Russian Archival Resources Bibliography

Russian Archival

Resources - Bibliography

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Journals

What follows is a list of some of the most important journal publications containing reprints of archival documents.

Krasnyi Arkhiv: istoricheskii zhurnal (Moskva, 1922-1941)
UIUC Call Number: Main Stacks 905 KR

Izvestiia TsK KPSS. Moscow, 1989-1991. Publication of Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
UIUC Call Number: Main Stacks 324.24707505 IZ

This journal published many important declassified documents from Communist Party archives and re history of Perestroika while underway.

Rodina. Moscow, 1989-. Monthly. See also Istochnik, which appears as a supplement.
UIUC Call Number: Main Stacks 947.005 RO

A wide-circulation magazine with considerable coverage of archival materials and historical sources.

*Istoricheskii arkhiv. Moscow, 1992-. Bimonthly. Published by Rosarkhiv. Continues the earlier series by the same name (1955-1962).
UIUC Call Number: Main Stacks 947.7005 IST (1992- )
Main Stacks 905 ISTA (1955-1962)

The contents of the issues for 2001- are listed on line at
http://www.rusarchives.ru/publication/histarch/content.shtml

SUPPLEMENT (Prilozhenie): Arkhivno-informatsionnyi biulleten', Ser. 1: Spravochno-informatsionnye materialy: Arkhivy Kremlia i Staroi ploshchadi, M. 1993-5
UIUC Call Number : 025.3414 AR48SUP.

Otechestvennye arkhivy, Moscow (published by Rosarkhiv)
UIUC Call Number: Main Stacks 025.17105 SO1

This title continues the Soviet publication Sovetskie Arkhivy. A listing of the contents for current issues are available at http://www.rusarchives.ru/publication/otecharh/content.shtml. Full text, beginning in 2006, is available through EastView at http://dlib.eastview.com/sources/publication.jsp?id=6685 .

Istochnik. Moscow, 1993-. Bimonthly. Supplement to Rodina. A wide-circulation supplement to Rodina for the publication of archival documents.
UIUC Call Number: Main Stacks 947.005 ROsup. (1993-)

Starting in 1995, a "journal with the journal" has started for documentary publications from the Archive of the President RF.

Cold War International Historical Project Bulletin. Washington DC, 1992-.
UIUC Call Number: Main Stacks 327.17 B874 (1992-)

Plus many other Soviet and post-Soviet journals: e.g. Voprosy istorii, Istorii SSSR--now Otechestvennaia istoriia, Voprosy filosofii, Literaturnoe nasledstvo, and others.

Also, especially in early 1990s, numerous articles in newspapers. The EastView Universal Database of Russian Newspapers is very useful in identifying these materials and is available while you are visiting campus.

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Collections

Rossiia XX vek (ed. A. N. Iakovlev), 1997-

Neizvestnaia Rossiia: XX vek (Moscow, 1992-93) 4 volumes
UIUC Call Number: Main Stacks 947.084 N319

Dokumenty vneshnei politiki. Published by Ministerstvo inostrannykh del Rossiiskoi federatsii. 1992-1997?
UIUC Call Number: Main Stacks 327.47 R923d

Annals of Communism (Yale University Press, 1994- )
UIUC Call Number: For call numbers of the individual volumes see the UIUC online catalog

This series presents selected documents concerning the history of Soviet and international communism from Russian state and party archives. Each book contains documents selected by teams of Western and Russian editors which are published with scholarly commentary, annotation, and interpretation in both an English-language edition for Western audiences and a Russian-language edition for distribution in Russia. Documents are selected not for their support of any single predetermined interpretation, but for their historical significance or their value in deepening understanding and facilitating discussion.

