Polotsk Uezd, Vitebsk Gubernia, Duma Voter Lists, 3rd Duma, 1907

Introduction

Polotsk was one of the eleven uezds (districts) that comprised Vitebsk Gubernia from 1866 to 1917. The city of Polotsk was the principal town in the district. A Vitebsk Gubernia map shows the geographical boundaries of each uezd, and the city of Polotsk, with a filled-in red dot. 83% of the Jewish voters in the Polotsk lists were listed as residing in the city of Polotsk, 9% are listed as residing in the shtetl of Sirotino, and the remainder in various volosts (townships), small villages and estates. Various abbreviations for administrative areas and town types are used in the list, for example: m. (mestechko), vol. (volost), d. (derevnya), im. (imenye), s. (selo).

Because nationality/religion is indicated for each voter on the lists, Jews are explicitly identified as such. Other nationalities on the lists are: Russian Orthodox, Belarussian Catholic, Lutheran, Old Believers, Poles, and Germans. I extracted only the Jewish voters. Jews accounted for 1,142 of 1,910 voters (60%) in the Polotsk lists. It may appear odd that Jews are a majority of registered voters on these lists at a time when they lived under repressive and discriminatory laws. However, these lists contain only those categories of voters where Jews are likely to be found. There are additional 3rd Duma voter lists containing landowners, nobility, clergy, pensioners, etc. which have few or no Jews. The votes of these latter voters generally counted far more in a complex, weighted voting scheme. Therefore the influence of the Jewish vote was not as great as these lists make it seem.

I sorted the table below by surname, then by congress (1 or 2), then by voter number within the congress. There are several pairs of voters from the same congress who meet this criteria: