History

  Historical circumstances determined the unique place of the Kaunas Regional State Archive in the system of Lithuanian state archives. In 1843, the Kaunas governorate was established, which included most of the territory of present-day Lithuania. The governors of the Kaunas Governorate resided in Kaunas, and the chancellery of the Kaunas governor, the governorate's administration, and other institutions and agencies of Tsarist Russia were located here. The archive of the Kaunas governorate's institutions operated on what was then Malaya Zhandarmskaya Street (now I. Kanto Street). Historical circumstances led to the fact that the archive of the governorate's institutions, located in the premises of the governorate administration (more precisely, the documents of the Kaunas governorate's institutions stored there), later gave rise to the creation of the independent Lithuanian state archives system and, specifically, the current Lithuanian Central State Archive and the Kaunas Regional State Archive.

   After the restoration of Lithuania's independence, due to the complex and unfavorable political circumstances of that time, Kaunas became the temporary capital of Lithuania, and central state institutions were established here.

  Through the efforts of the State Archaeological Commission and local government administration, the surviving documents of the Kaunas governorate's institutions were taken over. Following the peace treaty signed between Lithuania and Russia on July 12, 1920, a large part of the documents of institutions operating in the territory of Lithuania, which had been evacuated during World War I, was returned. At the beginning of 1921, at the initiative of the State Archaeological Commission, premises in the Seventh Fort of Kaunas were allocated for the collection and storage of archives remaining in Lithuania and those being returned from Russia. According to the project of architect Vladimiras Dubeneckis, these premises were renovated and adapted for the storage of documents. On October 19, 1921, the Minister of Education, Kazys Bizauskas, signed an order establishing the Central State Archive under the Ministry of Education. The first head of the Archive was the well-known Lithuanian lawyer Kazimieras Oleka. This date is considered the day of the establishment not only of the Kaunas Regional State Archive but also of the entire independent Lithuanian state archives system.

  During its two decades of functioning in Kaunas, the Central State Archive mainly collected and organized documents of institutions functioning in the territory of Lithuania in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

  After the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in 1940, the nature, status, and name of the archive operating in Kaunas changed: in August 1940, it was renamed the Central State Archive of the Lithuanian SSR, and on March 13, 1941, after the decision to move the Central State Archive to Vilnius, it became the Kaunas branch of the Central State Archive of the Lithuanian SSR. The Archive's subordination also changed. Previously subordinate to the Minister of Education of the Republic of Lithuania (through the Director of the Department of Culture), following the Soviet model, the Archive became subordinate to the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR. During the first years of the Soviet occupation, the Archive began to collect and organize the surviving documents of the liquidated independent Republic of Lithuania, and in the post-war years, also the documents of institutions that operated during the German and Soviet occupations. Gradually, during the first years of the Soviet occupation and the post-war period, the documents of the central institutions and public organizations of the independent Republic of Lithuania, which had been accumulated in this archive, were taken over by the Central State Archive of the Lithuanian SSR.

  Throughout its history, the Archive has been reorganized several times, and due to various transformations, its name and profile have changed: 1957-1963 – Kaunas City State Archive; from January 1, 1964, to March 22, 1978 – Kaunas branch of the Central State Archive of the Lithuanian SSR; from March 23, 1978, to July 24, 1990 – Central State Archive of the Lithuanian SSR in Kaunas; from July 25, 1990, to May 27, 1993 – Kaunas State Archive; from May 28, 1993, to March 6, 1997 – Kaunas Regional Archive; from March 7, 1997, to December 31, 2016 – Kaunas County Archive. Due to the partial centralization of state archives, on January 1, 2017, two branches – Alytus and Marijampolė – were joined to the Archive, and the Archive itself was given its current name – Kaunas Regional State Archive.

  Since its establishment to the present day, not only the name and subordination of the Archive have changed, but also its location. Already in the summer of 1940, the Archive was moved from the premises in the Seventh Fort to the Pažaislis Monastery, from where it moved out only in 1950. It also had premises on Laisvės Avenue (in the former Zefyras tobacco factory), in the Town Hall, where the archive's collections were significantly damaged by the 1946 flood. In later years, the Archive had to use storage facilities in many other places in the city (in the mosque on Totorių Street, at Nemuno Street 2, etc.), until finally, in 1986, it moved to its current premises – the reconstructed and adapted building of the former M. Hausman prayer house at Maironio Street 28 B.