religion
Protestant
political repression
migration
Gulag
children
church
culture
A project that collects and presents materials about the experience of Baptist and Pentecostal communities in the USSR.
Miriam Dobson
Nadezhda Beliakova
Link to the Resource
Digital project
English
Russian
USSR
The Horrors of the Chernobyl Catastrophe: An Oral History Interview with Denys Stavnichny
Chernobyl
nuclear technology
Oral history interview with Mr. Denys Stavnychyi by St. Andrew's Episcopal School Student Conrad Osipowicz. In this interview Stavnychyi, who lived in the Ukraine at the time of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, reiterates the seriousness of the tragedy and reflects on the inefficiency of the government that affected many people during the crisis.
Conrad Osipowicz
1986
Digital collection
Ukraine
concentration camp
Oral history interviews with victims and witnesses of Soviet political repressions.
MEMORIAL International
Soviet Jewish Oral History Collection at the Western Reserve Historical Society (Cleveland)
Jewish
nationality
This collection, a project of the WRHS Cleveland Jewish Archives Advisory Committee, includes oral histories with Soviet Jews from the Greater Cleveland area and related materials. The collection consists primarily of abstracts, article drafts, correspondence, descriptions of the project, a dissertation, information sheets, interview protocols, lists, minutes, newspaper clippings, notes, oral history user agreements, procedures, programs, progress reports, reports, a script, a student paper, and transcripts of interviews.
Western Reserve Historical Society
Digital archive
USA
Islam
insurgency
women
education
Russian Perspectives on Islam documents the encounter and evolving relationship between the secular/Orthodox state and the Islamic regions, groups, individuals, and ideologies on the territory of the former Soviet Union and neighboring countries. This set of unique materials illuminates the strategies implemented by the Soviet and Russian state to establish authority and legitimacy among predominantly Muslim populations in Central Asia, the Northern Caucasus and Siberia and to enhance Moscow’s influence internationally with nearby Muslim countries, including Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Turkey.
Central Asia
Caucasus
Siberia
Turkey
Iran
Iraq
Pakistan
Virtual Museum of Soviet Repression in Belarus
rehabilitation
propaganda
ideology
intellectual
A civic project that collects and presents oral history interviews, photographs, archival documents, and other materials related to Soviet political repressions in Belarus.
Belarusian
Belarus
World War I
World War Ⅱ
secret police
collectivization
communism
KGB
human rights
deportation
Kogu Me Lugu (translates into Collect Our Story, We're Collecting The Story, also Our Entire Story) is an online oral history portal that collects, preserves and shares the family stories of Estonians from around the world in video format. The project focuses on the memories of people who were repressed by the Soviet or Nazi regimes, people who escaped Estonia during the occupations of said regimes or arrived in Estonia as a result of the occupations.
Estonian Institute of Historical Memory
Estonia
Baltics
Germany
Russia
Kazakhstan
Eastern Europe
Western Europe
literature
national culture
literature & arts
folklore
theater
poetry
linguistics
history
A website with a large number of digital copies of publications on Uzbek language, literature, and folklore. Many of these publications are contemporary works, but there is also a large amount of Soviet publications on the website. Apart from literary works and literary scholarship, the website also contains other scholarly publications produced in Uzbekistan over time.
Davronbek Tozhialiev
Digital library
Uzbek
Uzbekistan
anti-Semitism
politics
Project "J-Doc" focuses on state policies of the USSR that affected Jews. It provides free access to various types of sources, including archival documents, periodicals, and oral history interviews.
Nadav Foundation
Europe
South Caucasus
Israel
mosaic
art
urban history
architecture
A website dedicated to mosaics in Tajikistan's architecture and artwork. On this site, users can browse photos of Tajikistan's mosaic artworks, locate them on a digital map, and learn about the artists and history of the mosaics.
