Kiev Gubernia Duma Voters Lists Database

This database contains a transliteration from Russian of the Voters Lists from the first, second and third Duma elections, which appeared in the newspaper Kievskie Gubernskie Vedomostie in 1906 and 1907.  It consists of over 32,000 entries from all twelve uezds (districts) of Kiev guberniya (province) of the Russian Empire, which is today in central Ukraine.

Kiev gubernia and its divisions

Kiev gubernia (Кіевская губернія) was established in 1782.  Beginning in 1846, the gubernia was divided into twelve uezds Уезд (districts): Berdichev, Vasilkov, Zvenigorod, Kanev, Kiev, Lipovets, Radomysel, Skvira, Tarashcha, Uman, Cherkassy, and Chigirin.

Each uezd was divided in several volosts Волость (sub-districts).  For example, the Kanev uyezd (Каневский Уезд) included eighteen volosts: Boguslav, Veliko-Pritski, Isaiki, Kozin, Kornilovka, Korsun, Kurilovka, Makedontsy, Medvin, Olkhovets, Potok, Pustovoity, Pshenichniki, Stepantsy, Selishche, Tagancha, Traktomirovka, and Shenderovka.  The Tarashcha uyezd included thirteen volosts, while the Lipovets uyezd was divided into sixteen volosts, and so on.  The complete list of volosts can be found in the “Volosti Rossii. Polnyi spisok volostei, stanits, gmin i tomu podobnykh uchrezhdenii Rossiiskoi Imperii”. (Valuiki, Tipografiia V.I. Rzgevskogo, 1912).

General Information about the Duma and Duma Voter Lists

Revolutionary strikes, following Russia's defeat in the war with Japan (1905), forced Tsar Nicholas II to institute the Russian Parliament, the Duma.  It was the first Russian experience with democratic elections.  Eligibility to vote was based on age (24 and older), sex (male), payment of taxes, property ownership, guild and professional membership, and some other criteria.  The lists of eligible voters have been compiled by the administrators of the uezds from different sources: records in kaznacheistvo (financial offices), municipal governments, apartment registries, etc.  Each uyezd provided the same core information: the surname and the given name, but some uyezds provided more information, like address, age, etc.  The published voter lists were sorted alphabetically by first letter of last name.  The lists included the Jews and other ethnic groups.  Most of the listed non-Jews were landowners, government employees and Russian Orthodox clergy.

There were four tsarist-era Dumas: the First Duma in 1906, the Second Duma in 1907, the Third Duma met from September 1907 to June 1912, and the Fourth Duma from November 1912 to October 1917.  The JewishGen Ukraine SIG was able to acquire copies of the voter lists for all twelve uyezds of Kiev gubernia, although not all lists were complete.  This database is an extraction of 32,330 entries from the 1906 and 1907 voter lists compiled in preparation for the elections of First, Second and Third Dumas.  They record the names and information about men who were eligible to vote.  At the right are the numbers of voters included in the database by year and uyezd.

Transliteration Issues

From May of 2001 through January 2003, nine volunteers performed the intensive work of transliterating the names of Jewish voters in Kiev gubernia.  The names were transliterated from Russian using the Cyrillic to Roman Alphabet Transliteration Scheme based on Alexander Beider's A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire (Avotaynu, 1993).  The transliteration was done using paper copies made from a microfilm that was made from the original newspapers.  In some cases, the copies of the pages were difficult to decipher and some information was incomplete.  There was ink bleed, black spots, white gaps and other problems with the copies.  In some instances, it was difficult to distinguish between the Cyrillic characters "p", "i" and "n".  There were obvious cases of misspelled or misprinted names.  However, since we believe that any interpretation should be left to each person using the database, they were left as they were.  Despite those little “glitches”, the result is a listing of over 30,000 qualified Jewish voters throughout the Kiev gubernia — invaluable links to our past.

Database Columns

All transliterated names and pertinent information were put in a table with several columns.  The column headings in this database are:

• Year: The year the list was compiled.

