Mailing address:
Maironio 28B,
LT-44249 Kaunas, Lithuania
Telephone: +370 37 32 31 11
Fax: +370 37 20 71 82
E-mail: [email protected]
Director
Mr. Gintaras Dručkus
The biggest Regional State archives, which preserves documents of the former Kaunas Gubernya institutions from the middle of the 19th century until 1918, documents of some institutions that functioned in the Kaunas region during the 1918-1945 period, and documents of regional state, municipal and non-state institutions, enterprises, popular organizations and individuals of the Kaunas, Jonava, Kaišiadorys, Kėdainiai, Prienai, and Raseiniai districts from 1945 until the present day. Archives is also involved in supervision of records management of local public institutions.
The oldest documents in the archives, i.e. the documents of Pažaislis Monastery, date back to the 17th century though the majority of the documents relate to the later period. Fonds of the Kaunas Regional State Archives are widely used by those engaged in the research into political, social, demographic or cultural processes that have been going on in the cities, towns and villages of Lithuania. The fonds are also a source of information on the historic and architectural heritage of the Jewish communities of Lithuania.
The documents of the Archives occupy approximately 14 600linear metres of shelving space and comprise 4 sets:
- Fonds of the institutions relating to the Russian Empire period comprise a set of documents created by the institutions which were functioning on the territory of the Kaunas Governorate (made of Kaunas, Panevėžys, Raseiniai, Šiauliai, Telšiai, Ukmergė and Zarasai counties): Kaunas Civil Governor’s Chancellery, Administration Board of the Kaunas Governorate and its divisions, Kaunas Governorate Drafting Office, State Property Administration Board of the Kaunas Governorate, Kaunas Governorate and the county commissions on courts, land planning, national service, peasants’ matters, townsmen’s matters, crafts, activities of societies and associations, also the fonds of the Kaunas Duma (City Council) and the Administration Board as well boards of administration of the other towns of the Kaunas Governorate, also police offices, and other fonds;
- Fonds relating to the period of the Republic of Lithuania (1919–1940) and the Nazi occupation period (1941–1944) comprise a set of documents of the institutions which were functioning in Kaunas and in the Kaunas County of that time: municipalities and local self-government institutions; educational, health care and provisional institutions, also documents of private companies; documents created by the Kaunas Municipality and the Kaunas County Administration as well as its subdivisions: departments of quartering, finance, passports, construction, social security, health care, education, provision, property, maintenance, water supply and sewerage; Kaunas and the Kaunas County tax inspections, Kaunas Elementary Schools Inspector’s Office, some public and private schools in Kaunas, health care institutions, manufacturing and trading companies, etc.;
- Fonds relating to the Soviet occupation periods (1940 –1941) and (1944–1990) comprise a set of documents of the institutions which were functioning on the present Kaunas, Alytus and Marijampolė counties: state institutions and local self-government institutions, courts, notary’s offices, agricultural and manufacturing institutions; educational, cultural, scientific, health care institutions; public institutions including the largest industrial enterprises, planning and design institutes, scientific research institutes, universities of Kaunas;
- Fonds relating to the Independence period (since 1990) comprise a set of documents of the state and public institutions which were and still are functioning on the Kaunas, Alytus and Marijampolė Counties, including documents of the Kaunas Council of the Lithuanian Reform Movement Sąjūdis and personal collections of the Independence Act signatories Egidijus Bičkauskas and Algirdas Patackas, as well as documents of the offices implementing agricultural reform (the latter documents testify to the beginning of restoration of proprietorship rights to the land, dramatic changes in the activities of collective farms, the start of reforms); documents referring to the activities of self-government institutions in 1990–1994 (they reflect the difficult decisions related to the reform of the industrial and agricultural sectors that had to be taken by the local self-government institutions after the restoration of the independence of the Republic of Lithuania).
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