Individual volumes:

Revelations from the Russian archives: documents in English translation, ed. Diane P. Koenker (Washington DC: Library of Congress, 1997).
UIUC Call Number: DOC. LC1.2:R32

-Stalinskoe Politburo v 30-e gody: Sbornik dokumentov, ed. O. V. Khlevniuk et al (M. 1995)
UIUC Call Number: Main Stacks 335.43 ST165

Golos naroda: Pis’ma i otkliki sovetskikh grazhdan o sobytiiakh 1918-1932 gg., ed. A. K. Sokolov, et. al. (M. 1998)

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Microfilm, Cd-Rom, and Electronic Sources for Archives

Kommunisticheskaia partiia Sovetskogo Soiuza. Smolenskii Oblastnoi Komitet. Partiinyi Arkhiv.
UIUC Call Number: FILM 947.6 K83s

The oldest such resource is the Smolensk Party Archive, held by most major libraries in the United States. The guide to the archive is shelved in the Slavic Library, call number 025.1714094762 UN4G .

Chadwick-Healey/Hoover :"Archives of the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet State"
URL: http://dynaweb.oac.cdlib.org/dynaweb/ead/hoover/fond17

This was one of the most controversial projects undertaken, but also one of the most important. There are two finding aids available. That available through the Stanford University website is slightly easier to use and is accessible by clicking on the image above. The project is described in broad terms as follows:

"The State Archival Service of the Russian Federation" (Rosarkhiv), at Stanford University, and Chadwyck-Healey concluded an agreement in April 1992 to microfilm the records and opisi (finding aids) of the Communist Party of the former Soviet Union, as well as other selected holdings of the State Archives."

Chadwyck-Healey. "Leaders of the Russian Revolution"

This microfilm set reproduces the records of nine major figures of the Russian Revolution and the Soviet State and covers the period 1878-1952

"The documents reproduced come from the Russian Centre for the Preservation and Study of Documents of Most Recent History (RTsKhIDNI), known until 1991 as the Central Party Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. Until August 1991 this Institute was under the control of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and was a research centre for Party members. Its archives, whose holdings were until recently restricted to the Institute's staff and highly placed members of the Soviet Communist Party, contain material on people active in the world Communist movement from its beginnings to 1952."

All nine units are available at UIUC as follows:

Martov, L. UIUC Call Number: Slavic Library Mfiche 947.0841092 M367M
Zasulich, V. I. UIUC Call Number: Slavic Library Mfiche 947.0841092 Z19Z
Zhdanov, A. A. UIUC Call Number: Slavic Library FILM 947.0841092 Z61Z
Kirov, S. M. UIUC Call Number: Slavic Library FILM 947.0841092 K638K
Molotov, V. M. UIUC Call Number: Slavic Library Mfiche 947.0841092 M738M
Aksel'rod, P. B. UIUC Call Number: Slavic Library Mfiche 947.0841092 AK76A
Ordzhonikidze, G. K. UIUC Call Number: Main Stacks FILM 947.0841092 OR2
Trotsky, L. D. UIUC Call Number: Slavic Library Mfiche 947.0841092 T756
Kalinin, M. I. UIUC Call Number: Main Stacks FILM 947.0841092 K124

Primary Source Media. "Russian Archives"

Primary Source Microfilm was granted permission to reproduce a number of collections in the Russian archives. New units are being added to the collection on film. Since these units are being sold individually, it is often the case that libraries will purchase only selected sections of the project. The titles include:

Association of Workers of Revolutionary Cinematography

The Cold War and the Central Committee

Institute of Economics of the Communist Academy, 1921-1937

Intercepted Police Correspondence of the Russian Revolutionaries from the Special Department of Police

Meyerhold Theater, 1920-1938

Military Papers of Leon Trotsky

Mosfilm, 1938-1945

The Napoleonic Wars, 1805-1815

The Papers of Prince Gregory Potemkin

The Papers of the Red Army: Political and Internal Intelligence Reports, 1918-1921

The Papers of the White Army, 1918-1921

Russian Peasantry on the Eve of Collectivization: The Dynamic (Cluster) Censuses of Peasant Farms in the 1920s

Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905: From the Military Science Archive at the Russian State Military History Archive

