Drissa Uezd Duma Voter Lists, 3rd Duma, 1907

Introduction

Drissa was one of the eleven uezds (districts) that comprised Vitebsk Gubernia from 1866 to 1917. The city of Drissa, now known as Verkhnedvinsk, Belarus, was the principal town in the district. Other towns in the table are Bal'binovo, Borkovichi, Borovka, Kokhanovichi, Nikolaevo, Osvei, Pridruisk, Pustel'niki, Rositsa, Sariya, Sushki, Volyntsy, and Yukhovichi. About half of them had the administrative designation of mestechko, or shtetl. A Vitebsk Gubernia map shows the geographical boundaries of Drissa Uezd. (Page to the bottom and select the Vitebsk Gubernia link.) Other online maps can better indicate the individual towns. One of my favorites is a 1915 French map of the Baltic Republics, which shows more than half of the towns above. As the Vitebsk Gubernia map indicates, Drissa bordered Vilna Gubernia, and was close to the the borders of Courland, Kovno, and Minsk Gubernias.

Because nationality/religion is indicated for each voter, 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 113 of 158 voters (72%) in the first congress and 486 of 638 voters (76%) in the second congress. It may appear odd that Jews are the clear 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 for Drissa Uezd, 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: