique source of historical information. Testaments illustrate the person’s confession, property status, family structure, and education level. They reflect the man’s attitude to life and death, to his relatives, and to his postmortem memory. The majority of the authors of the records presented in the book come from the class of the middle nobility who possessed a small property as well as the persons of the higher status who held various governing posts and played important role in the system of the government administration. Among the testators are the noted persons such as the first wife of the Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – Darota Firlei, the mother of Duchess Safia Slutskaya – Barbara Kishka, the father of Bishop Velyamin Rutski – Shchasny Velyamin-Rutski, the governor of Smolensk Vasil Tyshkevich, the head of Slonim Mikhal Valovich, the governor of Vitebsk Bagdan Yanushkouski, Prince Shchasny Svirski, the burgomaster of Mogilev Kuzma Esmanovich and many others.