Soviet Censuses of 1937 and 1939

Soviet Genetics

Voice of the People Under Soviet Rule: From the People's Archive of Moscow

IDC Comintern Archive - congresses and plenums. (see Comintern Online)

This is an enormous project and the finding aid is available in the form of a cd rom. The set is held by several libraries including the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago. The project is described by IDC as follows:

"The Comintern archive collection comprises the thousands of documents of the seven congresses of the Comintern and the thirteen plenums of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI), together with materials from the associated preparatory and working commissions. They include transcripts and minutes of meetings, with individual presentations and general discussions and debate, materials presented by the leadership and those arising from the floor, theses, lists of delegates, mandates (credentials), questionnaires filled out by delegates, appeals, open letters, and a wealth of other documents."

The company makes note of the fact that while there are published versions of the records of the congresses, they were heavily censored, making the microfilm a uniquely valuable resource.

Library of Congress Soviet Archives Exhibit.
URL: http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/soviet.exhibit/soviet.archive.html

This exhibit represented the new openness in the Soviet Union. It was one of the first display of what had been secret internal records. Here these records are reproduced in digital form and accompanying translated copy.

There is also a published source edited by Diane Koenker entitled Revelations from the Russian archives : documents in English translation. The call number for this item at the University of Illinois is: DOC.LC1.2:R32. The book is shelved with the documents collection.

Yale's ISS collection from Military archives 1918-1939

A list of their holdings are available online at http://www.yale.edu/rusarch/uslinks.html. There are also links online to other guides to collections online. It is also important to keep in mind that U.S. holdings are becoming available through records in catalogs such as WorldCat. When performing such a search you must limit the materials to "Archival Materials".

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Multi-archive directories and guides

Works by Patricia Grimsted

Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy. Archives of Russia: A Directory and Bibliographic Guide to Holdings in Moscow and St. Petersburg. English Language Edition (Armonk: Sharpe Publishers, 2000). 2 vols.
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 027.00254731 Ar481, v. 1-2

Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy. Arkhivy Rossii: Moskva i Sankt-Peterburg. (Moscow 1997) - the older Russian edition
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 027.00254731 Ar48

This brief entry from the table of contents gives some idea of the subject organization in Professor Grimsted's guide. The section shown above describes the contents of a part of the first section of the guide which is devoted to general bibliographic resources to the literature on archives and manuscripts. A typical entry for this section is show below. This entry was taken from the section on "Sources on the history of education" (highlighted above)

ArcheoBiblioBase (basis of above works)

-Brief on-line version: http://www.iisg.nl/~abb/

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Older publications by Grimsted still of use (esp. for the rest of the Russian Empire and former USSR) :

Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy. Archives and Manuscript Repositories in the USSR: Moscow and Leningrad. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972.
SUPPLEMENT 1: Bibliographical Addenda. Zug, Switzerland: IDC, 1976.
203 p. "Bibliotheca Slavica,"9. [IDC-R-11,333]
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 025.171 G88a

Now significantly outdated, especially as regards the new names for many institutions, but still useful for basic notes on holdings and comprehensive bibliography of earlier published specialized finding aids. The 1976 Supplement extends the bibliographic coverage and provides a correlation table for the IDC microfiche editions of all of the finding aids listed in both volumes.

Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy. Archives and Manuscript Repositories in the USSR: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belorussia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
UIUC Call Number: Baltic Reference 025.171 G88ar

Now significantly outdated, especially with the new names for many institutions, but still useful for basic data on the history and holdings and for comprehensive bibliography of earlier published general literature and specialized finding aids. This is an important resource for basic information such as archival terminology, and legal history of the archives. The entry shown below gives some idea of the content of this source. However, it is a short entry and many if not most of the entries are far more extensive than the one shown here

Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy. Archives and Manuscript Repositories in the USSR: Ukraine and Moldavia. Book 1: General Bibliography and Institutional Directory. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.
UIUC Call Number: Ukraine/ Belorus Reference 016.94771 G884a

Now outdated by the new names for many institutions and extensive declassification, but still provides basic data on the history and holdings and a comprehensive bibliography of earlier reference literature, including general reference aids. The appendixes in this volume as in all of Grimsted's works hold a wealth of information on archival organization, terminology, access, finding aids. The example below gives some small notion of the information that can be gleaned from this source but it is one of the briefest entries.

Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy. Handbook for Archival Research in the USSR. Washington, DC, 1989 (IREX)
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 027.047G884h

This source includes references to guides for many of the regional archives. It is also very helpful to identify updates for the Ukrainian, Moldovan and Baltic publications. It is one of the few sources of information on regional archives and their finding aids. This guide was written to meet the needs of researchers working during the Soviet period but it is still valuable. There is a great deal of information on the nature of archival research with a special section devoted to archival research in libraries. The entry below is taken from the section on "State Archives of the Non-Russian Union Republics and their Published Guides"

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Interarchival guides

The titles below are some of the major general guides. Again, this is not a comprehensive list.

Vserossiiskii Nauchno-issledovatel'skii Institut Dokumentovedeniia i Arkhivnogo Dela. Arkhivnye dokumenty v bibliotekakh i muzeiakh Rossiiskoi Federatsii. Spravochnik. Moscow: "Zvenia". 2003
UIUC Call Number: IN PROCESS

This guide is part of the broader program of the Russian Federal Archival Administration to produce guides to the major archives of the country. The archives of 374 museums and 55 libraries under the Ministry of Culture are described in this volume. The material is organized alphabetically by administrative-territorial units of the Russian Federation. Each section begins with a description of the the regional library, followed by descriptions of the various museums collections. Library and museum collections that are not administered by the Ministry of Culture are not included in this volume.

As can be seen from the entry on the left, the guide provides a brief history of the archive, an overview of the collection and highlights important materials in the colletion. Each entry also includes essential contact information, including the location of the archive and the telephone numbers. The size of the archival collection is also listed. Entries for museum collections include citations to published finding aids.

Dokumenty GAF (Gosudarstvennogo arkhivnogo fonda) SSSR v muzeiakh, bibliotekakh i nauchno-otraslevykh arkhivakh: Spravochnik. Moscow: "Mysl'", 1991.
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 027.047 D685

When looking for those sources that fall outside the federal archives and beyond the confines of Moscow or Petersburg, this can be a useful source. While Grimsted's Handbook is essential for identifying the regional federal sources, this guide will help the scholar trying to identify the specialized resources of the smaller archives. Entries include contact information which will obviously be out of date. There is also a historical overview of the archive. In those cases where published guides are available, they have been cited. The image below is one of the shorter entries but will give some idea of the type of information to be found in this guide.

Gosudarstvennye arkhivy SSSR. Spravochnik. Moscow: "Mysl", 1989. v.1-2
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 027.047 G699

While out of date, this is still a useful source for an overview on the regional archives and their published guides. The entries on each of the archives is extensive with detail on the collection and the historical changes to the archive up to the date of publication. The guide is organized into sections. The Central State Archives of the USSR, state archives of the RSFSR, and state archives of the Ukraine are all in the first volume. The second volume has sections devoted to the archives of Belarus, the Uzbek SSR, Kazakh SSR, Georgian SSR, Azeri SSR, Lithuanian SSR, Latvian SSR, Kirziz SSR, Moldovan SSR, Tadzhik SSR, Armenian SSR, Turkmen SSR, and Estonian SSR. The second volume includes a list of "interarchival" guides for the USSR. The image below shows the type of introductory information provided for each archive. The full entries for each item are often many pages with detailed information on the archives holdings.

Gosudarstvennye arkhivy RSFSR. Spravochnik putevoditel'. Moscow: "Sovetskaia Rossiia", 1980.
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 947 G699 1986

One of the older guides to the state archives in the RSFSR. The descriptions are very detailed, including bibliographies of the published guides.

