¹ Embassy of the USSR, Information Bulletin, no. 138, 19 Nov. 1942, 6.

² Oleksandr Fedoryk, ‘Treasures plundered during World War II not yet returned’, Ukrainian Weekly, no. 9, 26 Feb. 1995, 2, 12; no. 10, 5 March 1995, 2, 12. The full text of Fedoryk's address to the symposium at the Bard College Center for the Visual Arts appears as part of the published proceedings of the symposium, Simpson, ed., The Spoils of War. There was wide press coverage of the Bard symposium in the United States and abroad, including Ralph Blumenthal, ‘Revelations and Agonizing on Soviet Seizure of Artwork’, New York Times (thereafter NYT), 23 Jan. 1995, C11, 14; Catherine Foster, ‘Stolen Art as War Booty: Hostages or Harbingers of Peace’, Christian Science Monitor (thereafter CSM), 8 Feb. 1995, 1, 18.

³ See esp., Nicholas, Lynn, The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994);Google Scholar also published in German, French, Spanish, Portugese, Japanese and Polish. Nicholas’ chapter on looting from Soviet lands is weak and in general she does not deal with Soviet cultural plunder and current Russian restitution problems.

⁴ See Konstantin Akinsha and Grigorii Kozlov with Sylvia Hochfield, Beautiful Loot: The Soviet Plunder of Europe's Art Treasures (New York: Random House, 1995); see also the UK edition, Stolen Treasure: The Hunt for the World's Lost Masterpieces (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995), and the German edition, Bentekunst. Auf Schatzsuche in Russichen Geheimdepots (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1995). A second German-language study by the same authors reproduces a number of relevant documents about the Soviet seizure of art. Akinsha, Konstantin, Kozlow, Grigorii and Toussaint, Clemens, Operation Beutekunst: Die Verlagerung deutscher Kulturgüter in die Sowjetunion nach 1945 (Nuremberg: Germanisches Nationalmuseum, 1995).Google Scholar See n. 72 to the 1990–1 articles in Art News by idem, who first revealed the ‘hidden treasures’.

⁵ Evgenii Sidorov, in the foreword to the elaborate catalogue, Five Centuries of European Drawings: The Former Collection of Franz Koenigs: Exhibition Catalogue, 2.10.1995–21.01.1996 (Milan: Leonardo Arte, 1995; Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation; Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow), [5]. A parallel Russian edition was available at half the price of the English one. The catalogue is correlated with the original Koenigs inventory numbers, and makes reference to pre-war published catalogues and facsimile editions, as well as the more recent catalogue by Elen, Albert J., Missing Old Master Drawings from the Franz Koenigs Collection Claimed by the State of the Netherlands (The Hague: SDU Publishers, Netherlands Office for Fine Arts, 1989).Google Scholar

⁶ Teteriatnikov, Vladimir M., Problema kul'tumykh tsennostei peremeshchennykh v rezul'tate vtoroi mirovoi voiny (dokazatel'stvo rossiiskikh prav na ‘kollektsiiu Kenigsa’ (Moscow/Tver, 1996);Google ScholarObozrevatel ‘/Observer: Informatsionno-analiticheskii zhurnal – spetsial'nyi vypusk, a joint publication of Obozrevatel’ and Tverskaia starina. Texts of the proposed law and the alternative with accompanying endorsements were also included.

⁷ Ekaterina Iur'evna Genieva is director of the All-Russian State Library of Foreign Literature in Moscow. Her address is included in the symposium proceedings (n. 2); her remarks were widely quoted in American press accounts of the Bard conference, including an editorial in the NYT by Karl E. Meyer, 1 Feb. 1995. For restitution efforts from her library in 1992, see nn. 143–4 below.

⁸ See the published proceedings, Hoogewoud, F. J.,Kwaahdgras, E. P., et al. eds., ‘The Return of Looted Collections (1946–1996). An Unfinished Chapter’: Proceedings of an International Symposium to Mark the 50th Anniversary of the Return of Dutch Collections from Germany (Amsterdam: IISH, 1997).Google Scholar See also the report on the conference by Peter Manasse in Social History and Russia, No. 5 (1996), a newsletter of the IISH, available on-line at http://www.iisg.nl.

⁹ Vladimir Teteriatnikov, ‘“Kholodnaia voina” za muzeinymi shtorami – Kak rossiiskie iskusstvovedy zdaiut v plen shedevry, okazavashiesia v SSSR posle pobedy nad Germaniei v 1945 godu’, Pravda, 29 March 1995, 4. As the only illustration, American soldiers were pictured with paintings in hand with the caption linking them with ‘trophy art’. This was the same author whose book establishing Russia's legal right to the Koenigs collection (n. 6).

¹⁰ The original Russian catalogue was entitled Nevedomye shedevry: Frantsuzskaia zhivopis’ XIX–XX vekov iz chastnykh sobranii Germanii (Unknown Masterpieces: French paintings of the 19th-20th centuries from private German collections), ed. Al'bert Kostenevich (New York/St Petersburg: Harry N. Abrams, 1995), Eng. ed. Hidden Treasures Revealed: Impressionist Masterpieces and Other Important French Paintings Preserved by the State Hermitage Museum. See the reports on the openings by Steven Erlanger, ‘Hermitage in Its Manner Displays Its Looted Art’, NYT, 30 March 1995, C13, and by Justin Burke, ‘Russia's 50-year Secret Earns Warm Response amid Ongoing Dispute’, CSM, 5 April, 1995, 13. See also the preview of the Hermitage exhibition by Rod MacLeish in Vanity Fair, March 1995, 127–44.

¹¹ UNESCO, ‘Report of the Director-General on the Study on the Possibility of Transferring Documents from Archives Constituted within the Territory of Other Countries or Relating to their History, within the Framework of Bilateral Agreements’, Nairobi, 1976, 19C/94, 3.1.1.

¹² Resolutions of the XXX International Conference of the Round Table on Archives (CITRA), see more of the text with the published citations in n. 170 below.

¹³ ‘The View of the Archival Community on the Settling of Disputed Claims: Position Paper Adopted by the Executive Committee of the International Council on Archives at its Meeting in Guangzhou, 10–13 April 1995’. A typescript of this document was furnished by the ICA Secretary General; its publication is planned in the ICA Bulletin. See also Leopold Auer, ‘The Status of Restitution Since 1945: Success and Failures’, a report presented at the ICA Conference of the International Round Table on Archives (CITRA XXXI), Washington DC, Aug. 1995.

¹⁴ OSS Art Looting Investigation Unit, Final Report (Confidential), 1 May 1946, US NA, RG 239, Roberts Commission.

¹⁵ The most thorough study to date of the fate of archives during the war was prepared in the 1960s as a doctoral dissertation by Vsevolod Vasil 'evich Tsaplin, ‘Arkhivy, voina i okkupatsiia (1941–1945 gody)’ typescript with hand corrections by the author, signed and dated 20 Jan. 1969 (Moscow, 1968); Tsaplin, now retired, kindly made a copy of his typescript available to the present author. At the time his study was prepared, Tsaplin did not have access to archives outside the USSR, nor could he use many important Nazi records in Moscow and Kiev which are now open for research.

¹⁶ See, for example, the recent article by Pshenichnyi, A.P., ‘Arkhivy na okkupirovannoi territorii v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny’, Otechestvennye arkhivy, no. 4 (1992), 90–8Google Scholar, which contains numerous inaccuracies based on earlier Soviet post-war reports. This is also apparent in two 1990 accounts of cultural displacements during the war. Maksakova, L.V., Spasenie kul'tumykh tsennostei v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny (Moscow: ‘Nauka’, 1990)Google Scholar, and Bakumenko, M.N., Sokrovishcha v ogne voiny (Minsk: ‘Belarus’, 1990).Google Scholar

¹⁷ See the initial revelations in the earlier article by Grimsted, P.K., ‘The Fate of Ukrainian Cultural Treasures during World War II: Archives, Libraries, and Museums under the Third Reich’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, Vol. 39, no. 1 (1991), 53–80;Google Scholar and the Ukrainian booklet version, with the collaboration of Hennadii Boriak, which includes selected published documents, Dolia skarbiv Ukrains'koi kul'tury pid chas druhoi svitovoi viiny: Vynyshchennia arkhiviv, bibliotek, muzeiv (Kiev: Arkheohrafichna komisiia AN URSR, 1991; 2nd ed., L'viv, 1992); a condensed version appears in Pam'iatky Ukrainy, nos 3–6 (1994), 92–105. An updated expanded version is in preparation based on additional recently opened archives. Some of the material presented here is summarised from those publications.

¹⁸ Soviet area-wide details are to be included in an expanded monograph in preparation by P.K. Grimsted.

¹⁹ That document, found among recently opened Kiev Communist Party files, is scheduled to appear in print in Ukrains'kyi arkheohrafuhnyi shchorichnyk 3 (1994), forthcoming. See the earlier discussion of this matter in Grimsted, ‘The Fate of Ukrainian Cultural Treasures’, 57–9, 63. More accurate accounts have long been available in Ukrainian émigré writings.

²⁰ One of the actual Commission depositions (GA RF, 7021/65/10, fos 19–21) regarding the Nazi destruction of the Uspens'kyi Cathedral in the Lavra was submitted as USSR exhibit 247 (GA RF 7445/2/107, fos 162'6, with a German trans., fos 167'72).

