Sources of the Eighteenth Century General Jewish Censuses of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Their Applicability to Historical Demography Research

Abstract

This article surveys the sources of the eighteenth century Jewish censuses in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. A large manuscript collection is stored in the Lithuanian State Historical Archive. Prevailing historiography on Jewish census sources unveils that these were never studied in their complex. This article describes the preserved census sources, their nature and the way the data are presented. It also raises several important questions for interpreting the data: how many Jewish censuses were carried out in the eighteenth century Grand Duchy of Lithuania and which of these is reliable for historical demography and family research. We conclude that the dates of reported for Jewish censuses in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which appeared in historiography do not reflect the real situation: there were only two censuses, in 1764-65 and 1784. What is known in historiography as the second census of 1775 was not implemented. The poll-tax lists from 1775 are only an edited copy of the 1764-5 census documents, prepared in accordance with the territorial and population losses after the First Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and because the poll-tax was made higher. Comparing the data of 1764-65 and 1784 shows that the latter are unreliable, not corresponding to the real situation, and demographically impossible and misleading. The 1784 census data are problematic for research on Jewish historical demography. Historiography based on research of the fragments of the 1784 census should be critically revaluated.