Increasing Reference Access to Post-1991 Russian Archives

In: Slavic review: interdisciplinary quarterly of Russian, Eurasian and East European studies, Band 56, Heft 4, S. 718-759

Abstract

If only archival restrictions were the most glaring insufficiency of our archival service. Here we have a whole complex of problems, for which it is insufficient to decide from on high merely to declassify archives. We still need to fell the whole world exactly what is held in them, to publish inventories and catalogues of previously secret documents.Academician Dimitrii S. Likhachev September 1989Crucially important for expanding access to archives is what western archivists often call "intellectual access"–reference facilities that effectively and efficiently assist researchers in preparing for work in the archives, lead them to appropriate documents, and help them understand their archival context. The dramatic opening of Russian archives in the past decade has revolutionized research opportunities and scholarship in many fields. Today, not only are archives being declassified, but the finding aids for previously classified files are available to researchers and new reference facilities are being developed to an extent Likhachev and others never dreamed possible.