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The Russian Archive in Prague
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2018
Extract
In December, 1945, fifteen freight cars left for Moscow with material from the Russian Historical Archive in the capital of Czechoslovakia.
Before the second World War the Russian Archive had become the outstanding collection in Europe on recent Russian history outside of the Soviet Union. Specializing particularly in the revolutionary period of 1917-21 and the “White” emigration, its only equal outside of Russia was in the United States: the Hoover War Library of Stanford University.
Ever since 1945, recurrent reports in the United States have spoken of the complete removal and dissolution of the great collection. During a visit to Prague in the summer of 1948 I endeavored to gather all available facts.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1949
References
1 Obedinenie Rossijskikh Zemskikh i Gorodskikh Dejatelej v Čekhoslovackoj Respublike.
2 Cf.Očerk Dejatelnosti Obedinenija Rossijskikh Zemskikh i Gorodskikh Dejatelej v Čekhoslovackoj Respublike, “Zemgor” (Prague, 1925), pp. 173-81
3 Among the representatives was Gleb Struve, now Professor of Russian Literature at the University of California.
4 Russkij Istoričeskij Arkhiv(Prague, 1929), Vol. I.
5 Kiesewetter, A. A., Na rubeže dvukh stoletij (Prague, 1929).Google Scholar
6 Bibliografija russkoj revoljucii i graždanskoj vojny (1917-1921) (Prague, 1938).
7 Bibliografia gazetnykh sobranij Russkogo Isoričeskogo Arkhiva za gody 1917-1921 (Prague, 1939).
8 Volja naroda; published in Germany as a newspaper in 1944 and 1945 by the “Russian Liberation Movement,” headed by A. A. Vlasov, who had been a Red Army Lieutenant General until 1942.
9 Cf. Otdel dokumentov Russkogo Istoričeskogo Arkhiva v Prage (Prague, 1932), pp. 3-20; Russkij Zagraničnyj Istoričeskij Arkhiv pri Ministentve Inostrannykh Del Čekhoslovackoj Respubliki v 1936 godu (Prague, 1936), pp. 12-21.
10 The Document Section's material on Herzen came largely from the archive of his famous Kolokol magazine in London.
11 Documents on prerevolutionary Russian Marxist groups were not collected chiefly ; in the Russian Archive, but elsewhere. Those not assembled in Soviet collections before the second World War frequently found their way to the Archive of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Mensheviks).
12 Once headed by the early Soviet historian, M. N. Pokrovskij, the Central Archives are now part of the Soviet Ministry of the Interior.
13 The Russian Library of Munich may become a new Russian book center in Europe. Conceived in the summer of 1948, it is a coöperative venture of ex-Soviet intellectuals who are now displaced persons in Germany. The address of the Russian Library is Roentgenstrasse 5, Munich, U. S. Zone of Germany. Its director is B. A. Yakovlev, who before the second World War was dean of a graduate school of architecture in Moscow. George Fischer, Cf. , “The New Soviet Emigration,” Russian Review, December, 1948 Google Scholar.
14 The total number of volumes reportedly includes 140,000 volumes on Russia, but does not cover books on recent Russian political and economic history. The gathering of literature in these fields by the Russian Archive was mutually agreed upon soon after its establishment.
15 Cf. Fischer, George, “Russian Studies in Czechoslovakia,” Bulletin of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages, Vol. VI, No. 3 (March 15, 1949)Google Scholar.