- ИСТОРИЧЕСКИЕ ИСТОЧНИКИ - (Historical Sources) VK Group
general
intelligence
Cold War
NATO
foreign relations
culture
cinema
World War Ⅱ
A VK (V Kontakte) group that shares both primary historical sources and secondary literature, as well as news and other posts related to historical studies.
Link to the Resource
VK group
Social media
Russian
USSR
Russia
global
USA
China
Europe
Asia
"Iveriel" Digital Library of the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia
nationalities
history
agriculture
alcoholism
architecture
art
printing
science
literature & arts
A huge digital library of the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia, containing extensive materials in different languages of various types.
National Parliamentary Library of Georgia
Digital library
Georgian
Georgia
Turkey
Abkhazia
Armenia
Caucasus
"People of a Thousand Towns": The Online Catalogue of Photographs of Jewish Life in Prewar Eastern Europe
Jewish
everyday life
"The photographs in People of a Thousand Towns constitute a visual record of thousands of pre-World War II Jewish communities in Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. They span the late 19th century to the early 1940s and document the lives of large Jewish centers as well as many smaller towns and villages."
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Digital archive
English
Eastern Europe
"Закаленные Великой Отечественной..." 65-летие Победы в Великой Отечественной войне 1941-1945 гг. ("Forged by the Great Patriotic War..." The 65th Anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 Project)
Great Patriotic War
military
weapon
The 65th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War documentary exhibit, containing photographs and official documents about the war.
Federal Archival Agency of Russia
Digital project
"Мы помним Ваши имена" ("We remember Your names")
personal narrative
Digital project dedicated to the participation of people from Khakassia in the Great Patriotic War. The project presents a considerable number of archival documents, photographs, and veterans' memoirs.
National Archive of the Republic of Khakassia
Khakassia
"От коммуны к республике" (From Communes to Republic)
Karelian Labor Commune
Russian Civil War
economy
education
society
migration
Digital project presenting archival documents on the Karelian Labor Commune. The project also has a database of Karelian refugees who fled to Finland from Karelia as a result of the Russian Russian Civil War.
National Archive of the Republic of Karelia
Finnish
Republic of Karelia
Finland
"Охматмлад" и "Дети республики." Идеология и практика социальной политики в Енисейской губернии в 1920-е гг. ("Okhmatmlad" and "Deti Respubliki." Ideology and Practice of Social Policies in Yeniseysk Guberniia in the 1920s. )
children
motherhood
family
parenthood
social policies
childcare
ideology
Document collection on early Soviet social policies on children, motherhood, and family from 1920 to 1930.
Siberian Federal University
Digital document collection
Krasnoyarsk Krai
"Час мужества пробил на наших часах..." Великая Отечественная война 1941-1945 гг. в произведениях изобразительного искусства ("The Hour of Courage has Struck on our Clocks..." The Great Patriotic War 1941-1945 in Works of Art)
propaganda
Online exhibition of artwork dedicated to the Great Patriotic War.
Vologda Oblast Universal Scientific Library
Online exhibition
"Я родился в 1912 году..." К 100-летию со дня рождения Б. Е. Чертока ("I was born in 1912..." The 100th Anniversary of the Birth of B. Ie. Chertok Exhibit)
Boris Chertok
engineering
technology
intellectual
An exhibit devoted to Soviet rocket scientist Boris Chertok and his work on the development of the Soviet space program. It contains mostly documents from the Russian State Archive of Scientific-Technical Documentation.
„Lietuvos partizanų dokumentų elektroninis archyvasׅ“ (E-partizanų archyvas) (Digital Archive of Lithuanian Partisans Document (E-Partisans Archive))
partisan
insurgency
resistance
This digital archive provides access to digitized documents on Lithuanian partisans during 1944-1953, who participated in armed resistance against the Soviet regime.
