LIBRARIES A N D ARCHIVES

4 . R U S S I A

GEOFFREY A. HOSKING University of Essex

IN THE LAST TEN YEARS it has become possible for students of Russian history before 1917 (except often in the spheres of military and foreign policy) to expect to be able to draw a substantial body of material from archive sources in the U.S.S.R., as well as from its very rich libraries. This fortunate situation we owe quite largely to the various cultural exchange agreements concluded between Western states and the U.S.S.R., which enable post-graduate students and university teachers to live and work in the U.S.S.R. with properly accredited status as members of Soviet institutes of learning. This question of status is important to Soviet archivists and librarians, and scholars travelling to the U.S.S.R. on a ‘mere’ tourist visa are warned that many of the remarks below do not necessarily apply to them, especially with regard to archives. The tourist scholar’s plight is by no means hopeless, but he must apply well in advance (six months is not too early) through the cultural section of his Embassy in Moscow for permission to visit each of the archives and libraries he hopes to use-and he must be prepared for delays, frustration and disappointment on arrival in the U.S.S.R. Prior planning and application is no less important for the exchange scholar, but his chances of gaining access to the sources he requires are much greater.

Historical materials are scatteredinmany archives throughout the U.S.S.R.. A useful introduction to their organization and contents is Patricia K. Grimsted, ‘Soviet Archives and Manuscript Collections : a bibliographical introduction’, Slavic Review, Vol. 24 (1965), pp. 105-20. The standard Soviet referencework onthe state archives is Gosudarstvennye Arkhivy SSSR: Iaratkii spravochnik (Moscow 1950, edited by G. A. Belov, head of the Chief Archive Administration of the Council of Ministers. It covers central, republican and local archives, characterizes briefly the contents of each and lists more de- tailed guides and catalogues. An invaluable work listing the materials available on individual personalities and families in state archives is Lichnye Arkhivnye Fondy v Gosudarstvennykh Khrmilishchakh SSSR. Ukazatel’ (2 Vols, Moscow, 1962-3).

The most important single historical collection is the Tsentral‘nyi Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arlohiv, which has sections in both Moscow and Leningrad. These two depositories have undergone repeated changes of name and organization in recent years, which it would be idle to rehearse here. Suffice it to say that the most recent printed guides are (for Moscow) Tsentral’nyi Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv v Moskve: Putevoditel’, edited by I. Nikitinskii and others (Moscow 1946), and (for Leningrad)

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212 LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES

Tsentral’nyi Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv v Leningrade, edited by S . N. Valk and V. V. Bedin (Leningrad 1956). Though quite seriously out of date, these two guides are still essential. For the historian of the period before 1861, and especially before Peter the Great, the Tsentral’nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Drevnikh Aktov (housed in Moscow along with the Historical Archive) is of great importance. The most recent printed guide appears to be that edited by S. K. Bogoyavlenskii and A. I. Yakovlev (2 Vols, Moscow 1946-7). Further central archives (described in Miss Grimsted‘s article) are concerned with the national economy, literature and the arts, the army, the navy and foreign affairs. Besides this, collections are scattered in the archives of the Academy of Sciences, in public libraries, in museums and in local depositories. A useful introductory guide to the regional archives (whose importance to scholars will certainly increase) is Patricia K. Grimsted, ‘Regional State Archives in the U.S.S.R. :some notes and a bibliography of publishedguides’, Slavic Review, Vol. 28 (1969), pp. 92-115. Evidence is that access for non- Soviet scholars to regional archives is becoming easier.

