Day in the history of the Jewish Autonomous Region
Photo: Regional Library
October 27, 1897
On this day, Joseph Izrailevich Liberberg, a public figure, the first chairman of the regional executive committee, was born.
Joseph Izrailevich Liberberg was born in the town of Starokonstantinov, Volyn province.
In the early 1930s. I. Liberberg was the director of the Kyiv Institute of Jewish Proletarian Culture at the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (UUAN), the main direction of the institute’s work (at that time) was the development of issues related to the process of creating a future Jewish autonomy in the Far East. In 1932, Joseph Liberberg and his comrade Boruch Guberman visited Birobidzhan for the first time.
Even then, I. Liberberg saw great prospects for Birobidzhan.
In 1934, the formation of the Jewish Autonomous Region and the creation of its administrative authorities were approaching the final stage. I. Liberberg, having received the support of M.I. Kalinin, heads to the region.
At the first regional Congress of Soviets held in December 1934, he was elected chairman of the executive committee.
Hard work begins in all areas of activity.
In April 1935, on the initiative of I. Liberberg, the Presidium of the regional executive committee established a Scientific Commission to study the productive forces and culture of the region. Subsequently, after the transformations, the Scientific Commission was to become the Institute of Jewish Proletarian Culture of the region. In the same year, I. Liberberg went to Moscow to participate in negotiations on the resettlement of Jews from abroad and the allocation of a commodity loan for construction in the Jewish Autonomous Region. But the political repressions that began in the country did not allow these plans to come true.
On August 20, 1936, I. Liberberg was arrested in Moscow on charges of participation in a “Trotskyist-terrorist organization that carried out the villainous murder of Kirov.”
On March 9, 1937, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to capital punishment and executed him on the same day.
Rehabilitated in 1956 for lack of evidence of a crime.
October 27, 1934
The newspaper “Birobidzhan Star” (12+) 1934 On October 27, on its pages published a speech by the Secretary of the Organizing Bureau of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Comrade. M.P. Khavkina, as a response to the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of October 1, 1934 on the economic and cultural development of the Jewish Autonomous Region.
In his speech, Khavkin talks about the resettlement of new families from different parts of the country to the region and their settlement in the area. Do everything possible to make new immigrants want to stay in the region.
Matvey Khavkin talks about the large construction of various enterprises in the city and region: hospitals, clubs, schools and, of course, the construction of apartments for displaced people:
“The resolution of the Council of People's Commissars outlines a large program for industrial development. We must build a shoe factory, a mechanical repair plant, a knitting and clothing factory, three brick factories, etc. We have a grandiose construction project ahead of us in the regional center.
In the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars, a large place is given to the construction of the center of the region – the city of Birobidzhan. It is planned to build a number of industrial enterprises, create a strong cadre of proletarians, under whose influence the people moving to our region should be educated. The construction of a regional center thus acquires extremely important political significance.
Much construction is already underway. However, you cannot build a city without an architectural plan. True, attempts were made to draw up such a plan. These attempts cost Birobidzhan 280 thousand rubles, and we still do not have a plan for the future of the city.
The party and Soviet leadership of the region is now drawing up a plan for the placement of new buildings in 1935-1936, which will serve as a basis for further design of the future of Birobidzhan.”
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The same newspaper published that The Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee approved the representative of the Organizing Committee of the Jewish Autonomous Region, Comrade. Joseph Liberberg. “Until now, Comrade Liberberg worked as director of the Institute of Jewish Proletarian Culture at the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kyiv. At the same time, Comrade Liberberg was approved as chairman of the election commission of the Jewish Autonomous Region.”
Chairman of the Kharkov delegation Fedyukov presents the banner to Liberberg. Photo: Photo: Heritage EAO
October 27, 1936
The newspaper “Birobidzhan Star” of 1936 for October 27 in the article “Amur Neolithic” says that a group of students from the Volochaevskaya school, who went on an excursion along a tributary of the Tunguska River, discovered in a small hill among the collapsed earth shards of dishes and stones reminiscent of Stone Age tools. The article also writes that Volochaev hunters and fishermen often find similar objects near rivers flowing into the Amur. “The objects they find are the so-called “Amur Neolithic”, traces of the oldest human settlements in the region, dating back thousands of years.
Stone Age people, who inhabited the Far East, including our region, in hoary times, were mainly fishermen and hunters. This is evidenced by pointed spears and arrows, sinkers for nets, clubs for killing large fish and animals, and a large number of remains of fish bones, shells and animals found in dugouts. People of this time mostly settled in clans along the mouths of rivers, in half-dugouts, which could have housed 40-60 people. These dwellings are monuments of collective production, the joint economy of their inhabitants.”
