The project \u00abThe legal foundations of administration in Belarusian lands in the 14th-18th centuries\u00bb is a \r\nspecial rubric on the Archives of Belarus website, an internet resource of the \r\nstate archives network in the Republic of Belarus. The project has been created \r\nto commemorate the Statutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the \r\nconferment of the Law of Magdeburg on the towns of Brest, Grodno, Polotsk, Minsk.<\/p>\r\n
Purposes<\/b><\/p>\r\n
The project aims to provide on the Internet more complete and accurate \r\ninformation on Belarusian history on the basis of archival \r\ndocuments illustrating the specifics of law making and enforcement and the \r\nadvanced level of legal culture on Belarusian ethnic lands in the 14th-18th \r\ncenturies. <\/p>\r\n
Structure of the project<\/b><\/p>\r\n
The page consists of three main sections: <\/p>\r\n
The exhibition shows documents and materials available from five \r\narchival institutions: the Belarusian State Archives-Museum of Literature and \r\nArt, the National Historical Archives of Belarus in Minsk, the National \r\nHistorical Archives of Belarus in Grodno, the Belarusian State Archives of \r\nFilms, Photographs and Sound Recordings, and the Belarusian Research Center for \r\nElectronic Records. <\/p>\r\n
The exhibition is structured in two levels:
\r\n– List of records, including their title, date, type, language and location \r\nindex. On the right are links to view a full-size record. The records are \r\nbasically arranged in chronological order.
\r\n– Electronic copies of records. <\/p>\r\n
The exhibition features over 470 electronic copies of archival records \r\nsystematized in five thematic sections (29 internal groups).<\/p>\r\n
The bulk of the exposition are textual records: mainly manuscripts, as well \r\nas prints and typescripts (original exemplars and 19th-century copies, in full \r\ntext and fragments). The documents are written in Belarusian, Old Belarusian, Polish, \r\nRussian and Latin languages. The rest of the exposition (about 70 archival \r\nsources) are photographs, maps, drawings. <\/p>\r\n
On display are the juridical documents created in different states that \r\nexisted on Belarusian ethnic lands in the 14th to the 18th centuries: the Grand \r\nDuchy of Lithuania, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Empire. \r\nThese are separate documents and their collections. Among them are the Acts \r\nof national and local importance, documents concerning rights \r\nof individual persons and those relating to church matters. The \r\nexhibition demonstrates documents of \r\nthe advanced juridical thought of its time, particularly of the constitutional level \u2013 \r\nStatutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (including the 1588 original edition \r\nheld at the Museum of the History of Mogilev) and \r\nPrivileges \r\nof the Magdeburg Law conferring self-government on towns and boroughs. The \r\nexhibition describes 245 handwritten \r\ndocuments from the Collection of I. Grigorovich held at the Belarusian State \r\nArchives-Museum of Literature and Art; over 30 \r\ndocuments have been introduced into scholarly usage for the first time. \r\n
The exhibition also describes the national and state leaders and shows how \r\nfeudal Belarus has been reflected in scholarly literature, journalism, \r\narts and heraldry.\r\n <\/p>\r\n
To highlight some key issues, we have used the material published in archival editions. The most informative among these are \r\nthree source \r\nguides “Pomniki prava Belarusi \u0432 XIV-XVI vv.” (“Law documents in Belarus in the \r\n14th-16th centuries”), prepared by the Belarusian Research Institute of Records \r\nManagement and Archival Studies (BelNIIDAD).
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In addition, we offer links to other internet projects \r\nposted on the Archives of Belarus website \u2013 special rubrics about Academician E. Karsky \r\nand Professor M. Dovnar-Zapolsky and an article about the administrative and \r\nterritorial division of Belarus with information on the research topic. \r\n
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On display are also ten printed editions that contain data on \r\nrelevant documents on the topic held in Belarusian archives and\/or developed with \r\nthe support of Belarusian archival institutions.\r\n <\/p>\r\n
The offered material is not exhaustive and further \r\nresearch is possible to enlarge the exhibition.<\/b>