Photograph: Wooden synagogue

European Jews

Minsk Guberniya, Slutsky Uyezd, Shtetl of Vyzna

1925

Gelatin silver printing with chemical development (DOP)

7,6 x 10,8

РЭМ 4350-3

The estate Wyzna, like many in the Northwestern Territory, was owned by Princess Maria of Hohenlohe, nee Wittgenstein, granddaughter of Prince Dominik Radziwiłł, wife to the Chancellor of the German Empire. In 1886, the shtetl of Wyzna had 795 residents, 94 households, a church, 2 synagogues, a folk school, 4 shops, and in 1897, 1,677 residents and 249 households. In 1923-1929, an administrative territorial reform was put in practice in the USSR. Provinces (guberniya), districts (uyezd) and volosts were abolished, and the term shtetl (mestechko) disappeared from the administrative vocabulary. Shtetls were transformed into settlements or villages, and some of them gained the status of town, The shtetl of Wyzna became the village of Krasnaya Sloboda.