Sources on History of the Jewish Population of Khotyn District of the Bessarabian Province in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries in the State Archives of Chernivtsi Region

The objective of the study is a general description and selective analysis of the unpublished sources on the history of the Jewish population of Khotyn District of the Bessarabian Province of the Russian Empire, which are stored in the collection of the State Archives of Chernivtsi Region. General scientific methods of analysis and synthesis of the sources are used, including methods of critical analysis, typology, and verification, historical analysis (chronological method), as well as methods of quantitative and qualitative analysis of documents. For the classification of a significant corpus of documents, which highlight the life of the Jewish population not only in Khotyn district, but also in all of Bessarabia, other provinces of the Russian Empire, as well as Austrian Bukovina, a content analysis of documents was used with semantic, in particular, legal and social, chronological, territorial and national criteria for the selection of documents. The originality of the study lies in the fact that the documents, analyzed by author, were introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. As a result of the study, it has been proven that the State Archives of Chernivtsi Region have a significant number of the unpublished documents (some of them are in the National Archives of the Republic of Moldova), which contain information about the economic and socio- cultural life of the Jews of Khotyn District, their legal and social status. The largest array of documents is deposited in the collection of Khotyn District and the Povit (District) Police Court, the City Magistrate, the Povit Police Administration, the City Police Department, the Povit Directory, the Povit Directory from the Recruit Duty, the Povit School, and the Inspector of Public Schools of Khotyn District. It is noted that among the discovered documents there are no documents on the political history of the Jews of Khotyn District or those that would reflect their participation in the revolutionary processes raging on the territory of the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century. However, the archival documents allow us to identify new aspects and features in the life of Jewish population of the Khotyn District in the specified period of history in the perspective of further researches.