The scholar, once admitted to Soviet archives, will find conditions rather different from those to which he may be accustomed in his homeland. I am quoting from my own experience and that of colleagues, but believe it to be typical. Foreigners, at any rate from the West, usually work in a separate room. Here they are given the personal service of an archivist. They are not, however, allowed to examine the inventories (opisi) of the individual funds Cfondy) from which they wish to draw material. Instead they submit a de- tailed study plan to the archivist, on whose expertise and conscientiousness in selecting items the enterprise then depends. This can vary greatly: for my part, I have always been excellently served in the Central State Historical Archive in Leningrad, but more unevenly in Moscow. In these circumstances the prospective researcher obviously does well to arm himself with all possible information from the printed guides (though they are of necessity general), and above all with precise archival references from Soviet books, articles and dissertations on his theme. The inventories of some funds have been published, at least in part, in journals such as Sovetskie Arkhivy (journal of the Chief Archive Administration, published before 1966 as Voprosy Arkhivovedeniyu), and Arkhivnoe Delo. Examinations of files of these can prove unexpectedly rewarding. Publication of such detailed archival information up to 1959 is recorded in Katalog Arkhivovedcheskoi Literatury, 191 7-1959 gg., edited by A. I. Loginova and I. N. Firsov (Moscow 1961).

On libraries there is less to say. Any foreign scholar in Moscow will certainly want to use the Lenin Library, which contains the Soviet Union’s largest collection of printed books, periodicals and newspapers. It also has a manuscript department and a large collection of dissertations (every doctoral dissertation has by law to be deposited there). For initial admission to the Library, one normally needs one’s passport and a letter of recommendation from one’s Soviet institute of study; to see manuscripts or dissertations a further such letter is required. Scholars on some form of cultural exchange are normally allowed to use the highly-privileged Reading Room No. 1: here

GEOFFREY A. HOSKING 213 apart from spacious accommodation (free seats are nearly always available at any time of day), one has the help of staff prepared to dispense with references from the public catalogue (which does not reflect the Library’s full collection). The users of this Reading Room will note with relief and perhaps a twinge of guilt that they do not have to queue up on arrival to relieve themselves of their overcoats: this can be a very important considera- tion in the winter, when one is pressed for time and half Moscow seems to be crowding in to read. The Library is usually open from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., but is closed on Sundays in summer.

Those who find the Lenin Library too crowded or its book-ordering service too slow (four to six hours is normal), may prefer to use the Academy of Sciences’ Fundamental‘naya Biblioteka Obshchestvennykh Nauk, especially strong on modern history, or the Gosudarstvennaya Publichnaya Istoricheskaya Biblioteka RSFSR, which is particularly convenient for the large collection of reference works available on the open shelves.

The main public library in Leningrad (the Saltykov-Shchedrin Library) is for historians in nearly every respect up to the standards of the Lenin Library: it is, however, equally crowded, and no privileged accommodation is available for foreign exchange scholars. The main library of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences (known, by its initials, as BAN) is also in Leningrad.

For all these libraries, a passport and a letter of recommendation is re- quired for initial admission, and it is as well to carry a stock of postage- stamp size photos of oneself to put on one’s reader’s ticket. For information about other libraries in the Soviet Union, see P. L. Horecky, Libraries and Bibliographic Centers in the Soviet Union, Indiana 1959.

For the scholar unable to travel to the U.S.S.R., British libraries have substantial resources in Russian history. The most important collection is certainly that in the British Museum, though complete sets of periodicals before and immediately after 1917 are more likely to be found in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, which has also recently set up a special Slavonic studies Reading Room, with historical and other reference works conveniently available. But most British library collections are inevitably patchy, and individual works may turn up almost anywhere. Those in search of elusive items should use the Slavonic Union catalogue of the National Central Library, Store St, London W.C.l.

It is worth noting, too, that the University Library of Helsinki was an Imperial deposit library for most of the nineteenth century and up to 1917, and therefore has a very rich collection of books, periodicals and newspapers from this period. Many scholars have reported successful research trips there when unable to travel to the U.S.S.R.

A final note for those doing research in the U.S.S.R. It is as well, when travelling home, to arm yourself with an officially stamped letter from your institute of study certifying that you are a bonafide scholar and will be carry- ing written notes. Soviet customs officials are suspicious of manuscripts and have been known to confiscate them. This, needless to say, can ruin an otherwse successful research trip.