²¹ Pechurov, Director Archival Administration NKVD Dnipropetrovs'k to Solotuchin, Director, Dnipropetrovs'k State City Archive (TOP SECRET – VERY URGENT), 18 Sept. 1941, a copy which the Nazis found and duly translated remains in Nazi wartime files, TsDAVO, 3206/5/21, fo. 27. See also the corresponding recently declassified instructions of Ukrainian Glavarkhiv Chief Gudzenko to Pechuro, 5, 25 July 1941, TsDAVO, 14/1/2314, fo. 19.

²² Gudzenko to Chibriakov, Kharkiv, 8 Aug. 1941 – ss, GA RF, 5325/10/856, fos 1–2 – detailing especially heavy intentional destruction in Volhynia, Zhytomyr (later blamed on German bombing), Rovno, Stanislav, Kharkiv and Odessa, to name only a few Ukrainian examples. Deputy chief NKVD UkrSSR Ratushnyi and Chief AU NKVD UkrSSR Shkliarov to Chief GAU NKVD SSSR Nikitinskii, Kiev, 16 Aug. 1941, GA RF, 5325/10/856, fos 3–8. See also the later summary report of Nikitinski and Gorlenko to Deputy Commissar NKVD S.N. Kruglov, Moscow, 10 April 1942, GA RF, 5325/10/836, fos 53–70. These files were first found in Moscow, but the corresponding Ukrainian files with outgoing copies were finally available for consultation in Kiev in June 1994. TsDAVO, 14/1/esp. files 2314 and 2315, which contain copies of the above cited reports and additional correspondence with individual oblast archives regarding evacuation and destruction. For example, see the instructions by Ukrainian Glavarkhiv Chief Gudzenko to different oblasts, 25 July 1941, TsDAVO, 14/1/2314, fos 19–26.

²³ Minaeva to Karavaev, ‘Spravka o sostoianii i rabote oblastnykh partiinykh arkhivov obkomov KP(b)U na. 1 Mar. 1945 r’., RTsKhIDNI, 71/6/253, fos 34–53.

²⁴ The selected figures quoted are from an extensive chart prepared by GAU NKVD SSSR, 1 April 1942, GA RF, 5325/10/836, fos 45–6. O.N. Kopylova analysed figures for the evacuation and destruction from central archives in Moscow and Leningrad in a significant ‘revisionist’ article on the subject, ‘K probleme sokhrannosti GAF SSSR v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny’, Sovetskie arkhivy, no. 5 (1990), 37–44. More details are revealed in the author's candidate dissertation, ‘Tsentral'nye gosudarstvennye arkhivy SSSR v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, 1941–1945 gg.’ (Moscow: Candidate dissertation, RGGU, 1991). Many of the details and conflicting reports about evacuation and destruction at the beginning of the war were previously analysed in the unpublished monograph by Tsaplin, ‘Arkhivy, voina i okupatsiia’, ch. 3, 164–307.

²⁵ These details are documented by Grimsted, ‘The Fate of Ukrainian Cultural Treasures’, 58–9. See esp. ‘Bolschewistische Greuelpropaganda über “Zerstörungen und Grausamkeiten der deutsch-faschistischen Broberer in Stadt Kiew”’, signed by Reichardt, appended to a secret memorandum dated Berlin, 13 June 1944, together with a German translation of the Pravda article mentioned below. Stabsführung IV/3, Ratibor, 15 April 1944, BA-K, R 6/170, fos 47ff.; a photocopy is held in EAP 99/1085 in the US NA.

²⁶ Soobshchenie Chrezvychainoi Gosudarstvennoi Komissii po ustanovleniiu i rassledovaniiu zlodeianii nemetsko-fashitskikh zackvatchikov i ikh soobshchnikov i prinesennogo imi ushcherba grazhdanam, kolkhozam, obshchestvenym organizatsiiam, gosudarstvennym predpriiatiiam i uchrezhdeniiam SSSR. O razrushenniiach i zverstvakh, sovershennykh nemetsko-fashistskimi zakhvatchikami v gorode KIEVE (Moscow, 1944). The report was first published in Pravda, no. 52, 1 March 1944. A copy was submitted as one of the Soviet depositions at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945. See GA RF, 7445/2/94, fos 194–7.

²⁷ See ] Dement'eva, Maria (interview with V.N. Bondarev), ‘Osobaia sud'ba osobogo arkhiva’, Obshchaia gazeta, no. 13, 4 May 1993, 8.Google Scholar The 1992 account of archives during the war by Pshenichnyi, Otechesvennye arkhivy, no. 4 (1992), 91, likewise cites an erroneous Glavarkhiv report listing those parts of the archive that were taken to Germany (whereas in fact they never got beyond Czechosovakia), but with no mention of their return. Top secret Soviet reports of their retrieval in Czechoslovkia and return to Kiev have now been found.

²⁸ ‘Spravka o rezul'tatakh raboty GAU NKVD SSSR po vozvrashcheniiu v Sov. Soiuz dokumental'nykh materialov GAF SSSR i o vyvoze v SSSR arkhivov inostrannogo proiskhozhdeniia’, signed by Golubtsov and Kuz'min, 15 Dec. 1945, GA RF, 5325/10/2148, fos 1–4.

²⁹ According to a July 1946 report, Pshenichnyi, ‘Dokladnaia zapiska o prodelannoi rabote TsGAFFKD MVD UkrSSR za l-e polugodie 1946 g.’, 13 July 1946, GA RF, 5325/2s/1620, fo. 113.

³⁰ Chechkov to Nikitinskii, GA RF, 5325/2/1620, fos 158–9.

³¹ I.V. Shikin to G.M. Malenkov, TsK VKP(b) (1 March 1945), RtsKhIDNI, 17/125/308, fos 1–12. Pub. by Shepelev, V.N., ‘Sud'ba “Smolenskogo arkhiva”’, Izvestiia TsK KPSS, no. 5 (1991), 135–6.Google Scholar See also Aleksandrov to Shikin, 10 March 1945, RTsKhIDNI, 17/125/308, fo. 18.

³² For details about the fate of the Smolensk archive, see P.K. Grimsted, The Odyssey of the Smolensk Archive: Plundered Communist Records for the Service of Anti-Communism, Carl Beck Occasional Papers in Russian and East European Studies, no. 1201 (Pittsburgh: Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of Pittsburg, 1995).

³³ Scattered references to archival retrievals and operations at the Archival Administration established in the autumn of 1945 under SVAG are found in various post-war reports in Glavarkhiv and other files, but the SVAG records, briefly and partially opened in 1990 and 1991, were again closed by Russian presidential order in Aug. 1992. This also meant that incoming reports from SVAG in the Glavarkhiv post-war records (GA RF, 5325, opis’ 25) could not be declassified either. As of Sept. 1995, President Yeltsin signed a new order calling for the opening of SVAG records, except those relating to property (imushestvo), but it remains unclear how soon the declassification process will be completed, and what files will be considered as relating to ‘property’.

³⁴ These details are documented by Grimsted, ‘The Fate of Ukrainian Cultural Treasures’, 53–80; and Ukrainian ed., Dolia skarbiv Ukraïns'koi kul'tury.

³⁵ Regarding the US restitution programme, see esp. the doctoral thesis by the now director of the US National Archives, Kurtz, Michael J., Nazi Contraband: American Policy on the Return of the European Cultural Treasures, 1945–1955 (New York: Garland Press, 1985).Google Scholar

³⁶ Several reports on the archival research undertaken by the German specialists in the United States, Germany, Russia and Ukraine were presented at a symposium in Bremen in late 1994. See the published proceedings: Cultural Treasures Moved because of the War – A Cultural Legacy of the Second World War – Documentation and Research on Losses: Documentation of the International Meeting in Bremen (30.11.-2.12.1994), ed. Dieter Opper and Doris Lemmermeier (Bremen, Koordinierungsstelle der Länder für die Rückführung von Kulturgütern beim Senator für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Kunst und Support, 1995). See esp. the reports prepared by Andreas Genzer, ‘Research Project “Fate of the Treasures of Art Removed from the Soviet Union during World War II”’, 124–32, ‘Report on the Archive Situation in Russia as Relates to Researching the Losses of Cultural Property’, 142–5, and Anja Heus, ‘Archives in the Federal Republic of Germany on Art Theft – An Overall View’, 135–41. The publication is available through the sponsoring office, Herdentorsteinweg 7, 28195 Bremen; tel.: 0421–361 16172/361 16173.

³⁷ See the official US Army list and explanatory text published as an appendix to Grimsted, Dolia skarbiv Ukraïns'koi kul'tury, 117–19. The original list and covering memorandum (20 Nov. 1948) are from OMGUS records, Property Division – Restitution Branch, RG 260, Box 291. The list, ‘Restituted Russian Property’, was enclosed with a report from Richard F. Howard, Deputy Chief for Cultural Restitution (MFA&A), dated Karlsruhe, Germany, 20 Sept. 1948.

³⁸ The property card files and related restitution issues were openly discussed at a special archival section of the UNESCO-sponsored conference on Second World War cultural displacements held in Chemihiv in Sept. 1994. The copies of the property cards made available to Kiev came from the records of the Collection Centre in Munich, which are now held in BA-K, B-323. See also the summary inventory prepared from the property cards (organised by Soviet repository of origin), ‘Verzeichnis der Treuhandverwaltung von Kulturgut München bekanntgewordenen Restitutionen von 1945 bis 1962 USSR A–Z’, BA-K, B-323/578. Other item-by-item descriptions and photographs of the materials restituted to the Soviet Union are available in the files of the various Collection Centres in the US zone of occupation that are held as part of the records of the US Office of Military Government in Germany (OMGUS), US NA, RG 260.

³⁹ An initial CD-ROM version of the data files collected and input from a wide variety of archives to 1995 is available from the Forschungsstelle Osteuropa an der Universität Bremen, Universitätsalle GW 1, D-28359 Bremen (fax: 49/421/218–3269).

⁴⁰ A receipt for this shipment, from the US Headquarters, Berlin District, signed by Lt Col. Constantin Piartzany [sic] in Berlin, 20 Sept. 1945, together with lists of box numbers for the 333 crates in the four numbered railway wagons, is found in US NA, 260, Ardelia Hall Collection, box 40. (I am grateful to colleagues at the Ostforschungstelle of the University of Bremen for making a copy available to me.) No inventory or further description of the contents has been located in American restitution records, nor have the corresponding German documents regarding these archives been found in Berlin. Most probably this is the same group of materials mentioned in ERR reports and inventories, which reference four wagons from Novgorod, Pskov and Gatchina first shipped to Riga and then Berlin in 1942. TsDAVO, 3676/1/136, fos 53–78. The inventory is accompanied by a report by Nazi archivist Wolfgang Mommsen, 8 Sept. 1942, fos 74–6.

⁴¹ The shipment was officially turned over to the Soviet Major Lev G. Podelskii, as indicated on the US Army listed cited above (n. 37), but ongoing US receipts have not been located, although Soviet accounts have been found.

⁴² The characterisation of OAD as ‘the antithesis of the ERR’ was used as the title of a series of photo albums about OAD operations, copies of which are still held in the Still Pictures Division of US NA, selections from which were published in the recent article by Hoogewoud, F.J., ‘The Nazi Looting of Books and its American “Antithesis”: Selected Pictures from the Offenbach Archival Depot's Photographic History and Its Supplement’, Studia Rosenthaliana, vol. 26, nos 1/2 (1992), 158–92.Google ScholarPoste, Leslie I., The Development of U.S. Protection of Libraries and Archives in Europe during World War II, PhD dissertation (University of Chicago, 1958)Google Scholar, revised (Fort Gordan, GA: US Army Civil Affairs School, 1964), devotes a chapter to OAD, 258–301, with a chart of outshipments by country, 299–300. See also idem, ‘Books Go Home from the Wars’, Library Journal, Vol. 73, 1 Dec. 1948, 1,699–704.

⁴³ See the comment on his report at the conference by Gad Nahshon, ‘Return of Looted Treasures’, Jewish Post of New York, Vol. 22, no. 5 (1996). His full address to the conference will appear in the proceedings mentioned in n. 8 above.

⁴⁴ These are documented in Grimsted, The Odyssey of the Smolensk Archive, 11–12.

⁴⁵ Sovet Federatsii Federal'nogo Sobraniia, Zasedanie deviatoe, Biulleteń, no. 1 (107), 17 July 1996, 59. The same argument was also presented by Nikolai Gubienko, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Culture of the State Duma, 60.

⁴⁶ Documentation to this effect has been found in OAD files in US NA RG260, and Kiev materials were found recently in Jerusalem by I. A. Sergeeva, head of the Judaica Division of the Institute of Manuscripts (TsNB) in Kiev.

⁴⁷ The fate and holdings of the Tallinn Archive were well documented in the West. See Grimsted, R. K., Archives and Manuscript Repositories in the USSR: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belorussia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 743–6, 748–52.Google Scholar The Tallinn Archive was returned to Estonia in 1990 (see below).

⁴⁸ The Königsberg archive – first removed from Grasleben to Goslar and thence Göttingen – is now held in the Prussian Privy State Archive (Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz), Berlin–Dahlem. See Kurt Forstreuter, Das Prussische Staatsarchiv in Königsberg. Ein geschichtlicher Ruckblick mit einer Ubersicht über sine Bestrande (Göttingen, 1955 = Veroffentlichungen der Niedersachsischen Archiwerwaltung, no. 3), and also Kurt Forstreuter, ‘Das Staatsarchiv Königsberg als Quelle für Allgemeine Geschichte’, Hamburger Mittel- und Ostdeutsche Forschungen, Vol. 6 (1967), 9–35. See Grimsted, Archives: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belorussia, 748–52. A separate issue remains in the case of the archive of the medieval Teutonic Order, because this collection had been officially ceded to Poland centuries ago, and was removed from Warsaw by the Nazis before it was evacuated with the Königsberg Archive in 1944. See the scholarly catalogue of the charters, prepared after the archive was lodged in West Germany, Regesta Historico Diplomatica Ordinis S. Mariae Theutonicorum 1198–1525, ed. Erich Joachim and Walter Hubatsch, 5 vols (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1948–73). See also, Schieche, Emil, ‘Tyska Ordens arkiv, dess nuvarande ode och dess oppnande for vetenskaplig forskning’, Historisk Tidskrift, Vol. 13, no. 3 (1950), 185–97.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See, for example, the initial inventory prepared by Walter von Hueck, Die im Staatsarchiv Marburg deponierten baltischen ritterschaftlichen Archivbestände. Ein Repertorium im Auftrage des Verbandes der Angehörigen der baltischen Ritterschaften zusammengestellt (Marburg, 1958).

⁵⁰ The account of the matter by Andrew Decker in ‘A Worldwide Treasure Hunt’, Art News (Summer 1991), 136–8, raises some of the problems. The restitution issue is also mentioned briefly by Nicholas, The Rape of Europa, 429–31. A detailed case study of the matter based on available sources is still needed.

⁵¹ ‘Evaluation of GMDS Collection’, summary sheet, Col. R. L. Hopkins to Chief of Staff, n.d. (April 1946?), copy US NA, RG 242, AGAR-S, no. 1377. The referenced document is a copy collected from ‘GMDS Background Papers, History, File 5:1 folder 1’, but the original has not been located in US NA.

⁵² ‘Matters of Interest to Liaison Agent’, GMDS, Camp Ritchie, MD, unsigned [n.d.] (as the memo was datelined Camp Ritchie, it would have been prepared between July 1945 and April 1946, when GMDS moved to the Pentagon), copy US NA, RG 242, AGAR-S, no. 1393 (GMDS 5:1 folder 1).

⁵³ Poste cites the total figure in the table of transfers to G-2 from Offenbach, Poste, U.S. Protection, 299, but references to additional transfers are found in OAD records in US NA (RG 260).

⁵⁴ These details are documented in Grimsted, Odyssey of the Smolensk Archive, 49–57. A receipt from G-2 for 17 cases of archival materials was found among OAD records, dated 26 Oct. 1946, US NA (Suitland), RG 260, OMGUS Property Division, Ardelia Hall Collection, Offenbach Administrative Records, box 250. That was less than three weeks after a G-2 cable to the War Department describing the Russian holdings in the OAD basement, and specifically mentioning the ‘Very Important’ Smolensk files. USFET, G-2, to Director of Intelligence, WD General Staff (attention: Chief of Captured Enemy Documents Branch), 7 Oct. 1946 (copy), US NA, RG 242, AGAR-S, no. 1887. The shipment of two tons (27 boxes) of ‘Russian Library Material from Offenbach’, is listed among ‘Documents Shipments to War Department’ (n.d., covering the period 24–7 Aug. 1947), US NA, 242, AGAR-S, no. 1553.

⁵⁵ William M. Franklin, Director Historical Office, Bureau of Public Affairs, US Department of State, to Robert H. Bahmer, Deputy Archivist of the US, 5 March 1963, US NA, RG 64. See more details in Grimsted, Odyssey of the Smolensk Archive, 77–79.

⁵⁶ G.A. Belov to the CPSU Central Committee, TsKhSD, 5/35/212, fos 158–9. Belov ‘s meeting with Acting Archivist of the US Roger H. Bahmer took place in London during a meeting of the Executive Committee of the ICA. The incident was first mentioned by TsKhSD archivist A.M. Petrov in a report at the Dec. 1993 Rosarkhiv conference on Archival Rossica Abroad. TsKhSD archivists subsequently made a copy available to me.

⁵⁷ Don Wilson, Archivist of the US, to R.G. Pikhoia, Chairman of Roskomarkhiv, Washington DC, 18 March 1992. Professor Pikhoia kindly made a copy of the letter available to me.

⁵⁸ U.S. Congressional Record – Senate, 31 March 1992; S 4,537–40.

⁵⁹ Law no. 2, as published in German, Russian, French and English in Official Gazette of the Control Council for Germany, no. 1 (2nd ed., corrected), Berlin, 29 Oct. 1945. The English version uses the term ‘records’ rather than ‘archives’ and omits the word ‘acts [documents]’ which appears in the German and Russian texts.

⁶⁰ The agreement was signed for the British by Major General J.A. Sinclair, Director of Military Intelligence, and for the American side by Major General Clayton Bissell, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2. A published copy has not been located, but typed copies are found in several files in US NA, e.g. 242, AGAR-S, 1, and 2006 (with related correspondence).

⁶¹ See the published report by the major American archival representative, Lester Born, ‘The Ministerial Collection Center’, American Archivist, Vol. 13 (July 1950), 237–58. Work of the Ministerial Centre was co-ordinated, for example, with the Foreign Office archival deposits in Marburg, the Industrial Card Index at Markt Schwaben and the Berlin Document Centre, established for Nazi Party personnel and related records, in addition to other military and intelligence document centres.

