Slavic Languages and Literatures
Arts & Humanities Librarian
Archival Resources in North America
Hover over the (i) to find information on archival resources in the U.S. and Canada.
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Amherst Center for Russian Culture This center was officially opened in September 1992 in conjunction with an international symposium on Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva, organized by Amherst College Professor of Russian Jane Taubman and Senior Lecturer Viktoria Schweitzer. The Center houses collections which are largely concerned with Russian émigré literature. Among the manuscripts are unpublished works and correspondence of such writers as Zinaida Gippius, Dmitrii Merezhkovskii, Vasily Kandinsky, Boris Pilnyak, Ivan Bunin, Vladimir Nabokov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and Marina Tsvetaeva. The Amherst Center for Russian Culture is also a home of a unique collection of Alexei Remizov’s bound literary and art albums.
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Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European Culture The main goal of the Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European History and Culture is to preserve and document the Russian and East European émigré heritage, as well as to serve the general curricular needs of the students and faculty of Columbia University. The Archive also plays a significant role as a rich source of information for scholars from the United States and abroad studying subjects related to the Russian diaspora and Eastern European émigré communities.
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Center for Research Libraries: Slavic and East European Materials Project (SEEMP) The Slavic and East European Materials Project (SEEMP) acquires, preserves, and maintains microform and digital collections of unique, rare, and bulky or voluminous research materials pertaining to the field of Slavic and East European studies for its members. SEEMP emphasizes original preservation, either through microfilming or digitization, of newspapers, journals, books, archives, pamphlets, and other relevant materials from the region. The Slavic and East European Materials Project (SEEMP) acquires and maintains digital and microform collections of unique, rare, and unusually bulky or expensive research material pertaining to the field of Slavic and East European studies; and preserves deteriorating printed and manuscript materials of scholarly value. Geographic areas of interest include the countries of Eastern and Central Europe (Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine), Russia, the Transcaucasian countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia), and the Central Asian countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan).
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Duke University: Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies Archival Collections Selected archival collections held at Duke, ranging from Romanov family papers to Soviet-era posters.
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Getty Research Institute: Russian Modernism The Getty Research Institute is dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts. Their Russian Modernism collections document pivotal moments in the history of Russian and Soviet art. They contain full runs of the Symbolist journals Mir iskusstva (World of art) and Zolotoe runo (Golden fleece), a strong representation of Futurist books by the poets and artists Khlebnikov, Kruchenykh, Goncharova, and Larionov, and nearly all of the printed work of the great Suprematist, Malevich.
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Harvard University Slavic Collection Contains over 850,000 volumes from Russia, Eastern and Central Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus in all Slavic, Baltic, and Western languages, and from various émigré communities from these areas scattered throughout the world.
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Hoover Institution at Stanford University: Russia and Eurasia Contains over 850,000 volumes from Russia, Eastern and Central Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus in all Slavic, Baltic, and Western languages, and from various émigré communities from these areas scattered throughout the world.
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Library of Congress European Reading Room This collection, in Washington, D.C., currently holds more than 700,000 physical volumes (books, sets, continuations, and bound periodicals) in Russian and approximately the same number of volumes in other languages of the former USSR and volumes in Western languages about Russia and the former Soviet Union.
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Museum of Russian Culture, San Francisco The Museum of Russian Culture was established by those who left Russia as a result of the Civil War of 1917–1922. From its inception, it has been a repository for émigré archives and cultural and historical artifacts. The Museum contains about fifteen thousand books, mostly written in Russian, published in Russia and abroad, in addition to a collection of pre-revolutionary serials and émigré newspapers and journals, with many titles available on microfilm; it also holds archives containing photographs, memoirs, correspondence, diaries, and personal papers of prominent and less known émigrés, particularly residents of the Far East and North America.
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New York Public Library: Slavic and East European Collections The New York Public Library’s holdings of Slavic and East European materials extend from early 14th century illuminated manuscripts to the latest imprints. Materials in the vernacular Slavic and East European languages number well in excess of 500,000 bound volumes, and 24,000 microform titles. Upwards of 300,000 volumes of works about these lands and peoples in other world languages and formats are held by NYPL. Relevant materials in Hebrew and Yiddish, as well as the Turkic and other languages of the former Soviet Union, and in other formats (e.g., maps, prints, manuscripts), are also held by the Library.
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Russia Beyond Russia: The André Savine Digital Library at UNC-Chapel Hill The André Savine Collection is composed of several large sub-collections documenting the lives of Russian exiles.
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UC-Berkeley Slavic & East European Collection The UC Berkeley Library contains one of the largest Slavic collections among US academic libraries. Materials are collected from all the countries of the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in all vernacular languages. Substantial material in English and other European languages is also collected to support Slavic Studies.
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UCLA Slavic and East European Studies: Related Collections Presently numbering well over 325,000 titles, the collections consist of materials from and relating to Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union, as well as Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics, the former Yugoslavia, the Baltic countries, Bulgaria, Albania, Hungary, Romania, and the Sorbs in Germany. Especially noteworthy are the Armenian collection (the largest in the country) and holdings in Hungarian language, literature, and folklore.
