page_title: History of archives of Lithuania
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: History of archives of Lithuania / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The teacher of Telsiai gymnasium Domas Andriulis states that nor he nor his wife has jew relatives. Inscription in German and Lithuanian languages. Document from Telsiai county archive.
context_page_description: Archives in Lithuania began to take shape with the formation of the State of Lithuania, i.e. in the first half of the 13th century, but no documents relating to this period remain. The oldest extant archives is the collection of legal documents of the Office of the Grand Duke of Lithuania, also known as Lithuanian Metrica: it has documents from the 14th to 18th centuries. In 1795, this collection was transferred from Vilnius to Russia as a war trophy, and now it is preserved in Moscow. The archives which existed in Vilnius and other towns of Lithuania up to the middle of the 19th century were basically institutional archives.
context_section_description: The emergence of the Central Archives of the Old Record Books in Vilnius marks a totally new period in the history of Lithuanian archives. Vilnius Central Archives of the Old Record Books (later on referred to as the Archives) were established on 2 April 1852 (O.S.) on the grounds of the imperial decree of Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia. The Tsar Administration was willing to store documents in one place, to safeguard them against forgery or destruction in order to meet the needs of state institutions as well as private persons, especially the nobility. In 1853, by choice of the authorities, the closed Vilnius University building was fitted to accommodate the Archives. The direct supervision of the Archives was assigned to the Educational Board of Vilnius District. However, the activities of the Archives were also under control of Vilnius military governor (Governor-General), i.e. the actual governor of the state.
  According to the above-mentioned decree of 1852, old record books dating back to ancient times and up to 1799 were to be transferred from various offices in Vilnius, Minsk, Grodno, and Kaunas governorates (guberniyas) to the Vilnius Central Archives of the Old Record Books. Essentially, the Archives were completed as late as 1862 – at that time, the old record books kept there totalled 17,388. They were mainly documents produced by various institutions of GDL. In fact, the accumulation of documents continued: in 1887, documents of the liquidated Lublin Old Record Books Archives were transferred to the Vilnius Archives; documents of the cancelled Vitebsk Central Archives of the Old Record Books were also transferred to the Vilnius Archives in 1903.
  The activities of the Archives did not restrict to the document accumulation. The old record books were managed (described, numbered, assigned to fonds) and bound up. There were also inventories of the old record books, as well as place-name indexes arranged. The stock of the accumulated documents served as a base to provide offices and private persons with archival certificates or legal document extracts. Some historical sources have been published. As a matter of fact, the selection of such documents for publication was rather slanted as they mainly served the purpose of leaving no doubt about the “North-western Krai” as an inherent part of Russia. Scientists and other outsiders were rarely admitted to the research of the historical sources – it was possible only with the permission of the highest or local authorities.
  After the World War I broke out, nearly half of the documents – the oldest and the most valuable ones kept in the Archives – were exported to Russia. During the times of the occupation of Lithuania by German Empire in 1915–18, the Archives evaded any serious harm. After the German army retreated, in 1919–20, the administration and supervision of the Archives was under Lithuanian governance which was replaced by Polish governance and, later on, by Bolshevik rule. During a very difficult period of military actions in 1919–20, the Vilnius State Archives subordinate to the Polish authorities emerged. It took over the documents not only from the former Vilnius Central Archives of the Old Record Books, but also M. Muravjov museum, former General Archives of Vilnius Offices, and other archives.
  For quite a long time the fonds of the Archives were kept in separate buildings in Vilnius, until the Archives moved into a new building situated in 8 Slovackio Street (now 8 Mindaugo Street). However, regular activities of the Archives were terminated by the World War II. After the Soviet army occupied Vilnius, during the period of 14–22 October 1939, approximately 14–18 railway vans loaded with archival documents left for Minsk. The damage that the Archives suffered was immense as it lost its most valuable and most significant sets of documents including approximately 20 thousand old record books and packages. After Lithuania regained Vilnius, the Archives were transferred under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. Juozapas Stakauskas was appointed Head of 
caption: The teacher of Telšiai gymnasium Domas Andriulis states that nor he nor his wife has Jew relatives. Inscription in German and Lithuanian languages. Document from Telšiai county archive.
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