Geography of Lyakhovichi: Lyakhovichi in Nowogrodek Palatinate, Wowoide, and Powiat
By Deborah G. Glassman, copyright 2004

The Russian Empire named its largest government administrative unit, a gubernia and the men who administered them were called by the title most often translated as Governor of the Province. The term "gubernia" had replaced the comparable jurisdiction called "woiwode" under the Polish-Lithuania Commonwealth, which is often semi-translated with the word "vovideship." Two hundred years earlier, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, termed those same units, "palatinates" and as the Grand Duchy continued to be nominally in charge of its territory, the term palatinate continues to appear in Lyakhovichi’s region until the time of the Third Partition when it became part of the Russian Empire.

The Russian Empire was a strong autocratic government that gave as little real power as possible to its nobility. It compensated them for the power that was not shared, by giving its nobility huge estates and wealth. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth worked the process in reverse. The real power was in the hands of the nobility and the powers of any ruler and central government were greatly limited. Nevertheless, the Polish-Lithuanian nobility ran the nation’s legal and administrative processes with some effectiveness.

The people appointed to the position of Wowoid (or Vovoid), or Governor, was likely to take their position very seriously because there were specific things that were expected in the role. Each, in addition to being the highest authority in the region and sometimes a de-jure military leader as well, was responsible to head up the Vovoide’s court, the Wojewodzinski. Each designated a special deputy, trained in law and in the administration of the appeals court, to run the Deputy Voivode Court or Podwojewodzinski. The Deputy Voivode Court handled many cases related to Jews including criminal cases, cases that involved Jews together with Christians, and appeals from the District Courts (the Ziemski) and appeals from the Town Courts (the Grodzki). In addition to the Deputy Vovoide, the Vovoide was required to appoint a skilled scribe and notary for both the Deputy Court and the Vovoide’s Court.

The recurring complaint at the start of every new administration was that records had been taken home by previous Woiwodes or their scribes, and "fair copies" had to be made. Most documentation was eventually turned in, but Ducal order after order, testified to the problem continuing for centuries. Widows and heirs of the previous office-holder, would receive stern notification of the requirement to turn in anything from the office, but generally the process was not complete until an executor or administrator finished the probate process. The concern of each noble family was that they might dispose of something of value, and until they were sure these were just routine documents that could not produce an income, the policy of each estate was to move slowly. That resulted in records being turned in at different times and places and consequently ending up in different archival fonts and collections.

Administratively it was further divided into three powiats to make the governance more manageable. Typically a powiat was named for its most important city, which in this region that dated to Duke Gedimin in the 1320s and Duke Vitaut in the 1380s, was the city named Nowogródek. Lyakhovichi was a garod (town/city) in the powiat of Nowogródek in Nowogródek Wowoide.

Many of the individuals named created valuable archives records separate from the documents of their courts. Joseph Alexander Jablonowski spent thirty years bringing Europe’s best cartographers to the service of Poland. The work he began in 1740 was finally completed in 1772 when the detailed surveys of each individual voivodeship were realized in the 21 separate charts of the Carte de Pologne at a 1:700,000 scale. There are multiple copies of this work extant, with some libraries like the Rapperwill Library at the Polish Museum in Rapperwill Switzerland having folios of several of the included charts. Prince Jablonowski provided a huge amount of preliminary data to the cartographers and, as governor of Nowogrodek, spent special effort to collect data of value in his voivodeship. Many documents that would have been in archives in Poland have been destroyed in the twentieth century by the purposeful policies of the Nazis and by the Soviets.

Nowogródek Powiat under Imperial Russia

Nowogródek Powiat was one of the last pieces of evidence of the free and independent Lithuanian nation to be eliminated by the Russian Empire. Vilna and Kovno (Kaunas) had come late to their leadership status in the Lithuanian communities, but Novogrodek had been one of the earliest, predating Vitaut, the great national hero of Lithuania and Belarus. It took until 1842 before Russia was entirely able to disintegrate the remains of this.

After the Russian absorption, Nowogródek powiat was a separate administrative area until 1842. That year, most of it became part of the Minsk gubernia. The term "gubernia" had replaced the larger jurisdiction that was called "woiwode" under the Polish-Lithuania Commonwealth (and which had been called "palatinate" under Lithuania.) The Russian term "uzeyd" an administrative district inside a gubernia was comparable to the unit of powiat that had made up a wowoide. There had been three powiats in Nowogródek wowoide, now the one that had been called Nowogródek powiat was divided among Minsk guberniya’s uzeyds of Slutsk, Mozyr, Minsk, Slonim, and Bobruisk with the westernmost part retaining the name Nowogrodek. The portion ceded to Slutsk included Lyakhovichi and an area close to where the town of Baranovichi would be built. Slonim became part of Grodno’s uzeyd, Kletsk and Nesvizh were in another. These close-by communities that had shared access to the same courts and administrative processes were now permanently separated from Lyakhovichi in where their records would be created and stored and in the impact events in different places would have on each community.