Grant, Steven A. and John H. Brown The Russian Empire and Soviet Union. A guide to manuscripts and archival materials in the United States. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co.. 1981.
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 016.02517120947 G767r

This is the only general source for collections of Russian materials in the United States. Thus, although it is dated it can be very valuable and should not be overlooked. The guide is organized by state and then institution. There is a general index and an index of repositories to assist in access. The descriptions are brief but helpful in determining the extent of information available at any one institution.

IU. M. Grossman and V. N. Kutik. Spravochnik nauchnogo rabotnika: Arkhivy, dokumenty, issledovatel'. L'vov: Izd-vo pri L'vovskom gos. universitete izdatel'skogo ob"edineniia "Vyshcha shkola", 1983
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference Q.947 G9148S 1983

Grossman's guide provides a good outline of the Soviet archival structure. The guide is divided into sections by type of archive: major archives, library archives, manuscript division of museums, foreign archives, and a general discussion on the organization and preparation for archival research. The bibliography listing archival guides is included at the end of the volume. This makes the volume slightly difficult to manage. In the entry pictured below the numbers in the square brackets refer to guides listed in the bibliography.

V. Kozlov, ed. Fedaralnye arkhivy Rossii i ikh nauchnyi-spravochnyi apparat: Kratkii spravochnik. Moscow, 1994.
UIUC Call Number: Slavic Microfilm: Film 027.0947 N499f

This brief guide describes just the federal depositories. The entry below will give the scholar some idea of the information that can be found in this guide.

Federal'nye arkhivy Rossii i ikh nauchno-spravochnyi apparat. pp. 122-123

Moskovskoe Gorodskoe Ob'edinenie Arkhivov. Tsentral'nye arkhivy Moskvy. Putevoditel' po fondam. V.1- . Moscow: "Mosgorarkhiv", 1999-.
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 027.04731 T787 v.1-

This is an excellent guide to the archives of Moscow and includes materials in the following archives: Tsentral'nyi arkhiv dokumental'nykh kollektsii Moskvy, Tsentral'nyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva Moskvy, Tsentral'nyi arkhiv nauchno-tekhnicheskoi documentatsii Moskvy, Tsentral'nyi arkhiv obshchestvennykh dvizhenii Moskvy, Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv g. Moskvy, Tsentral''nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv kinofotodokumentov g. Moskvy, Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii i sotsialisticheskogo stroitel'stva g. Moskvy, Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi istoicheskii arkhiv g. Moskvy, Tsentral'nyi istoricheskii arkhiv g. Moskvy, Tsentral'nyi Moskovskii arkhiv dokumentov na spetsial'nykh nositeliakh, Tsentral'nyi munitsipal'nyi arkhiv Moskvy. Each volume is devoted to a broad set of topics. The first volume covered city administration and governmental organs. Volume two focused on statistics, finance and other economic issues. The third volume covers social issues such as public health, education, sports, culture, social security. Volume four is devoted to topics on transportation, communication, construction. Volumes five and six will cover social organizations and industry, respectively. The entry below will give some idea of the information available in this source.

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General guides on-line

Arkhivy Rossii URL:http://www.rusarchives.ru

New portal for online guides:
http://guides.rusarchives.ru/search/basic/BasicSearch.html

This is the most important access point for Russian archives. The site map can be very useful in navigating the enoromous amount of information available here. Some of the pages that any scholar will want to check regularly are those listing archival websites for the republics of the Former Soviet Union and the Baltic, the page with archival guides, especially the list of hypertext versions of online guides to Russian archives, archival data bases online, and new publications on archives, including links to periodical publications and lists of their contents.

While somewhat difficult to navigate, there is an enormous amount of information on Russian archives at this site.The site as a whole is being updated. Part of this rework includes a new portal that leads to the full text of online guides to the archives.

Below is a sample entry from one of the guides.

Sample entry from the guide to the Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Sotsiol'no-Politicheskoi Istorii.

State Archive Committee of Ukraine http://www.archives.gov.ua/

Each entry under the heading "Arkhivy v Ukrainy" has a section on the history, collections, organization and literature on the archive. The list of published sources is extremely thorough and helps to update Grimsted's earlier published guide on the region.