Bactria
Tajikistan
Andrei Sakharov
dissent
science
Elena Bonner
personal narrative
The official archive of Sakharov, containing scientific works, journalism, epistolary heritage, documents of social and political activity, memoirs, personal and property documents, as well as materials for evaluating the social activities of A. Sakharov and E. Bonner (discussion materials and criticism; reviews and reviews; materials in protection and support; academic degrees, honorary titles, awards, prizes), materials for Sakharov's genealogy. Records that are not directly available on the website can be requested online.
Archive of Sakharov
«Письма о Ташкенте» — художественный исторический альманах ("Letters about Tashkent" - artistic historical almanac)
memory
Tashkent
everyday life
general
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
League of Nations
international relations
World War Ⅰ
refugee
United Nations
United Nations Library Geneva
Total Digital Access to the League of Nations Archives (LONTAD)
Communism
foreign relations
Cold War
legal source
law
economy
Central European University
The UN Archives Geneva platform gives access to the fonds and collections managed by the United Nations Library and Archives in Geneva, including the archives of the United Nations in Geneva, the League of Nations (1919-1946), international peace movements (from 1870), and private papers. The digital copies of many documents, including the entire League of Nations archives, are freely downloadable through the platform. For other undigitized files, the online platform can be used as a comprehensive digital finding aid.
French
Asia
Africa
China
France
Poland
Egypt
global
The entirely digitize League of Nations Archives, estimated to contain some 15 million pages of content. The archives include tons of Soviet-related documents on a variety of topics.
Armenia
Soviet-Afghan War
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.
Polish
German
Hungarian
Czech
Romanian
other
Hungary
Czechoslovakia
Bulgaria
Romania
Yugoslavia
East Germany
Albania
Austria
Lithuania
Latvia
Afghanistan
Glasnost
Perestroika
society
late socialism
collapse of the USSR
An online exhibit of digitized Soviet and Russian newspaper editions from the 1980s through the 1990s that illuminate the transformation of Russian society in that period.
Thomas C. Wolfe
Online exhibition
war
military
World War II
holiday
festival
political leader
Judaism
POW
holocaust
Len Blavatnik
The Blavatnik Archive is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to preserving and disseminating materials that contribute to the study of 20th-century Jewish and world history, with a special emphasis on World War I, World War II, and Soviet Russia. This digital archive now contains over 113,000 items of various types.
Yiddish
Ukrainian
Czech Republic
Georgia
Azerbaijan
Moldova
Mongolia
Great Patriotic War
sport
agriculture
music
healthcare
infrastructure
army
Russian Archives Online (RAO) is an online collection of Russian and Soviet-related archives and other sources of film footage, photographs, and fine art featuring support materials and robust archival search engine.
ABAmedia
Cuba
Рукописи онлайн (Manuscripts Online - Manuscript Department of the Institute of Russian Literature, RAS)
Aleksandr Blok
Andrei Belyi
Innokentii Annenskii
Marina Tsvetaeva
Fedor Sologub
Digitized manuscripts of Aleksandr Blok, Andrei Belyi, Innokentii Annenskii, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Fedor Sologub.
Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Электронная библиотека Института русской литературы (Пушкинского Дома) РАН (Digital Library of the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences)
scholarship
The digital library of the Institute of Russian Literature of the RAS, providing free access to digital copies of the Institute's publications and other literary studies publications.
censorship
The Wende Museum is an art museum and historical archive dedicated to the Cold War. Its online collections consist of artworks, artifacts, documents, films, and historical witness interviews related to the subject.
The Wende Museum
Albanian
Osip Mandelʹshtam Papers, 1900-1979 (mostly 1914-1937)
Osip Mandelʹshtam
The collection consists of Russian-language works, correspondence, and printed matter of Mandelʹshtam. It contains holograph and typed manuscripts of his poems, reviews, articles, and essays, often in draft form representing different stages of his work, many of which are in the hand of his wife, Nadezhda, who acted as his amanuensis.
Princeton University Library
Russian and early Soviet sheet music collection
A collection of Russian and early Soviet music scores published from 1904 to 1938.
