Seven Years Work of Vilna Yiddish Scientific Institute

The Vilna Yiddish Scientific Institute has Just completed seven years since it came into existence, and a report issued in connection with the occasion contains a survey of the activities of the Institute. The Institute has four sections – philological, Statistical-Economic, Historical, and Psychological – Pedagogic. Five volumes of writings have been published by the Institute containing scientific contributions by more than 100 contributors, Jewish and non-Jewish. A second volume of writings on economics and statistics and the first volume of the Philological-Pedagogic Section are now in the press. The third volume of writings by the Economic and Statistical Section is in course of preparation, as is also the fourth volume of the Philological Section. In addition, several other works have been published, including Professor S. Dubnov’s “History of Hassidism”. The Folklore Commission has published a compilation on Jewish folklore, as well as a volume on Yiddish Ethnography. The Commission has collected over 100,000 examples of Yiddish folklore, a selection from which is contained in the folklore volume, half of which has already been set up in type. The Bibliographical Centre, Which has been at work since 1926, has over 70,000 classified registration cards. The first volume of the Bibliographical Annual appeared in 1928, and the second volume is now in the press.

The archives of the Institute possess over 6,000 complete annual issues of various Yiddish newspapers and periodicals, more than 30,000 placards, leaflets, and reports, the complete archives of a number of Jewish communities and thousands of manuscripts and autographs. There are over 40,000 volumes in the Institute Library, many of them unique examples. The Theatrical Museum named after the great Yiddish actress, Esther Rachel Kaminska, possesses several thousand photographs, theatrical posters, scene paintings and ### documents relating to the history of the Yiddish theatre. A volume on the “History of the Yiddish Theatre and Drama” has already appeared.