Archives of Belarus URL: http://www.archives.gov.by/

Clicking on "Arkhivy" will bring the researcher to a list of archives in this region. Profiles are provided for each with descriptions of holdings of such categories of material as personal archives, the history of the archive, and all contact information. Internal finding aids are also described. However, published finding aids are not mentioned. Thus, for the Belaruski Dziarzhauny Arkhiu-Muzei Litaratury i Mastatsva, the 1997 published guide is not listed on the website.

Muzei Rossii URL: http://www.museum.ru

For current information on hours, addresses, phone/fax numbers, email addresses and website addresses, this is a very helpful site. The information on the archival holdings is quite sparse but can provide clues in cases where materials are especially difficult to locate.

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Printed guides

Guides to personal materials

Afiani, V. IU. Katalog lichnykh arkhivnykh fondov otechestvennykh istorikov. Moskva : Editorial URSS, 2001-
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 016.9470099 Af41k

Katalog lichnykh arkhivnykh fondov otechestvennykh istorikov. pp. 64-65

Entries in this catalog are arranged alphabetically. Most of the entries are quite extensive with detailed biographical and bibliographical data included. The personal archival holdings are listed for each archive. A name index is included at the end of the volume to assist the scholar in locating information.

Lichnye arkhivnye fondy v gosudarstvennykh khranilishchakh SSSR. Moscow: 1962-63, 1980. V.1-3
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 025.171 R969L

This is one of the older general guides to personal archives, but still a good starting point when you are trying to identify all possible archival holdings. It must be used in conjunction with Grimsted's later books to obtain current information on the archives name and any significant changes that might have taken place in the archives holdings. The entries in the catalog are brief with basic biographical data supplied and archival citations as can be seen in the citation on the left.

Lur'e, V. M. Admiraly i generaly voenno-morskogo flota SSSR v period velikoi otechestvennoi i sovetsko-iaponskoi voin (1941-1945). Spb.:"BLITS". 2001.
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference Q.947.545947 L966a.

This biographical guide is an excellent source for archival holdings on military figures of the second world war and the Soviet-Japanese war. The alphabetically arranged guide lists some 378 individuals who reached the rank of general between 1940 and 1945. The names listed here were drawn from the ranks of military figures, military judges, counterespionage operatives, doctors and others appointed during the war.

The entries are lengthy. The one shown at the left is one of the shorter biographies in the source. An outline of the person's career and accomplishments figures prominently in the guide. There is also information on the activities of the individual after the war. Each entry inlcudes a reference to obituaries, published sources and archival materials. The archival sources are very detailed. This is typical of the bio-biliographical sources produced in recent years that can serve as an interarchival guide on a specific topic.

The guide includes a number of special features. A number of supplementary sections are of interest. The first is a chronological listing of the awarding of military titles to those individuals listed in the volume. The next lists the "Heroes of the Soviet Union" and "Heroes of the Socialist Struggle". The third provides information on academic titles of various military figures. Professors in the sciences and technology are included in a fourth supplement. Cavalry and naval officers are organized by division in the fifth supplement, while winners of the Lennin and Stalin prizes are listed in the final supplement.

The guide was compiled with the resources of the Tsentral'nyi Voenno-Morskoi Arkhiv. It is an excellent example of how a biographical source can be used to identify archival materials. This type of source is becoming more prevalent. The researcher seeking archival sources may find this type of resource will assist in the location of maerials, when current or comprehensive archival guides are lacking

Putevoditel' po fondam i kollektsiam lichnogo proiskhozhdeniia. Moscow: Rossiiskii tsentr khraneniia i izucheniia dokumentov noveishei istorii. 1996.
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 027.147 P982

This is an example of one of the more recent guides to personal archives. This guide only includes documents from one archive The entries include very detailed information on the contents of the archives.