⁶² The number and extent of American agencies, both civilian and military, involved in the collection and analysis of captured records were staggering. Full lists of the agencies, and most of the captured records held by US and British agencies are available in print and have now been declassified. See, for example, US Adjutant General's Office, Administrative Services Division, Departmental Records Branch, Guide to Captured German Records in the Custody of the Department of the Army Agencies in the United States, Washington, D.C. (Washington DC, 1950); and The Collections and Indexes of the German Military Documents Section (AGO) (Washington DC): CIA, May 1953; CIA/CD Research Aid, 5. Copies of these guides, among others, are found in US NA, RG 242 (GMDS reference collection).

⁶³ See the comprehensive published list of captured records filmed by the Western allies in Berlin, England and the United States, ‘Captured German and Related Records in the National Archives (as of 1974)’, in Captured German and Related Records: A National Archives Conference, ed. Wolfe, Robert, ‘National Archives Conferences’, Vol. 3 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1974), 267–76.Google Scholar See also the series of finding aids produced for the films, Guides to German Records Microfilmed at Alexandria, VA. See also Kent, George O., ‘The German Foreign Ministry's Archives at Whaddon Hall, 1948–58’, American Archivist, Vol. 24 (1961), 43–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar, A Catalogue of Files and Microfilms of the German Foreign Ministry Archives, 1867–1920, compiled and ed. George O. Kent (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959) and Kent, A Catalogue of Files and Microfilms of the German Foriegn Ministry Archives, 1920–45 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1962–72).

⁶⁴ Congressional approval of the return came on 1 Aug. 1953. 83 Congress, 1st Session, HR Report No. 1077: Disposition of Sundry Papers, as quoted and explained by Robert Wolfe, ‘Sharing Records of Mutual Archival Concern to the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America’, Proceedings of the Xth Congress of the International Council of Archives (Bonn, 1984) = Archivum, Vol. 32 (1986), 296–7. Wolfe's report includes extensive references to other relevant agreements and literature regarding restitution.

⁶⁵ See the published conference proceedings, and especially the opening paper by Seymour J. Pomrenze, ‘Policies and Procedures for the Protection, Use, and Return of Captured German Records’, Captured German and Related Records, 5–30.

⁶⁶ See the recent report of Klaus Oldenhage, ‘Bilateral and Multilateral Cooperation for the Reconstitution of the Archival Heritage’, at XXX CITRA in Thessalonica (ICA, forthcoming). For more details see, for example, Henke, Josef, ‘Das amerikanisch-deutsche OMGUS-Project: Erschlies-sung und Verfilmung der Akten der amerikanischen Militärregierung in Deutschland 1945–1949’, Der Archivar, Vol. 35, no. 2 (1982), 149–57Google Scholar, and Wolfe, , ‘Sharing Records of Mutual Archival Concern’, 292–302.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Regarding the status of SVAG records, see n. 33.

⁶⁸ See the discussion of the legal background for cultural restitution as discussed by Poste, U.S. Protection of Libraries and Archives, 5–68, esp. 20f.

⁶⁹ Plans, including an architectural drawing, for Stalin's super-museum were first displayed publicly at the Jan. 1995 Bard symposium in New York by Konstantin Akinsha. These developments are documented by Akinsha and Kozlov, Beautiful Loot.

⁷⁰ As first revealed in a recent sensational press account by the Radio Liberty correspondent, Deich, Mark, ‘Podpisano Stalinym: “Dobycha tainy germanskikh reparatsii”’, Stolitsa, no. 29 (1994), 18.Google Scholar Deich was quoting a book by the military historian Pavel Knyshevskii, which has since been published, Dobycha: Tainy germanskikh reparatsii (Moscow: ‘Soratnik’, 1994). Knyshevskii's publicist account only minimally describes the documents he presents with relatively little commentary. The reference to the 25 Feb. 1945 document is given only in the text (pp. 10–11) as GKO, No. 7590ss (the ‘ss’ meaning ‘top secret’); the subsequent GKO document presented is identified as RTsKhIDNI, 644/1/382, fos 211, 212, which is in fact from the GKO fond now in RTsKhIDNI. When I attempted to verify the references archivists there informed me that the files for 1945 are still classified. This latest published account can hardly be considered definitive before the files involved are open for public scrutiny and the texts duly documented and analysed.

⁷¹ These figures were also quoted without documentation in the Deich article in Stolitsa (see n. 70) but were further documented in the book by Knyshevskii (p.20) as coming from a report in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence, ‘Kratkii otchet o deiatel'nosti Glavnogo Trofeinogo upravleniia Krasnoi Armii v period Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny’, TsAMO, 67/12020/9. Knyshevskii goes on to document in considerable detail the dismantled factories from Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovkia and Poland that were transferred to the USSR, together with military, aerospace and atomic technology.

⁷² Konstantin Akinsha and Grigorii Kozlov, ‘Spoils of War: The Soviet Union's Hidden Art Treasures’, Art News, April 1991, 130–41. Follow-up stories include articles by Andrew Decker, ‘A Worldwide Treasure Hunt’, Art News, Summer 1991, 130–8; Akinsha, K. and Kozlov, G., ‘The Soviets' War Treasures: A Growing Controversy’, Art News, Sept. 1991, 112–19Google Scholar; and Akinsha, K., ‘The Turmoil over Soviet War Treasures’, Art News, Dec. 1991, 110–15.Google Scholar As an example of Western press reaction, see the banner headline in the London Observer with a story by Martin Bailey, 24 March 1991, and his follow-up account, 31 March 1991, 15. Art News has continued to follow the story with additional contributions. See the more extensive book documenting the developments by the same authors, cited inn. 4.

⁷³ These figures were quoted as a post-script to an interview by Moscow News corresponent Tat'iana Andriasova with Pavel Knyshevskii regarding his book mentioned above, ‘Dobycha – V adres komiteta po delam iskusstv postupilo iz pobezhdennoi Germanii svyshe 1 milliona 208 tysiach muzeinykh tsennostei’, Moskovskie novosti, no. 50, 23–30 Oct. 1994, 18. The Stolitsa article cited above (n. 70) mentions the raid on Zhukov's dacha.

⁷⁴ M. Khrapchenko, Chairman of the Committee, to V.M. Molotov, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Peoples’ Commissars, 22 Aug. 1945, RTsKhIDNI, 71/125/308, fos 20–1. Molotov endorsed the proposal to be passed on to Voznesenskii and Aleksandrov in the Central Committe, 7 Sept. 1945. Akinsha and Kozlov, Beautiful Loot, document other details about the Dresden collection.

⁷⁵ Kuz'min, Evgenii, ‘Taina tserkvi v Uzkom’, Literaturnaia gazeta, no. 38, 18 Sept. 1990, 10;Google Scholar English ed. ‘The Mystery of the Church in Uzkoye’, The Literary Gazette International, no. 16 (1990), 20. Kuzmin now heads the Library Division of the Ministry of Culture.

⁷⁶ This figure was cited on the basis of a document signed by the director of the All-Union State Library of Foreign Literature (VGBIL), M.I. Rudomino, who was directly involved with the library trophy operations in Germany during 1945–6. See E.I. Kuz'min, ‘Neizvestnye stranitsy istorii nemetskikh bibliotechnykh kollektsii v gody Vtoroi mirovoi voiny’, in Restitutsiia bibliotechnykh sobranii i sotrudnichestvo v Evrope. Rossiisko-germanskii ‘kruglyi stol’, 11–12 dekabria 1992 r., Moskva: Sbomik dokladov, comp. E.A. Azarova, ed. S.V. Pushkova (Moscow: ‘Rudomino’, 1994), 17–24. See the German version cited below, n. 144.

⁷⁷ Kruglov to Beria, 5 April 1945, GA RF, 5325/10/2025, fo. 4; a copy was addressed from Beria to Molotov, 6 April 1945, fo. 5. See also the unregistered draft with a variant ending, fo. 3. See the draft instructions fom Feb. 1945, fos 220–6.

⁷⁸ ‘Spravka o rezul'tatakh raboty GAU NKVD SSSR po vozvrashcheniiu v Sov. Soiuz dokumental'nykh materialov GAF SSSR i o vyvoze v SSSR arkhivov inostrannogo proiskhozhdeniia’, signed by Golubtsov and Kuz'min, 15 Dec. 1945, GA RF, 5325/10/2148, fos 1–4, and the accompanying top secret memorandum signed by Golubtsov, ‘Svedeniia o dokumental'nykh materialakh inostrannogo proiskhozhdeniia vyvezennykh v Sovetskii Soiuz v 1945 godu’, fo. 5, with indication of the archives in Moscow to which they were directed. The referenced accompanying list of German materials has not been found, nor have similar reports for 1946, presumably because they are still classified within SVAG records.

⁷⁹ As reported by the Deputy Chief of Staff of the First Belorussian Front, Zapevalin to Glavarkhiv Chief Nikitinskii, 20 July 1945, GA RF, 5325/2/1353, fo. 207. Two other collections listed were not of Nazi origin.

⁸⁰ Summary holdings lists and the plan of the Wannsee repository remain among the administrative records of the Heeresarchiv in Moscow, as are described in more detail in another study in preparation. See, for example, TsKhIDK, 1256/2, nos 10, 11, 13–15, 31, and 67, among others. Holdings in Moscow confirm Soviet retrieval of most of the records listed.

⁸¹ For example, Hagen to Chef der HA-Potsdam, Berlin–Wannsee, 9 Dec. 1944, TsKhIDK, 1256/2/67, fols 18–19, 20h2, passim.

⁸² The file, dated 12 April 1946, is described in ‘Osobaia papka’ I. V. Stalina, 165.

