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"Hebrew" Korobochniks in the Minsk Gubernya in 1839

by A.L. Bell

This is a tabular version of a list from Issue Number 35 (September), 1839 Minsk Viedomosti (official newspaper), of Jewish "Korobochniks," or businessmen who had successfully bid for the right to collect the "Box tax," or taxes on the sale of kosher meat. The revenue covered the cost of community social welfare services.

The businessman, or business partners, who offered to collect the largest amount of Box taxes for a given area won the right to collect the taxes for a specified period of time and probably earned a flat fee or a percentage of the revenue to compensate them for their trouble. In this case, the period ran for the four-year period from 1840 to 1843.

The "korobochniks" were, in effect, performing municipal banking services. The ones who made sensible bids were probably smart, rich guys who knew their communities inside and out. You can read more about them on the JewishGen Litvak SIG Web site at: http://www.jewishgen.org/litvak/vital-p4.htm

When I transcribed the 1839 list, I put down the same ruble bid value for each partner involved in a deal for a particular community. If three men bid 300 rubles together for the Box tax rights for Springfield, Belarus, than I would put down 300 rubles for each of the three men, not 100 rubles.

I also included four officials whose names appear at the bottom of the list. One was a secretary to the Minsk Board of Assessors.

Another point: the newspaper notice billed this as a list of "Hebrew Korobochniks," but some of the names here appear to be non-Jewish. I have not tried to separate the Jews from the non-Jews in any way. The appearance of a name on this list does not necessarily mean that the name was used by Jews.

WARNING: I don't really know any Russian. I have probably made plenty of errors of all kinds. Use at your own risk!

The microfilm used to make this table came from the New York Public Library. You can see the film in the library's Slavic and Baltic room, on the second floor. You CAN take films to the microfilm copy room on the first floor, but you MUST bring a photo ID, and using the copy room is a huge hassle. If you really want to make copies, make sure to get to the library early in the day, and get to the copy room by 2 p.m.

A.L. Bell, allbell@vnet.net, 14 Nov 1999

Transliteration of Korobochnik list introduction:

Vyadomost o Evreiskikh korobochnikh sborakh otdannikh v' otkupnoe soderzhnie s' 1840 po 1843 god s' pokazaniem zakyam onie utverzhdenie i za kakuyu summu.
 

"KOROBOCHNIK" INFO - ALPHABETIZED BY SURNAME