Rossiiskaia Akademiia Nauk, Institut mirovoi literatury im . A. M. Gorkogo. Putevoditel' po fondam Otdela rukopisei Instituta mirovoi literatury RAN. Vyp.I Lichnye fondy. Moscow: IMLI RAN "Nasledie". 2000.
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 091.094731 In7P, v.1

This guide contains descriptions for the personal archives of 527 literary figures. Obviously, the individuals included here are of siginificance primarily for those in literature. The volume includes some quite detailed descriptions of the fondy and a lengthy index of names. The name index makes the guide very useful when tracking obscure materials, assisting in the location of materials that are not the central part of a collection but are contained in the fondy of another individual.

Russkie pisateli 1800-1917: Biograficheskii slovar. Moscow, 1989-.
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 891.70922 R921 v.1-4

This is an excellent resource for anyone working on the nineteenth century. As can be seen from the entry below, there is extensive biographical and bibliographical information in the entries along with the archival data. Each entry ends with archival information as can be seen in the example below. The encyclopedia is limited to literary figures and those in the publishing arena. There are no separate entries for journals, for example, although they are often listed under the editors names.


*Russkie Pisateli 1800-1917: biograficheskii slovar. V. 1., p. 291*

Shilov, D. N. Gosudarstvennye deiateli Rossiiskoi Imperii. 1802-1917 Biobibliograficheskii spravochnik. S.-Peterburg: "Dmitrii Bulanin", 2002
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 947.0099 Sh62g 2002

This is an excellent example of the type of source that is easily overlooked when one is looking for archival material. There is no indication in the title that archival resources are to be found in this source and yet nearly every entry will include citations to archival resources, not listed separately, but included in the list of literature. This is the second edition of this resource and it points out the need to be aware of the variety of resources that can be of use to the researcher when seeking archival holdings.

Tsentral'nye arkhivy Moskvy. Putevoditel' po fondam lichnogo proiskhozhdeniia. Moscow: "Mosgorarkhiv", 1998.
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 027.14731 T7878

This guide complements the multi-volume set Tsentral'nye arkhivy Moskvy putevoditel' po fondam. It includes the personal archival materials from the Tsentralnyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv Moskvy, Tsentral'nyi Arkhiv Dokumental'nykh Kollektsii Moskvy and the Tsentral'nyi Arkhiv Obshchestvennykh Dvizhenii Moskvy. The guide is organized by archive. Within the sections on the archives the entries are organized alphabetically. Each entry includes a summary of archival holdings, brief biographical data and a description of the archival holdings. The guide also includes a list of the documents in each of the archives by fond number (see above). A geographic and personal name index are also included.

Vospominaniia i dnevniki XVIII-XX vv. Ukazatel' rukopisei. Moscow: Izd. "Kniga". 1976.
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 016.920047 M85v

This one volume work compliments Zaionchkovskii's multi-volume collection of published sources of memoir and diary literature. This guide lists the holdings of memoir and diary resources in the archive of the Russian State Library. The entires are arranged alphabetically by the name of the subject of the memoir or diary. Entries often include multiple entries for an individual.

Each entry begins with a brief biographical note on the individual under discussion. This is followed by a fairly detailed description of the source. Along with all information identifying the document in the collection (i.e., the fond number and delo) the description of the source briefly describes the kind of material in the memoir or diary, the period it spans, significant events that are described, illustrations included in the archive, and the number of pages in the source.

The guide is extremely easy to use as it includes a subject index, index of periodical publications, geographic index and indes of memoirs by period (e.g., prerevolutionary, period, Soviet period) and an index organized by profession. Click on the image at the left to see an example taken from p.165 of the guide.

Kachalina, G. I. Lichnye arkhivnye fondy. Spravochnik. Spb.: Gosudarstvennyi Ermitazh, 1992.
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 708.4753 L617

This guide continues the description of the personal archives of the Hermitage begun in 1988. In that intial publication, the descriptions of personal archives at the Hermitage were limited to those materials concerned with the history of the Hermitage. This guide, although very brief focuses on those artists, historians, archeologists and art historians whose activities were connected with the development of the museum.