⁸³ Nikitinskii to Beria, GA RF, 5325/2/1353, fo. 211. The draft report itself is undated by a handwritten endorsement dated 12 Oct. 1945. The same is repeated by Golubov to I.A. Serov, 24 Oct. 1945. GA RF, 5325/2/1353, fo. 115v. These materials were found in a suburban ‘dacha’ near Wernigerode.

⁸⁴ L. Gaidukov to G.M. Malenkov, 20 Aug. 1945, RTsKhIDNI, 71/125/308, fo. 28.

⁸⁵ Although a report of their ‘capture’ has not surfaced, the official acts of transfer to the Special Secret Division of TsDIA URSR in Kiev state that they were received from ‘Dresden’. Pashchin, Chairman of the Committee on Cultural Enlightenment Affairs of the SNK UkrSSR, to TsGIA UkrSSR, 12 Dec. 1945-s, TsDAVO, 4703/2/3, fo. 1. Most probably this is a mistaken reference to Czechowice–Dziedzice, which was the railway junction six miles south of Pless – sixty-five kilometres east of Ratibor – where four freight-cars of materials from the Smolensk Party Archive and 12 other ERR-seized cultural treasures from the USSR were found by Soviet forces in March 1945. Other ERR materials evacuated to the West were found in Germany by American forces and are now held in the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz. According to the official TsDIA URSR report for 1946 (12 Jan. 1947-ss, the ERR group of records was received from the Komitet po delam Kul'tprosvetuchrezhdeniia pri SM UkrSSR, and was placed in the ‘Special Division of Secret Fonds [of TsDIA URSR]’, TsDAVO, 4703/1/20, fo. 25. Regarding ERR operations in Ratibor and the fate of their archives, see the Grimsted report ‘New Clues in the Records of Nazi Archival and Library Plunder: The ERR Ratibor Center and the RSHA VII Amt Operations in Silesia’, in ‘The Return of Looted Collections’ and the earlier discussion in Grimsted, The Odyssey of the Smolensk Archive, 7–23, esp. 7–23, 42–8 and 52–4.

⁸⁶ Most of the ERR records now held in Kiev are arranged in TsDAVO, fond 3676. Three additional file units with predominantly incoming reports to Berlin from the ERR Task Force in Belgium and the Netherlands are now arranged as fond 3674, but many more reports from the same Task Force are interfiled in fond 3676 (opys 1, nos 139–239, passim). A concise and informative elevenpage report on the fond, prepared in 1947 signed by A.V. Bondarevskii, deputy director of TsDIA URSR, 11 Oct. 1947, clearly shows the different groups of ERR materials involved before they were rearranged in their present opysy. ‘Kharakteristika dokumental'nykh materialov shtaba reikhsliaitera Rozenberga’, TsDAVO, 4703/2/12, fos 3–13. Publication of this report is planned in Arkhivy Ukrainy. Some additional scattered ERR files are held in Moscow in the former ‘Special Archive’ (Osobyi arkhiv, TsGOA SSSR), but their provenance has not yet been determined.

⁸⁷ See the memorandum listing 38 foreign (predominantly French) fonds by Bondarevskii to Gudzenko (11.VII.47), TsDAVO, 4703/2/10, fos 19–20, 33–52, and the later one (listing 43 others) by Oleinik (8.1.1948), TsDAVO, 4703/2/15.

⁸⁸ For a discussion of these activities and more details about some of the seizures and collections brought back to Moscow mentioned below, see P.K. Grimsted, ‘Archival Rossica – Rationalizing the Search and Retrieval of the Russian Archival Legacy Abroad’, forthcoming as an IISH research paper. No previous published listing of even the major collections brought back to Moscow has appeared, although more details are gradually emerging. See, for example, the undocumented survey by Kozlov, V.P., ‘Vyiavlenie i vozvrashchenie zarubezhnoi arkhivnoi Rossiki: Opyt i perspektivy’, Vestnik arkhivista, no. 6 (1993), 11–24;Google Scholar see the more finished version in Novaia i noveishaia istoriia, no. 3 (1994), 13–23. See also the interview with Ella Maksimova, ‘Sokrovishcha Rossii rasseiany po mini – Kak ikh vernut'?’, Izvestiia, no. 30, 16 Feb. 1994, 7. There are several relevant articles among the forthcoming published reports of the Rossarkhiv conference devoted to archival Rossica abroad held in Moscow in Dec. 1993.

⁸⁹ Bonch-Bruevich to Stalin, 24 Feb. 1945, RTsKhIDNI, 71/125/308, fo. 3. The unsigned copy of the letter in RsTsKhIDNI was stamped as having been received by Zhdanov's office 5 March 1945, with a note at the top signed by Zhdanov that a copy had been sent to Deputy Foreign Minister ‘t.Lozovskii with the request to present his reaction’.

⁹⁰ Bonch-Bruevich to Stalin, fo. 6. Bonch-Bruevich had been negotiating photocopies since the mid-1930s; his earlier activities in this regard are analysed in Grimsted, ‘Archival Rossica – Rationalizing the Search and Retrieval of the Russian Archival Legacy Abroad’.

⁹¹ A Pravda announcement to that effect appeared in June 1945. ‘Dar Akademii nauk SSSR of chekhoslovatskogo pravitel'stva’ (TASS, 17 June 1945), Pravda, no. 145, 18 June 1945.

⁹² GA RF, 9401/2/134, fos 1–2. The official protocol of transfer (Prague, 13 Dec. 1945) and inventory of the 396 crates from RZIA is found in GA RF, 5325/10/2024, fos 3–4v.

⁹³ Details about its arrival in Moscow under tight security and its immediate transfer to TsGAOR SSSR appear in a report dated 3 Jan. 1946, among Glavarkhiv records in GA RF, 5325/10/2023, fo. 40. Nikitinskii's receipt on behalf of TsGAOR SSSR, 2 Jan. 1946, is found in GA RF, 5325/2/1705a. The official receipt by the Academy of Sciences, dated 3 Jan. 1946, was signed slightly later. Vavilov to Nikitinskii, 31 Jan. 1946, GA RF, 5325/10/2023, fo. 40, together with an official letter from Academy President Vavilov to Nikitinskii, authorising the transfer to TsGAOR SSSR, 31 Jan 1946, fo. 42, with a further explanatory letter, 15 May 1946.

⁹⁴ Kruglov to Zhdanov, 15 May 1946, GA RF, 5325/10/2023, fo. 46.

⁹⁵ An official request for transfer address by I.I. Nikitinskii from V. Khvostov from MID, 24 Dec. 1946, is accompanied by a seven-page list of the files involved, GA RF 5325/2/1705a.

⁹⁶ Regarding the Ukrainian Historical Cabinet, see esp. Arkadii Zhyvotko, Desiat' rokiv Ukrains'koho istorychnoho kabinetu (1930–1940) = Inventari Archivu Ministerstva vnutrišnich sprav, Series C, vol. 1) (Prague, 1940). See also Biuleten' Ukrains'koho istorychnoho kabinetu v Prazi, no. 1 (only one published) (Prague, 1932), which lists newspapers and journals received and also mentions the archival holdings. Some contingent Ukrainian materials from RZIA were sent to Moscow. For more details about the Ukrainian émigré archival seizures, see the Introduction to P.K. Grimsted, Archival Ucrainica Abroad. See also the recent article by Lozenko, Liudmila I., ‘Praz’kyi ukraïns'kii arkhiv: Istoriia i s'ohodennia’, Arkhivy Ukraïny, nos 1–6 (1994), 18–30.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ See the report that ‘in Cracow a SMERSH unit of the 4th Ukrainian Army was in the possession of Petliura documents in the Ukrainian language 1918–1922 ‘, Gudzenko to Nikitinskii, Kiev, 27 March 1945, GA RF, 5325/2/1353, fo. 17. The arrival of the materials in L'viv, including those from Vienna, is reported by Gudzenko and Grinberg to Nikitinskii, Kiev, 30 May 1945, GA RF, 5325/2/1353, fo. 39. See also Neklesa to Politkin, 12 March 1945-ss; Diatlov to Kruglov, 21 March 1945; Golubtsov to Gudzenko, 8 May 1945; Gudzenko to Grushko, May 1945; and Gudzenko and Grinberg to Nikitinskii, 31 May 1945, TsDAVO, 14/7/56, fols 2–4 and 11–13,

⁹⁸ As noted in a top-secret report to Moscow, ‘Spravka o rabote arkhivnykh organov UkrSSR za period Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny Sovetskogo Soiuza protiv Nemetsko-fashistskikh zakhvatchikov (1941–1945 gg.)’, 8 June 1946-ss, GA RF 5325/2/1620, fo. 141.

⁹⁹ Many of the foreign holdings in Wölfelsdorf/Hobelschwerdt are listed in the initial reconnaissance and shipping reports found in GA RF, 5325/10/2027. See esp. the list, 21 Sept. 1945-ss, fo. 7–7v.

¹⁰⁰ Scattered administrative records of the Turgenev Library (141 files), now held in GA RF, are described in the 1994 guide Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossisskoi Federatsii: Putevoditel, 1: Fondy GA RF po istorii Rossii XIX – nachala XX vv., ed. S.V. Mironenko and Gregory Freeze (Moscow: ‘Blagovest′’, 1994), 214. See more details about the fate of the Turgenev Library in the forthcoming Grimsted study of archival Rossica cited in n. 88 above.

¹⁰¹ Golubtsov to I.A. Serov, ‘Dokladnaia zapiska o rezul'tatakh obsledovaniia dokumental ‘nykh materialov germanskikh arkhivov, evakuirovannykh i ukrytykh v shakhtakh Saksonii’, Berlin, 24 Oct. 1945, GA RF, 5325/2/1353, fo. 216. An additional signed copy is found in 5325/10/2030, fo. 35. In both cases a list of fonds selected is attached.