Office of the Chief Archivist of Lithuania
Lithuanian
Lithuania
Baltics
„Lietuvos ypatingojo archyvo saugomų skaitmeninių vaizdų archyvas“ (E-vaizdų archyvas) ("Archive of Digital Images Protected by the Lithuanian Special Archive" (E-Image Archive))
secret police
KGB
security service
Holocaust
nationalism
NKVD
Party organization
political institution
public health
religion
political repression
sport
This digital archive provides access to digitized photographs, postcards, drawings, and posters stored in the fonds of the State Security Committee of the Lithuanian SSR (KGB), the Lithuanian Communist Party (LKP), the Ministry of the Interior of the Lithuanian SSR (MVD), as well as descriptions of video, film and audio documents confiscated or secretly made by the KGB.
«ImWerden», электронная библиотека Андрея Никитина-Перенского (ImWerden: Digital Library of Andrei Nikitin-Perensky)
literature
Gulag
linguistics
philology
music
geography
law
ethnography
legal source
Digital library that provides free access to a great number of digital copies of Russian books and periodicals. You can also find audio recordings of authors reading their own works on this website.
ImWerden: Digital Library of Andrei Nikitin-Perensky
«Вторая литература» : Электронный архив зарубежья имени Андрея Синявского (Vtoraia literatura: Andrei Sinyavsky Digital Archive of the Emigrants)
diaspora
Cossack
Great Terror
emigration
A branch of the ImWerden digital library focusing on publications of Russian emigrants. Here you can find books and periodicals published by Russian emigrants throughout the 20th century, as well as publications aimed at the Russian diaspora communities around the world. Besides, the website provides free access to foreign-language journals, such as "Central Asian Review".
Vtoraia literatura: Andrei Sinyavsky Digital Archive of the Emigrants
Netherlands
Germany
France
Poland
Israel
«Еврейские герои» (Jewish heroes) Telegram Channel
anti-Semitism
dissident
"Jewish Heroes" is a project that shares information about Jewish people who struggled against the Soviet regime. The project's Telegram channel shares original archival materials about these Jewish people.
Telegram channel
«Зимнее волшебство». Нацистская карательная операция в белорусско-латвийском пограничье, февраль – март 1943 г.: документы и материалы ("Winter Magic": Nazi Punitive Operation on the Belarus-Latvian Border, February - March 1943: Documents and Materials)
village
A published collection of archival documents about Nazi German punitive operations on the Belarus-Latvian border zones in 1943.
Department of Archives and Clerical Work of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus
National Archive of the Republic of Belarus
World Belarus Fond
Russian Fond of Aid to Current Historical Research "Historical Memory"
1943
Belarus
Latvia
«Письма о Ташкенте» — художественный исторический альманах ("Letters about Tashkent" - artistic historical almanac)
memory
urban history
Tashkent
A website that collects personal accounts, old photographs, and other types of materials on the city of Tashkent. A lot of posts on the website are dedicated to the city's history.
Evgenii Skljarevski
Digital collection
Uzbekistan
Central Asia
#исторический-источник (VK wall) (#historical-source (VK wall))
World War I
Russian Revolution
industrialization
collectivization
Perestroika
New Economic Policy
A VK page devoted to various historical sources. It contains a motley group of sources on various topics in Russian history (each post is on a separate theme) and is mostly made up of the posts of "student-istorik," an account for humor and educational resources created by students of the Moscow State University historical faculty.
@student-istorik
internationalism
peasantry
foreign policy
Arctic
purge
Soviet-Afghan War
Sino-Soviet relations
Trotsky
Stalin
Chernobyl
Gorbachev
U.S.-Soviet relations
Digital archive of Foreign Affairs editions from 1922 till today, including many articles related to the Soviet Union.
Foreign Affairs
Ukraine
political leader
personal cult
Oral history project on the death of Stalin. The project has collected more than 100 witness accounts on what happened on the day of Stalin's death.