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Selected Slavic Archives Listing some of UIUC's extensive Russian, East European, and Eurasian archival collections. While not comprehensive, the link does give a good overview of what their collections contain.
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University of Toronto: Petro Jaczyk Central & East European Resource Centre The PJRC supports the activities of the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and the five research chairs connected with Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Polish history, and Ukrainian studies. Holdings include: a reference collection of over 4,600 encyclopaedias, historical atlases and chronologies, dictionaries, archival guides, bibliographies, biographical dictionaries, handbooks and directories; a selection of Russian- and Ukrainian-language video recordings; and bimonthly displays of selected new Slavic acquisitions.
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Wende Museum Cold War Collections The Wende Museum collection contains artifacts, personal histories and archival documents that record life, expression and political developments in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the Cold War period from 1945 to 1991. It comprises a variety of media including design objects, works on paper, ceramics, paintings, sculptures, posters, furniture, textiles, films and books. The Museum also holds a collection of more than 8,000 books and periodicals published in both East Germany and the Soviet Union on a diverse range of subjects.
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Yale University: Slavic, East European, and Central Asian Collection With currently over 100,000 volumes concerning Central and Southeast Europe, as well as some 500,000 volumes relating to Russia and the states of the former Soviet Union, Yale has one of the five largest collections in the United States. The Manuscript and Archives division of Sterling Memorial Library holds important archival collections related to Russia and Eastern Europe, primarily concerned with diplomatic and political history of the 19th and 20th centuries. In addition, the Beinecke Library holds an impressive collection with a particular emphasis on emigration. Among its holdings are the papers of Czeslaw Milosz, Nina Berberova, Konstantin Balmont and others.
Archival Resources in Russia
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ArcheoBiblioBase A powerful Internet directory and bibliographic information system for archives in the Russian Federation. Gives extremely detailed information on archival holdings not only in major metropolitan centers, but also in nearly all regions, and many Eastern European countries.
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National Library of Russia Located in St. Petersburg, the Российская Национальная Библиотека (РНБ) houses over 35 million items and allows online access to materials in Russian and Slavic languages, as well as several European languages.
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Portal Arkhivy Rossii Official website of the Russian Federal Archival Agency (Rosarkhiv).
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Putevoditeli po arkhivam Rossii Allows you to search the full text of the Russian Archive's large collection of archival finding aids.
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Russian Archives Online RAO provides rare Russian archival footage and still images to television companies and networks, museums, publishing houses, and higher-education institutions and researchers. Explore searchable databases and page collections for two of the major RAO archives: The Russian State Documentary Film & Photo Archive at Krasnogorsk (RGHAKFD) and The Russian State Archive of Scientific & Technical Documents, based in Moscow (RGANTD).
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Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts Moscow's Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Literatury i Iskusstva (RGALI) contains a rich collection of materials on the history of literature, music, theatre, cinema, fine arts and architecture.
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Russian State Library Within the walls of Moscow's Russian State Library (Российская Государственная Библиотека; РГБ) is a unique collection of domestic and foreign documents in 367 world languages of the world, comprising over 45 million items. Especially of note are the library's holdings of maps, notes, audio recordings, rare books, dissertations, and newspapers.
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State Literary Museum Moscow's Государственный Литературный Музей is the largest literary museum in Russia and one of the largest in the world. It has become one of the richest repositories of manuscripts of literary works, memorabilia and art objects collected both in Russia and abroad.
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Vserossiiskaia gosudarstvennaia biblioteka inostrannoi literatury imeni M. I. Rudomino State Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow, primarily consisting of numerous publications in English, German and French. In addition, tens of thousands of books are available in Polish, Spanish, Italian, Bulgarian, Swedish, Japanese and several other languages. The library has a carefully selected collection of books on Scandinavian, South and West Slavic languages, Hungarian, Romanian, Greek, Portuguese, and Esperanto, as well as items in many languages of the peoples of Asia and Africa. Of note in the over 2.5 million items in the library are its periodicals, which are comprised of over 1,500 titles, including 1,100 names of foreign newspapers, journals and magazines.
Museums of Major Authors
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Dom-Muzei Borisa Pasternaka v Peredelkine Home and museum devoted to Boris Pasternak, located in Peredelkino just outside of Moscow.
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Muzei Anny Akhmatovoi v Fontannom Dome Museum devoted to Anna Akhmatova in St. Petersburg, at her house on the Fontanka River.
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Muzei Nabokova Museum devoted to Vladimir Nabokov in St. Petersburg, in his house on Morskaia ulitsa.
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Pushkinskii Dom Somewhat a misnomer, as it houses not only an extensive archive of Aleksandr Pushkin but also of other major 19th- and 20th-century authors. Managed by the Russian Academy of Sciences and located in St. Petersburg.
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Yasnaya Polyana Museum devoted to Leo Tolstoy, on his estate near Tula.