¹⁰² GA RF, 5325/10/2030, fos 14–30. The note about the Lübeck archive is found on fo. 19. Although not mentioned in that quote, medieval municipal archives were also brought from Bremen, Rostok, Magdeburg and Halberstadt, most of which were subsequently returned.

¹⁰³ G. Aleksandrov, N. Zhukov and A. Poryvaev to TsK VKP(b) Secretary G.M. Malenkov, RTsKhIDNI, 17/125/308, fo. 41. The letter signed by Aleksandrov, Zhukov and Poryvaev accompanied a five-page list of cultural treasures the commission of Soviet experts had chosen. ‘Spisok khudozhestvennykh i kul'turnykh tsennostei, namechennykh k vyvozu v SSSR iz solianykh shakht vokrug Magdeburga i iz Leiptsiga i ego okrestnostei’, fos 42–6. See also the additional cover letter to Malenkov with notice of additional copies to Molotov, Beria and Mikoian, 13 Nov. 1945, and Malenkov's endorsement regarding the urgency of the matter, 23 Nov. 1945.

¹⁰⁴ G. Aleksandrov to TsK VKP(b) Secretary G.M. Malenkov, RTsKhIDNI, 17/125/308, fos 49–51. The quote is on fo. 51.

¹⁰⁵ See the relevant communications dated May 1945, fos 7–11, 13, and 6 June 1945, fo. 14, GA RF, 5325/10/2029. The latter to GAU director Major General Nikitinskii.

¹⁰⁶ Golubtsov, ‘Spravka o dokumental’nykh materialakh inostrannykh uchrezhdenii, khrania-shchikhsia v Tsentral'nykh gosudarstvennykh arkhivakh SSSR’, 21 Aug. 1945, GA RF, 5325/2/3623, fos 9–11. He explained that ‘the largest part of the materials date from the second quarter of the twentieth century, but there are also materials from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.’

¹⁰⁷ Nikitinskii to Beria, ‘Dokladnaia zapiska’, 21 Aug. 1945, GA RF, 5325/10/2029, fos 20–3. The quoted passage is on fos 21v–22.

¹⁰⁸ ‘Protokol soveshchaniia pri zam. nachal'nika Glavnogo arkhivnogo upravleniia NKVD SSSR-Izuchenie voprosa o sozdanii Osobogo Tsentral'nogo gosudarstvennogo arkhiva’, 21 Aug. 1945, GA RF, 5325/2/3623, fos 2–3, 8.

¹⁰⁹ ‘Protokol soveshchaniia’, 21 Aug. 1945, GA RF, 5325/2/3623, fos 2–3, 8.

¹¹⁰ By mid-September, Iur'ev was actively fulfilling his recommendation with reports to the Soviet high command documenting contacts of Laval and other high French government leaders with the Gestapo, in anticipation of their potential importance in French collaboration trials. See, for example, Maksakov to Nikitinskii, Sept. 1945, GA RF, 5325/2/1788, fo. 5; A.A. Iur'ev report, 17 Sept. 1945, fo. 6; Nikitinskii to Beria, 18 Sept. 1945, fo. 7.

¹¹¹ The unsigned drafts are found in GA RF, 5325/2/3623. The implementing ‘prikaz’, 2 March 1946, was signed by Internal Affairs Minister Major-General S. Kruglov (copy furnished by TsKhIDK).

¹¹² Prokopenko to Starov, Director, Glavarkhiv Division of ‘Utilization’, 29 March 1944, GA RF, 5325/2/1045, fos 1–8. The TsGAOR Director recommended translation of the files into Russian so they would be more immediately accessible to Russian security agencies.

¹¹³ See Musatov, ‘Doklad o rabote TsGOA SSSR za 1946 god’, GA RF, 5325/2/1640, fo. 92.

¹¹⁴ Musatov to Nikitinskii, 8 March 1947, GA RF, 5325/2/1946, fo. 24-v. Golubtsov to Kuz'min, 31 Jan. 1947, fos 12–13; he quotes the concluding sentence from his earlier report, ‘Ob“iasnitel'naia zapiska’, 11 Dec. 1946, fo. 29. Nikitinskii was obliged to explain to the Foreign Ministry, 2 April 1947, fo. 28, that they could receive the materials only as soon as they got more space.

¹¹⁵ From sources currently available and records in the TsKhIDK it has not been possible to substantiate this rumour.

¹¹⁶ There were complaints about the quality of opisi in Glavarkhiv reports from the early years of the archive, and the present author's experience of working there confirms this. In 1993, when a foreign publisher was interested in preparing complete microfiche editions of all of the opisi in the archive, the staff and current director turned the project down due to the poor quality of the opisi, which they naturally felt would reflect adversely on the professional staff. The present author was brought in as a consultant and had to agree with their decision; besides poor-quality Russian opisi of German- or French-language records might not be considered as commercially viable a project as the prospective publisher had anticipated. It is to be hoped that when the records are returned to their countries of origin, the files will be more appropriately arranged and more professional finding aids will be prepared.

¹¹⁷ Musatov, ‘Doklad o rabote TsGOA SSSR za 1946 god’, GA RF, 5325/2/1640, fos 80–87.

¹¹⁸ These materials, together with the RZIA materials, were all listed in a ‘secret’ classified guide published in 1952, before they were further scattered to over thirty different archives and library collections in different parts of the USSR. Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii i sotsialisticheskogo stroitel'stva: Putevoditel’, vol. 2, ed. N.R. Prokopenko (Moscow: GAU, 1952).

¹¹⁹ Musatov to Nikitinskii, 12 June 1947, GA RF, 5325/6/1946, fos 49–51, with a pencilled order to Kuz''min, 12 June 1947, to prepare a special communication for Kruglov. As was explained, the fond also contained executive office records of Frederick Adler and original autograph letters of Babel and Kautsky, among others, including those seized from Brussels and were described in an ERR report, Berlin, 4 Dec. 1941, TsDAVO, 3676/2/1, fo. 1.

¹²⁰ These figures are based on precise lists (data as of 11 Feb. 1993) furnished to me by the deputy director of the Bremen Stadtsarchiv. During most of its stay in the USSR, most of the Hanseatic archives were held in the secret division of what is now the Russian State Archive of Early Acts, RGADA (formerly the Central State Archive of Early Acts, TsGADA). However, the charters (at least those from Bremen) were separated from the rest of the collection and held in the Saltykov-Shchedrin State Public Library in Leningrad, as is apparent from identifying markings on the containers with which they were returned to Bremen (although Bremen archivists had no knowledge of the fact). Two Bremen charters have recently been identified as part of the Tikhomirov Collection in Novosibirsk. See also Hartmut Müller, ‘“… for safekeeping” Bremer Archivschutsmassnahmen im Zweiten Weltkrieg und ihre Folgen’, in Bremisches Jahrbuch, Vol. 66, Festschrift for Wilhelm Lührs and Klaus Schwarz, (1988), 409–22.

¹²¹ See Ella Maksimova, ‘Piat dnei v Osobom arkhive’, Izvestiia, nos 49–53, 17–21 Feb. 1990 (which started with an interview with the then director, Anatoli S. Prokopenko, who was severely reprimanded for the revelations). A notice by Maksimova, , ‘Arkhivnyi detektiv’, Izvestiia, no. 177, 24 June 1989Google Scholar, was the first mention of the archive in print in connection with the transfer of Auschwitz (Oświęcim) records to the Red Cross (see n. 132). The present author was refused access to the archive until the spring of 1993.

¹²² See the interview with Grimsted, P.K. by Evgenii Kuz'min, ‘Vyvezti … unichtozhit' … spriatat’ … Sud ‘by trofeinykh arkhivov’, Literatumaia gazeta, no. 39, 2 Oct. 1991, 13.Google Scholar Publication of the interview was delayed for almost a year and was allowed into print only after Aug. 1991. A few details were mentioned in Grimsted, P.K., ‘Beyond Perestroika: Soviet Area Archives After the August Coupx’, American Archivist, Vol. 55, no. 1 (1992), 94–124CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and idem, ‘The Fate of Ukrainian Cultural Treasures’, 72–9.

¹²³ A week after the Kuz'min interview (see n. 122), in a follow-up interview with Ella Maksimova, the former director of the Special Archive, Prokopenko, A.S., confirmed and expanded on the holdings in the Special Archive. ‘Arkhivy Frantsuzskoi razvedki skryvali na Leningradskom shosse’, Izvestiia, no. 240, 3 Nov. 1991.Google Scholar See also the subsequent popularised article by Prokopenko, A.S., ‘Dom osobogo naznacheniia (Otkrytie arkhivov)’, Rodina, no. 3 (1992), 50–1.Google Scholar By that time, Prokopenko had been promoted as one of the deputy directors of Rosarkhiv. See also the interview with him regarding his departure, ‘Proshchanie s Osobym arkhivom’, Novoe vremia, no. 11 (1991), 46–7.

¹²⁴ See, for example, Baskakov, E.G. and Shablovskii, E.G., ‘Vozvrashchenie arkhivnykh materialov, spasennykh Sovetskoi Anniei’, Istoricheskii arkhiv, no. 5 (1958), 175–9.Google Scholar An unpublished 1969 Glavarkhiv report made available to the present author lists over two million files by country of origin. ‘Spravka o dokumental'nykh materialakh, peredannykh pravitel'stvam inostrannykh gosudarstv’, type script with handwritten corrections added and signed by V.V. Tsaplin (13 Feb. 1969). These figures do not take into account archival materials and manuscript treasures restituted by libraries under other controlling agencies such as the German and Polish materials restituted in 1957 by the Manuscript Division of the Lenin State Library and the Library of Moscow State University.