1953
100 лет Государственной архивной службе Воронежской области (100th Anniversary of the Archival Service of the Voronezh Oblast)
Voronezh Oblast
archive
Document collection including photographs and a few archival documents about the work of the Archival Service of the Voronezh Oblast. It is displayed on this organization's website.
Archival Service of Voronezh Oblast
100 раритетов российской государственности (100 Rarities of Russian Statehood)
statehood
legislation
An exhibit with 100 rare and famous documents on Russian statehood, which includes three categories on the Soviet period.
100-летие начала гражданской войны (100th Anniversary of the Start of the Russian Civil War)
Online exhibition dedicated to the Russian Civil War in Siberia.
State Archival Administration of Novosibirsk Oblast
100(0) ключевых документов по Российской и Советской истории (1917-1991) (100(0) Key Documents on Russian and Soviet History (1917-1991) )
A digital project with 1000 key documents in Russian and Soviet history.
Dr. Helmut Altrichter (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität)
1914-1918. Памяти героев Великой войны (1914-1918. In Memory of the Heroes of the Great War)
World War Ⅰ
Online database and collection of photographs, documents, and maps on Russia's participation in the First World War.
Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
1917 Russian Revolutions in Newspaper Reports
Newspaper reports from different countries in different languages on the Russian Revolution in 1917.
Osmikon
1917
French
German
Czech
other
1917: Digital Resources on the Russian Revolution
Annotated bibliography of a number of digitized sources on the Russian Revolution. It links to a number of sites with documents, charts, posters, and photographs (among other resources) about the revolution.
ASEEES
1930–1933 жж. Қазақстандағы ашаршылық (1930-1933. Famine in Kazakhstan)
Kazakh Famine
sedentarization
Online database on victims of the Kazakh Famine of the 1930s, developed by the Presidential Archive of Kazakhstan.
Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Online database
Kazakhstan
1939 год. От "умиротворения" к войне (The Year 1939: From Appeasement to War )
appeasement
Munich agreement
invasion
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
An exhibit about the events leading up to the Great Patriotic War, and specifically about the politics of appeasement.
Russian State Military Archive
1939
evacuation
Leningrad Blockade
guerilla warfare
industrial development
light industry
film
trade
oral history
Digital information portal on the Great Patriotic War in Leningrad that includes various databases, digital projects, online exhibitions, and downloadable document collections. One can find a lot of interesting documents following the links to different projects on this page.
Archival Committee of Saint-Petersburg
Leningrad
Tikhvin
Kronshtadt
75-летие Победы (The 75th Anniversary of Victory)
Commemorative page for the 75th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War on the official site of the Administration of the Ordzhonikidze Raion. It contains a few resources about the experience of the war by citizens of the district, as well as a few reference sources about the contents of relevant archives.
Administration of Ordzhonikidze Raion
Ordzhonikidze district (Republic of Khakassia)
Adventures in the Soviet Imaginary: Children's Books and Graphic Art
Communism
youth
Digital collection of Soviet children's books and posters on various themes.
The University of Chicago Library
Afghanistan and the Soviet Withdrawal 1989: 20 Years Later
A documentary exhibit about the Soviet war in Afghanistan. It is a tribute to the late Russian historian Gen. A. A. Lyakhovsky, and contains a few official documents (like Politburo meeting sessions), correspondence, etc. relating to the war. All documents were translated into English.
George Washington University
Afghanistan
Akhiva Digitală a Republicii Sovietice Socialiste Moldoveneşti (Digital Archive of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova)
press
atheism
demographics
ecology
women
folklore
poetry
Digital library of various types of published materials from the Moldova SSR.
Vitalie Sprinceana
Romanian
Moldova
Nicholas II
imperial family
A public history resource about the Alexander Palace and the fate of Nicholas II and his family. It contains photographs, personal accounts, official documents, etc. on these topics.