The entries provide information on the careers of the scholars as well as describing in brief the archives holdings. (Click on the image at the left to see a sample entry.) The sample entry here appears on p.7 of the guide it includes information on holdings in other archives on these individuals, thus serving as a multi-archive directory for the limited number of individuals listed here. It is included here as an example of the type of publication museums are issuing that can be of great importance for researchers.

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Encyclopedias and other reference works with archival sources

The list below is meant to give some selective examples of this type of source and is in no way comprehensive. A wide variety of new resources have been published recently, many organized by subject. A number of these are "interarchival" resources as they will lead the scholar to materials in a number of repositories. The Muzykal'nyi Peterburg. Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' XVIII veka is a good example of such a source.

Istoriia Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi v dokumentakh regional'nykh arkhivov Rossii. Moscow: Izd. Novospasskogo Monastyria. 1993.
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 281.947 IS 73

Organized by archive, this guide is one of several that have appeared recently on religious topics. It is somewhat difficult to use as it lacks a general index. It does include a list of the "bishoprics" (eparkhii) of the Russian Orthodox Church as of 1912. Under each entry are a list of the fondy in the archive on the eparkhii with a description of the contents as can be seen in the example below.

Muzykal'nyi Peterburg. Entsiklopedicheskii Slovar'. XVIII veka. Sankt-Peterburg: Izd. "Kompozitor". 1996
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 780.94721 M988, v.1-

This encyclopedia is one of the scholarly encyclopedias focusing on particular subjects. The entries in these volumes are all signed with bibliographies and archival listings. The encyclopedia includes entries on vocal music, educational institutions, ballet, or in general, any topic or individual of interest to those researching music in St. Petersburg in the eighteenth century.

Politicheskie partii Rossii konets XIX - pervaia tret' XX veka. Entsiklopediia. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1996.
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 324.24703 P759

This is an extremely valuable reference source for its historical information on this important period in Russian history. There are entries for individuals, political organizations, political parties, and their publications. Each entry is signed, includes a bibliography and archival reference. The entry shown at the left is one of the briefer entries.

The encyclopedia is organized along traditional lines with an general alphabetical arrangement for entries. The volume includes a summary chart with basic information on all political parties and organizations of the period. There are also charts listing the leading figures in some of the more significant organizations of the time. A final section of supplementary material lists the periodical publications of the of the political parties of Russia in 1917.

The volume is also illustrated with numerous photographs of some of the more important figures of the time.

Komarova, I. I. Putevoditel' po nauchnym obshchestvam Rossii. New York: Norman Ross Publishing. 2000.
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference Q.067 P982

This is a truly remarkably resource. This volume is the life's work of one Russian scholar who has created an invaluable guide to the scholarly societies of pre-Revolutionary Russia. Each entry includes basic information on the publications of the society, its stated goal, its major activities, the leaders of the society, a bibliography of literature and references to all archival resources. The guide is arranged alphabetically by the names of the societies. The compiler has included a number of indexes: chronological, typological, geographic, name and periodical publications. There is also a substantial bibliography at the end of the volume. For anyone researching the pre-Revolutionary period this source contains a wealth of information on the intellectual and social activities of the time.

Razdorskii, A. I. Spravochnye izdaniia eparkhii Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi 1861-1915. Svodnyi katalog i ukazatel' soderzhaniia. S-Peterburg: "Dmitrii Bulanin", 2002.
UIUC Call Number: Russian Reference 016.281947 R219s

This is a guide to the reference publications of the bishoprics of the Russian Orthodox Church. It is enormously useful as an index to the contents of these publications. It also guides the scholar to archival repositories with materials on the regional bishoprics. The guide is arranged by eparkhiia. It includes numerous indexes to aid the researcher: name index, title index, article title index, index of illustrations, portraits and maps, geographical index, index of monasteries, index of publishers, index of typographers, list of archives and libraries cited and consulted. There is also a list of statistical sources on the eparkhiia. The index of archives cited is interesting for locating archival resources on a topic for the citations are quite detailed as can be seen in the example below.

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