¹²⁵ Details of these returns were related to me by the former Head of the Manuscript Division, Sara Vladimirovna Zhitomirskaia, although full details were never published. See the account of the return of the Dresden Gallery (together with analysis of the fabricated story about its ‘rescue’) by Akinsha and Kozlov, Beautiful Loot, 192–202. The transport to Moscow is described on 125–32.

¹²⁶ ‘Peredacha dokumentov Natsional'nomu arkhivu Frantsiiz’, Voprosy arkhivovedeniia, no. 6 (1960), 107. These files had also been ‘rescued by the Soviet Army’. There was an additional small transfer to France in 1966.

¹²⁷ Details about the restitution of seized records to China have not been published, but they are confirmed (without citation to appropriate documentation) in an article by Rosarkhiv Chairman Kozlov, V.P., ‘Zarubezhnaia arkhivnaia Rossika’, Novaia inoveishaia istoriia, no. 3 (1994), 21ff.Google Scholar

¹²⁸ Kapran, M.Ia., ‘Mezhdunarodnoe sotrudnichestvo sovetskikh arkhivistov’, Sovetskie arkhivy, no. 3 (1968), 33.Google Scholar Other restitution is mentioned to and from socialist countries of Eastern Europe, including Poland and Czechoslovakia.

¹²⁹ Tikhvinskii, S.L., ‘Pomoshch' Sovetskogo Soiuza drugim gosudarstvam v vossozdanii natsional'nogo arkhivnogo dostoianiia’, Sovetskie arkhivy, no. 2 (1979), 11–16.Google Scholar Again, most went back to GDR and other Eastern-bloc countries.

¹³⁰ See the report by Schmidt, Wolfram, ‘Übernahme von Archivgut aus der UdSSR’, Archivmitteilungen, Vol. 39, no. 5 (1989), 179–80.Google Scholar

¹³¹ ‘Vozvrashchenie ganzeiskikh arkhivov’, Sovetskie arkhivy, no. 1 (1991), 111. See also E[vgenii] Kuz'min, ‘Netrofeinaia istoriia’, Literatumaia gazeta, no. 41, 11 Oct. 1990, 10; Literary Gazette International, no. 17, Nov. 1990, 6.

¹³² The microfilm transfer was noted by Maksimova, ‘Arkhivnyi detektiv’, Izvestiia, no. 177, 24 April 1989.

¹³³ See, for example, the statement to this effect by Roskomarkhiv Chairman Pikhoia R.G. in an interview by Shavrov, A.V., ‘Sotrudnichestvu s zarubezhnymi partnerami – ravnopravnuiu osnovu’, Otechestvennye arkhivy, no. 2 (1992), 15.Google Scholar See also Grimsted, ‘Beyond Perestroika’, American Archivist, 108–9.

¹³⁴ Wegner, Bernd, ‘Deutsche Aktenbestände im moskauer Zentralen Staatsarchiv. Ein Erfahrungsbericht’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 40, no. 2 (1992), 311–19Google Scholar; Jena, Kai von and Lenz, Wilhelm, ‘Die deutschen Bestände im Sonderarkhiv in Moskau’, Der Archivar, Vol. 45, no. 3 (1992), 457–67.Google Scholar See also the German research report by Wolfgang Form and Pavel Poljan, ‘Das Zentrum für die Aufbewahrung historisch-documentarischer Sammlungen in Moskau – ein Erhahrungsbericht’, Informationen aus der Forschung, Bundesinstitut für ostwissenschaftliche und internationale Studien (Cologne), Vol. 20, no. 7 (1992), 1–8.

¹³⁵ A survey of Belgian holdings was compiled by Wouter Steenhaut and Michel Vermote from the Archives and Museum of the Socialist Labour Movement in Ghent (Archief en Museum van de Socialistische Arbeidersbeweging), AMSAB Tijdingen, n.s. 16 (1992), extra number, Mission to Moscow. Belgische socialistische archieven in Rusland.

¹³⁶ Browder, George C., ‘Captured German and Other Nations’, documents in the Osoby (Special) Archive, Moscow’, Central European History, Vol. 24, no. 4 (1992), 424–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹³⁷ Götz Aly and Susanne Heim, Das Zentrale Staatsarchiv in Moskau ( ‘Sonderarchiv’): Rekonstruktion und Bestandsverzeichnis verschollen geglaubten Schriftguts aus der NS-Zeit (Düsseldorf: Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, 1992).

¹³⁸ Fondy bel'giiskogo proiskhozhdeniia: Annotirovannyi ukazatel’, TsKhIDK, Institut vseobshchei istorii RAN, comp. T.A. Vasil'eva and A.S. Namazova, ed. M.M. Mukhamedzhanov (Moscow: Rosarkhiv, 1995). There is no reference to the earlier 1992 Steenhaut and Vermote survey cited above (n. 135), nor is there any documentation about the acquisition of the materials (the brief prefatory explanation is not entirely accurate). Unfortunately, institutional and personal names are cited only in the Russian language. A Flemish edition is in press.

¹³⁹ ‘TsPA: “Million dokumentov dostupen issledovateliam”’, Voprosy istorii KPSS, no. 5 (1990), 48–9. The trophy materials, including the Lassalle papers, were also mentioned by Shepelev, V.N., ‘Tsentral'nyi partiinyi arkhiv otkryvaet svoi fondy (informatsiia dlia issledovatelia)’, Sovetskie arkhiv, no. 4 (1990), 29–31.Google Scholar A major part of the Lassalle collection had been carefully described in its pre-war location in the Reichsarchiv (Potsdam). ‘Repertorium zu dem Nachlass Ferdinand Lassalles Reichsarchiv A VI 1 La Nr 1’, compiled by Alexander Bein, typescript (Potsdam, 1930), copies of which are available in RTsKhIDNI and IISH. As Kitaev noted, the Lassalle papers had already been used in the USSR for several published studies and dissertations.

¹⁴⁰ A provisional list of IISH materials in Moscow is available in IISH (Amsterdam).

¹⁴¹ Regarding the 1992 agreement to return the Dutch materials, see ‘Scripta Manent’, Bulletin of Central and East-European Activities, International Institute of Social History, no. 2 (1992), 3–4; ‘Semper Manent’, ibid., no. 3 (1992), 4. According to Rosarkhiv, the agreement was subject to confirmation by the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation, but that confirmation was never received.

¹⁴² See the published catalogue of the Moscow library exhibit, Katalog vystavki nemetskikh trofeinnykh knig iz fondov VGBIL, comp. and ed. E.E. Eikhman et al. (Moscow: ‘Rudomino’, 1992).

¹⁴³ Tentoonstellingscatalogus van de boeken uit het fonds van de VGBIL aanhorig bij de Nederlandse bezitters Amsterdam, Universiteitsbibliiotheek, September 1992, comp. M.F. Pronina, L.A. Terechova, N.I. Tubeieva and E.E. Eichman, ed. M.F. Pronina (Moscow: ‘Rudomino’, 1992). See n. 8.

¹⁴⁴ See the Russian version cited in n. 76, Restitutsiia bibliotechnykh sobranii. The German version appeared earlier, Restitution von Bibliotheksgut. Runder Tisch deutscher und russischer Bibliothekare in Moskau am 11. 12. Dezember 1992 = Zeitschrift für Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie, Vol. 56, ed. Klaus-Dieter Lehmann and Ingo Kolasa (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1993.

¹⁴⁵ ‘Soglashenie arkhivnykh sluzhb Rossii i Pol'shi’, Otechestvennye arkhivy, no. 4 (1992), 120–1.

¹⁴⁶ The press interpreted the incident as a political ploy that should have happened long ago. See, for example, Valerii Masterov, ‘Reshenie o rasstrele prinimalos' v TsK’, and Gevorkian, Nataliia, ‘Zakrytye arkhivy v otkrytoi bor'be’, Moskovskie novosti, no. 43, 25 Oct. 1992, 9.Google Scholar See also ‘skandal’ by Elin, Lev, ‘Troe s paketom v Kremle – Katynskie igry’, Novoe vremia, no. 43, Oct. 1992, 12–14Google Scholar Eng. version, ‘Three men in the Kremlin and a package – Katyn: murder will out’, New Times International, no. 44, Oct. 1992, 30–2. See the Moscow report on Warsaw's reactions by Vladimir Kiryianov, ‘Imena opekunov sovetskikh sekretnykh arkhivov stali izvestny v Varshave’, Rossiiskie vesti, no. 83, 4 Oct. 1992, 1, and the interview on the subject with Polish President Lech Walesa by Boretskii, Rudolf, ‘Katynskii krest na kommunizme’, Novoe vremia, no. 44, Oct. 1992, 22–3Google Scholar, Eng. version, ‘The Katyn cross on communism's tombs’, New Times International, no. 45, Oct. 1992, 26–7. See also the retrospective analysis by Tolz, Vera, ‘The Katyn Documents and the CPSU Hearings’, RFE/RL Research Report, Vol. 1, no. 44 (Nov. 1992), 27–33.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁷ Laurent Chabrun, ‘La France retrouve ses archives secrètes’, Le Parisien, 4 Sept. 1992, 8; Jacques Isnard and Michel Tatu, ‘Moscou accepte de restituer 20 tonnes de documents des Deuxièmes bureaux’, Le Monde, 14 Nov. 1992, 6. See also Thierry Wolton, ‘L'histoire de France dormait à Moscou’ (interview with Anatoli Prokopenko), L'Express, 21 Nov. 1991, 82–3. See also ‘Les archives secrètes du 2è Bureau sont demandées une nouvelle fois à la Russie par Paris’, Le Monde, 13 Feb. 1992.