Bob Atchinson
All Soviet Movies on RVISION YouTube Channel
Gorky Film Studio
A YouTube channel that presents Soviet movies produced by the Gorky Film Studio.
YouTube channel
Americans in the Land of Lenin: Photographs of Early Soviet Russia
American Expeditionary Force
A Duke University exhibit of photographs taken between 1918 and 1930 by two Americans, officer Robert L. Eichelberger and economist Frank Whitson Fetter, who had the opportunity to visit the USSR during that time. The photographs reveal aspects of everyday social and economic life.
Duke University Library
White Army
emigre
André Savine
The André Savine Collection is composed of several large sub-collections documenting the lives of Russian exiles. The most distinguished of these, named by Savine “Militaria,” documents the life of the Russian White Army in Gallipoli and beyond.
University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) Libraries
CIA
United States
A publication of the CIA that provides a record of the known appearances of selected Soviet political leaders.
Central Intelligence Agency
Archival Documents of the State Archive of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine
Western Ukrainian People's Republic
Ukrainian question
Document collections on various topics based on Ukrainian foreign intelligence service records.
State Archive of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine
Ukrainian
international relations
This is a site linking to multiple digitized collections of resources that include Eastern European/Russian materials. Most of these collections are pan-European, and some of them are cited elsewhere in this guide.
Revolution
theater
nuclear war
Full-text digital archive of The Atlantic, containing all of its issues from 1857 till today. The journal extensively reported on the Soviet Union on various topics. More than 3000 articles on the Soviet Union can be found in the digital archive.
The Atlantic
Far East
Archive of film and photo documents (RU) YouTube Channel
festival
leisure
pandemic
The official YouTube channel of the Russian State Archive of Film and Photo Documents, currently containing more than 160 historical movie clips.
Russian State Archive of Film and Photo Documents
Archives of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
Cuban Missile Crisis
Digital archive that holds plenty of US documents related to the Soviet Union.
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
book
A database of digital copies of Armenian books printed between 1901-1920.
National Library of Armenia
Armenian
South Caucasus
avant-garde
Mayakovsky
A VK (V Kontakte) group that shares works of Russian and Soviet avant-garde (paintings, literature, book design, and other forms of art).
national culture
fairy tale
cartoon
The official YouTube Channel of the Azerbaijanfilm Film Studio, where you can find Soviet movies of various genres produced in Azerbaijan.
Film Studio "Azerbaijanfilm"
Azerbaijani
Azerbaijan
Ber Borochov
Marxism
Internet archive with the works of Marxist Zionist Ber Borochov (1881-1917). It contains a number of his works and links to other relevant websites.
Ber Borochov Internet Archive
human rights
politics
Blinken OSA Library houses a non-circulating reference library of books related to the Cold War, Communism, international human rights, history of broadcasting and the archival profession as well as a collection of more than 7.300 dailies and journals published from the 1950s onwards in 40 languages. Most of the items were created by the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute.
Central European University
Polish
Hungarian
Hungary
Czechoslovakia
Bulgaria
Romania
Yugoslavia
East Germany
Albania
Austria
Estonia
Books of International Memorial (Books of International Memorial)
deportation
Ostarbeiter
Volga German
Three online available document collections published by the International Memorial on Soviet-era political repressions and ostarbeiters.
Memorial
Siberia
Bush and Gorbachev at Malta: Previously Secret Documents from Soviet and U.S. Files on the 1989 Meeting, 20 Years Later
Malta summit
The documents include the most complete transcript of the Malta summit ever published – excerpted from the forthcoming book, "Masterpieces of History": The Peaceful End of the Cold War in Europe, 1989 (edited by Svetlana Savranskaya, Thomas Blanton, and Vladislav Zubok for the Central European University Press). The transcript is a translation of the Soviet record from the Gorbachev Foundation, since the U.S. memcons remain, astonishingly, still classified at the George H.W. Bush Library in Texas.
National Security Archive, George Washington University
1989