Columbia University Libraries
Manuscript Department of the Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences
OF-226
Central Archive of the National Guard of Russia (Rosgvardiia)
Archive of the Federal Protective Service of Russia
Central Archive of the Federal Security Service of Russia
Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Электронная библиотека «Наука права» (Digital Library "Science of Law")
legislation
legal studies
justice
court
An online library of laws and legal studies. It provides open access to Soviet and Russian legal sources and legal literature.
Digital Library "Science of Law"
National Database of Legislation of the Republic of Uzbekistan
local administration
Online database of the official texts of legislation of Uzbekistan from 1925 till today.
National Center of Legal Information “Adolat”
Online database
ИПС "Әділет" Legal information system of Regulatory Legal Acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Online database of legal acts of Kazakhstan adopted from 1948 till today.
Institute of legislation and legal information of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Kazakh
Библиотека нормативно-правовых актов СССР (Library of the Legal Acts of the USSR)
A digital collection of extensive Soviet legal acts (transcripts), covering the whole Soviet period.
Library of Legal Acts of the USSR
Dokumentų paieška - Lietuvos Respublikos Seimas (Document search - Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania)
Online database of legal acts of Lithuania, containing the official texts of legislation adopted in Lithuania during its Soviet period. It also contains texts of international laws and international agreements that involved Lithuania.
Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania
Lithuanian
Italian
Latvian
Estonian
Spanish
Библиотечные и архивные ресурсы Государственной Думы (Library and Archival Resources of the State Duma of Russia)
The digital library of the Parliamentary Library of Russia, containing documents and publications of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, including published official laws, meeting records, published law collections, and works of legal studies. Many digital copies are available online.
The State Duma of Russia
Электронная библиотека РНБ (Digital Library of the Russian National Library)
Russian Revolution
cartography
Leningrad Blockade
Russian avant-garde
Digital library of the Russian National Library, providing free access to a large number of digitized pre-revolution and Soviet literature.
Russian National Library
БД Персональный состав РАН (Database "Personnel of the Russian Academy of Sciences")
Russian Academy of Sciences
Database of biographical information of the members of the Russian Academy of Sciences from the 17th century till today.
Рассекреченные документы разведки (Declassified Documents of Intelligence)
foreign intelligence
intelligence
Document collections and other publications of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia, based on the agency's declassified archival documents. Currently, this page provides free access to one document collection dedicated to Europe and the USSR during 1935-1945.
Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia
Digital document collection
Finland
Библиотека русского географического общества (Library of the Russian Geographical Society)
geography
archaeology
astronomy
biology
geology
Russian Geographical Society
ethnography
The digital library of the Russian Geographical Society, containing thousands of digitized books, maps, atlases, periodicals, expedition reports, and other types of materials of the Society.
Virtual Exhibitions of the National Archives of Latvia
Sovietization
independence
diaspora
A few well-organized online exhibitions of documents from Latvian archives, many of which are dedicated to Soviet political repressions in Latvia.
National Archives of Latvia
The database contains lists of persons who were deported from Latvia to distant territories of the USSR by the Soviet regime between 1941 and 1953.
Latviešu diasporas dokumenti (Latvian Diaspora Documents)
A database that collects information related to the historical heritage of the diaspora in Latvia and the world. This heritage consists of the documents of both individuals and organizations, covering the period from the years of the Second World War to the regaining of Latvia's independence.
Dokumentu un rakstu krājumi - Latvijas Valsts arhīvs (Document Collections and Articles of the State Archives of Latvia)
rural history
dissident
World Association of Free Latvians
Document collections published by the State Archives of Latvia, some of which have digital versions freely available via this web page.
State Archives of Latvia
Latvijas Valsts arhīvs datubāzē (Latvian State Archives Database)
political institution
party organization
industry
trade
energy
environment
forestry
media
transportation
The database of Latvian State Archives that contains all descriptions and historical records of the Communist Party fonds (9083 items) and provides free access to many original documents.