2017 Annual Meeting Readers’ Guide on the History of Russian/Soviet Archives

Pre-Revolutionary Era

Gelfand, Aleksandr. “As Vast as the Sea”: An Overview of Archives and the Archival Profession in Russia from the Time of Ivan the Terrible to World War I.” American Archivist 79, no. 2 (Fall–Winter 2016): 230-253. Available with subscription or SAA membership:  https://doi.org/10.17723/0360-9081-79.2.230

Soviet Era

Epstein, Fritz T. "Archives Administration in the Soviet Union." American Archivist 20, no. 2 (Apr 1957): 131-45.  Freely available at: http://americanarchivist.org/doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.20.2.m32336mr26014327

Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy. "Glasnost' in the Archives? Recent Developments on the Soviet Archival Scene."  American Archivist 52, no. 2 (Spring 1989): 214-36. Freely available at: http://americanarchivist.org/doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.52.2.111m35717l724762  

--- “Lenin’s Archival Decree of 1918: The Bolshevik Legacy for Soviet Archival Theory and Practice.” American Archivist 45, no. 4 (Fall 1982): 429-443. Freely available at:  http://americanarchivist.org/doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.45.4.tjn581l686q4u0r1

---- "Regional Archival Development in the USSR: Soviet Standards and National Documentary Legacies."  American Archivist 36, no. 1 (Jan 1973): 43-66. Freely available at: http://americanarchivist.org/doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.36.1.73x7728271272n88

Post-Soviet Era

Bolotenko, George. “Frost on the Walls in Winter: Russian and Ukrainian Archives since the Great Dislocation (1991-1999).” American Archivist 66, no. 2 (Fall–Winter 2003): 271-302. Freely available at: http://americanarchivist.org/doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.66.2.k18214576457n221

Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy. “Beyond Perestroika: Soviet-Area Archives after the August Coup.”  American Archivist 55, no. 1 (Winter 1992): 94–124. Freely available at: http://americanarchivist.org/doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.55.1.p620773723871m06

General

Engelstein, Laura. “Archives Talk Back: The Unofficial Collections in Imperial, Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia.” Jahrbücher fuer Geschichte Osteuropas 51, no 1 (2003): 70-76.  Available at cost through JSTOR.

Plamper, Jan. "Archival Revolution or Illusion? Historicizing The Russian Archives and Our Work in Them." Jahrbücher Für Geschichte Osteuropas, 51, no. 1 (2003): 57-69. Available at cost through JSTOR.