• Ordinal: The number the person is listed in the original list.

• Surname: Last name (family name). 
  "?" in this column means the entry was unreadable in the list.
  "…" means that some characters were unreadable in this surname.

• Given name: First name, or if hyphenate, then first and middle name.

• Patronymic: Father’s given name, with the suffix '-ov' or '-ovich', both of which mean 'son of'.

• Age: The age of a person listed. The data is rarely present.

• Qualifications: The qualification(s) for inclusion in the voters' list.

  • "Apt.tax" means "Apartment Tax"
  • "Prom.Nal" means Promyshlennyi Nalog (Industrial Tax)
  • "Vesovshchik zh.Dor" means Vesovshchik zheleznoi Dorogi (Weighter for Rail Road).
  This column may also contain the value of property, apartment taxes or commercial documents, in rubles; as well as other qualifications for insertion in the list; and various comments from the original lists that do not fit in the standard columns, such as "Im. Po Dov. Zheni", "Imushch. Po d. Zheni", "Po Dov. Zheni", "Po Dover. Materi", "Po Doveren. Ottsa", which all stand for "Imushchestvo po doverennosti Zheny (Materi, Ottsa)", meaning "Property by Wife’s (Mother’s, Father’s) Power of Attorney".

• Town of Residence: The location of real property, or category of eligibility, or residence.  “vol” means volost (sub-district).  The Type of Locality (type of inhabited place) sometimes follows, in parenthesis.  The meanings of these abbreviations are:

  • “d” means derevnia (village),
  • “g” means gorod (town),
  • “pos” means poselok (settlement),
  • “kh”, “khut” means khutor (farmstead),
  • “m” means mestechko (small village),
  • “o” most likely means ozero (lake),
  • “Pred” means predmest’e (suburb),
  • “s” means selo (village),
  • “st” means stantsiia (station),
  • “ur”, “uroch” means urochishche (remote settlement).

• Street Address: Additional information about location of the property, business or residence.  “1 Ch”, “1-ya ch”, “2 Ch”, etc. mean pervaia chast’, vtoraia chast’ (1st, 2nd police precincts).

• Electoral District: The Electoral District the person was assigned to.

• Uezd: The district, one of the 12 administrative divisions of Kiev gubernia.

• Nationality (Religion): The ethnicity of the person is listed as Jewish, or omitted in the original.

Although this is not a definitive listing, it offers what is the most comprehensive list to date of Jewish male residents in Kiev Gubernia in 1906 and 1907.  Women did not have the vote and are not included in the voter lists.

Based on the total list provided to our transliterators, it appears that more than 50% of the listed voters were Jewish, testifying to the large numbers of Jews living and working in the gubernia.  Hopefully this will be a valuable resource that will enable hundreds of Jewish genealogy researchers to pinpoint names and familial relationships.

Acknowledgements

I must now give thanks to the handful of volunteers who made this database possible.  I must begin with Florence Elman, JewishGen Ukraine SIG Coordinator, who acquired the Duma Voter Lists and initiated the project.  Without her, there would have been no project.

Ed Hardiman, Olga Parker, Michael Richman, Jane Neff Rollins, and Alan Shuchat handled large portions of the transliterations.  Aaron Gross and Edita Blitman did transliterations.  Thank you to all of them.

A special thank you to Judy Tarail.  Each time there was a need for “just one more list” to be done, Judy was there for us.

I have saved the very best for last.  Ilya Zeldes performed yeomen’s service.  Ilya proofread every single name and somehow managed to make it all come together into a cohesive whole.  Without him, I would have had nothing to coordinate.

Each of these “Genners” unselfishly put their own research on hold to offer their skills for the SIG.  Thank you all.

Estelle Nemoy,
JewishGen Ukraine SIG - Kiev Gubernia Coordator
July, 2003

Search the Database

The Kiev Gubernia Duma Voters Lists Database can be searched via the JewishGen Ukraine Database.