There are separate listings in "Słownik Geograficzny" for Nowogródek as a city, a powiat, and a woiwode. The powiat article states that the Lithuanian Grand Duke Vitaut/Witold the Great brought Jews and Tatars to this area (see articles on this Web Page titled Key Events in pre-19^th century Lyakhovichi Jewish Life and Title Chain of Lyakhovichi) An additional note on Nowogródek powiat, in a volume of Errata and Corrections for Slownik Geografznie says that in the final disposition of Nowogrodek among the uzeyds of Minsk, it became a part of Slutsk’s jurisdiction.

Nowogródek Palatinate – under Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Novogrodek Palatinate acquired by the Russian Empire in the Third Partition of Poland, was both one of the older and one of the younger of the palatinate divisions. Officially it had been referred to as a palatinate from the fifteenth century, because of its special role as the inherited land and patrimony of the Grand Duke. In size, it was little more than a powiat, an administrative unit that would normally have a lesser official reporting to a governor of a huge region. But in 1565, it got a more legitimized standing from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. That year, the Grand Duchy decided to reorganize its territory. To reduce friction in a population that now was divided into Catholic and Orthodox territorial blocks, the Grand Duchy formalized the divisions. It made three palatinates for the Catholics and six for the Orthodox. The three Lithuanian palatinates were Samogitia, Vilnius, and Troki. Vilnius was later divided into Vilnius, Asmena, Lyda, Ukmerge, and Brest-Litovsk. The Troki palatinate consisted of Troki, Gernainys, Kaunas and Uretza powiats. Until this time, the area around Novogrodek, which was the inheritance of the family of the Grand Duke of Lithuania, had been joined to that of Troki, the administrative headquarters of the Duchy. In 1565, the Grand Duchy recognized that Novogrodek palatinate was largely Orthodox and it was joined as a powiat to other Orthodox powiats of Slonim, Kletsk, and Volkoviskas. The joined powiats became Nowogrodek Palatinate along with the separate Duchy of Slutsk. Lyakhovichi would remain in Nowogrodek Palatinate for the remainder of the time it was in Polish-Lithuanian possession. In seventeenth and eighteenth century maps, it is shown very close to the border with the Brest-Litovsk Palatinate which had been created a short time later but from whose lead Jewish communities, Lyakhovichi and other Lithuanian Jewish communities, would continue to seek leadership for generations.

Administrative Capitals

End of 18^th-early 20^th Centuries: The national capitals of the Russian Empire were Moscow and St Petersburg. The administrative center of Minsk gubernia was the city of Minsk and the administrative center of the uzeyd was the city of Slutsk.

15^th-end of 18^th Centuries: The national capitals of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic were Krakow and Vilna. Lyakhovichi remained in the jurisdiction of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a component part of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic, until the end of the eighteenth century.

13th-14th Century: For most of the fourteenth century, the capital was Troki. Troki and Novogrodek cities, with their surrounding regions, were passed down from Gedimin, the first of his line of Grand Dukes in the 1300s. They were considered part of his personal patrimony and their descent to Vitaut was undisputed when little else in the kingdom was. The city of Novogrodek and its surrounding powiat were considered an inheritance of the Lithuanian Dukedom and until three hundred years had passed in 1565, it remained a part of the Duchy of Troki, which was the hereditary seat of the Grand Dukes.

Voivods of Nowogródek in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
and in the Polish-Lithuanian Republic

In addition to the executives of the Voivode listed below, six legislators represented the Nowogródek Voivod: 2 senators chosen among the szlachta (nobility) and two representatives to the Sejm (the Polish legislative body) and two representatives to the Lithuanian Council of Lords (the legislative body of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania). The schedule at which they were to enter into their position or the methods for determining them, are not known to me. Each Voivode (governor) selected his representatives to the Sejm and to the Lithuanian Council, and while the governor served until his death, it is not clear if his appointees had equal tenure.

The Lithuanian Council of Lords had 35-50 permanent members as of 1529 including 2 deputies selected by each Voivode to represent him and his region’s interests. The Council was largely filled with those who the szlachta families of the magnate level chose, as well as princes of the Church (bishops), leaders of the army (marshalls), and those whose title "castellan" meant that they had the leadership of the oldest most important cities. The full membership was rarely called together and the regular council proceedings were handled by a "Secret Council," whose membership, not so secretly, included the voivods of Vilnius and Trakai, castellans of Vilnius and Trakai, the Elder of Samogitia, the Grand Hetman of Lithuania and the Grand Chancellor of Lithuania. But as Lyakhovichi was almost continually owned by men with those official titles, it nevertheless may yet appear in the documents of that body. The physical situation of Lyakhovichi in Novogrodek voivodeship, and the consequent awareness of the effectiveness and disposition of the Voivode by a member of the Secret Council, may have increased the role, which Novogrodek’s governors were consequently asked to play, in the nation’s governance.