¹⁴⁸ TsKhIDK officials claim that over ninety per cent of the French holdings have been returned, but French officials quote a lower figure with a discrepancy of at least twenty per cent of the materials that were to be covered by the agreement. Neither of these estimates, however, includes the archival materials of French provenance that were transferred to other archives, but a thorough inventory of such holdings has yet to be prepared.

¹⁴⁹ See the official transcript of the Federal'noe Sobranie, parlament Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Biulleten’, no. 34, Zasedaniia Gosudarstvennoi Dumy, 20 maia 1994 goda (Moscow, 1994), 4, 26–33. A transcript of the June hearings is still not available. Regarding the issue of the Smolensk Archive and for an analysis of the Russian parliamentary discussion, see Grimsted, Odyssey of the Smolensk Archive, 84–7.

¹⁵⁰ See, for example, ‘Taina “Gotskoi biblioteki”’, Pravda, 11 May 1994, 1, 3; ‘Gotskaia biblioteka, kazhetsia, gotova k otpravke v Germaniiu – Knigi to pakuiut to raspakovyvaiut–, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 6 May 1994, 5. The full page coverage under that title included articles on restitution by two members of the State Commission on Restitution, Deputy Ministry of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoi and lawyer Mark Boguslavskii, as well as comments by Aleksandr Sevast'ianov, representing the Associations of Libraries, Museums and Archives, and Savelii Iamshchikov, Director of the Russian Association of Restoration workers.

¹⁵¹ ‘Polozheniie ob Arkhivnom fonde Rossiiskoi Federatsii’: Ob utverzhdenii – Ukaz Prezidenta RF of 17 marta 1994 g., no. 552’, Sobranie aktov Prezidenta i Pravitel’ stva RF, no. 3 (1994), st. 189 (§ I.1). This conceptualisation of Russian pretensions to archival materials of foreign provenance now held in Russia could further complicate restitution, given current Russian legal arguments which would consider a Soviet ‘decree’ or government order as a de facto legal instrument.

¹⁵² Evgenii Stroev, ‘Pora poniat’ – My nikomu nichego ne dolzhny’, Rossiiskaia gazeta, 4 Aug. 1994. Stroev is a RAN Academician and is Chairman of the Committee for Questions of Science, Culture and Education of the Council of the Federation.

¹⁵³ See the earlier article by Irina Antonova, ‘My nikomu nichego ne dolzhny, Eshche raz o vozvrate kul'tumykh tsennostei’, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 5 May 1994. The promised catalogue of the 1995 Pushkin Museum ‘Twice Saved’ exhibit was never published.

¹⁵⁴ ‘Skandal, ne dostoinyi Rossii’, headlines separate articles by Iurii Kovalenko (Paris) and Ella Maksimova (Moscow), Izvestiia, no. 172, 8 Sept. 1994, 5. The articles mention details of some of the archival Rossica presented to Russia in connection with the restitution process.

¹⁵⁵ Konstantin Akinsha and Grigorii Kozlov, ‘To Return or Not to Return’, Art News, Oct. 1994, 154–9. See also Sylvia Hochfield, ‘The Russians Renege’, Art News, Summer 1994, 68.

¹⁵⁶ Rossiiskaia Federatsiia, Federal'nyi zakon, proekt: ‘O prave sobstvennosti na kul'turnye tsennosti, peremeshchennye na territoriiu Rossiiskoi Federatsii v resul'tate Vtoroi mirovoi voiny’, Prilozhenie k postanovleniiu Soveta Federatsii Federal'nogo Sobraniia RF of 23 marta 1995 goda, no. 405-I-SF. See the revised version as passed by the Duma on 5 July 1996.

¹⁵⁷ Federal'nyi zakon, proekt, ‘O zashchite kul'turnogo dostoianiia Rossii v vooruzhennykh konfliktakh’. The draft and accompanying memorandum were prepared by the Institut analiza i upravleniia konfliktami i stabil'nost'iu (IAUKS).

¹⁵⁸ Vladimir Vishniakov, ‘Krov'i zoloto’ (interview with Vladimir Teteriatnikov), Pravda, 16 May 1995, 1, 4. See the citation to Teteriatnikov, ‘Cold War’, reaction to the Bard symposium in Pravda mentioned at the outset (n. 9).

¹⁵⁹ Shvydkoi was quoted in a two-part commentary on the present debate in Moskovskii komsomolets, 7 June 1995, 2: Marina Ovsova and Anna Kovaleva, ‘Vse ob”iavliaiu moim: Duma v dvukh chastiakhc’ part 1, ‘U deputatov zabolela golovka’. See also the criticism of government opposition by Vladimir Teteriatnokov, ‘Zakon obuzdaet chinovnikov’, Pravda, 13 June 1995, 2.

¹⁶⁰ Evgenii Sidorov, ‘U Zolota Shlimana ne mozhet byt’ “khoziaina”, Ne politicheskie spekulianty, a zakon i zdravyi smysl dolzhny reshit’ sud'bu peremeshchennykh tsennostei’, Izvestiia, no. 159, 25 Aug. 1995, 9.

¹⁶¹ Teteriatnikov, Vladimir, ‘Ograbiat li vnoz’ russkii narod? Tragicheskaia sud ‘ba kul'tumykh tsenostei, peremeshchen resul'tate Vtoroi mirovoi voiny’, Pravda, no. 73, 22 May 1996, 4.Google Scholar

¹⁶² The intense and bitter German reaction to the Duma passage of the law is portrayed in the report from Germany by Valentin Zapevalov, ‘Igra v ambitsii: na konu bol'shie kul'tumye tsennosti’, Literatumaia gazeta, no. 32, 7 Aug. 1996, 9, although it was not published until after the law had been rejected by the upper house.

¹⁶³ See the text of the deliberations, Sovet Federatsii Federal ‘nogo Sobraniia, Zasedanie deviatoe, Biulleten’, no. 1 (107), 17 July 1996, 53–63. Quotations cited are respectively from presidential representative Anatolii la. Sliva (p. 61), Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei B. Krylov (p. 61), A.S. Beliakov (p. 58), Chief of the Administration of Rostov Oblast, Vladimir F. Chub (p. 62) and Deputy Head of the Committee on Culture of the Duma, Nikolai N. Gubienko (pp. 60, 61).

¹⁶⁴ For example, the article by Elena Skvortsova, ‘Zalozhniki obeshchannykh kreditov: Rossiiskie parlamentarii, pokhozhe, igraiut na strorone nemtsev’, Obshaia Gazeta, no. 29, 25–31 July 1996, 7, insinuates that, following strong German protests about the law, the Russian legislature was bargaining for increased German credits. The importance of German pressure in the reversal of the law is also emphasised by Alan Cowell, ‘Heated Bonn–Moscow Debate about Art: Prize or Plunder’, NYT, 26 July 1996.

¹⁶⁵ Sidorov, ‘U Zolota Shlimana ne mozhet byt’ “khoziaina”’.

¹⁶⁶ Nikolai Alekseevich Sokolov (1882–1924) had been an official investigator of the fate of the imperial family, but then fled abroad. The Sokolov materials are described in the catalogue, “The Romanovs: Documents and Photographs relating to the Russian Imperial House,” initially offered at auction in London, 5 April 1990 (London: Sotheby's, 1990). Some of the documents were published in Sokolov's account in French, Enquete judiciare sur l'assassinat de la famille impériale russe avec les preuves, les interrogatoires et les dépositions des témoins et des accusés, 5 plans et 83 photographies documentaires inédites (Paris: Payot, 1924; “Collection de mémoires, études et documents pour servir à l'historie de la guerre mondiale”) and in Russian, Ubiistvo Tsarskoi sem'i ([Berlin]: Slovo, 1925). Other copies of Sokolov's notebooks, in varying degrees of completeness or fragments, are now scattered in various foreign repositories, including Houghton Library at Harvard University.

¹⁶⁷ See the transcript of the Duma session of 13 June 1996 (p. 59), and the official ‘Postanovlene Gosudarstvennoi Dumy – ob obmene arkhivnykh dokumentov Kniazheskogo doma Likhtenshtein, peremeshennykh posle okanchaniia Vtoroi mirovoi voiny na territoriiu Rossii, na arkhivnye dokumenty o rassledovanii obstoiatel'stv gibeli Nikolaia II i chlenov ego sem'i (arkhiv N.A. Sokolova)’, 13 June 1996, no. 465-II GD. The Duma vote was 305 to 1, with 144 abstensions. Indicative of the public criticism is the article by Natal'ia Vdovina, “Prizraki trofeinogo arkhiva: Kniaz' fon Likhtenshtein, shtabs-kapitan Sokolov i deputaty Gosdumy RF,” Rossiiskie vesti, no. 186 (2 October 1996): 1–2, which argued that the “ill-conceived exchange” involves a “tremendous detriment to Russian security, economy, and prestige.” As of the end of 1996, the exchange had not taken place, despite the official diplomatic agreement signed 3 September 1996 by Russian Foriegn Minister Ievgenii Primakov and Prince Hans Adam II of Liechtenstein.

¹⁶⁸ Regarding the status of the Second World War in Soviet/Russian official propaganda and popular cognisance, see Nina Tumarkin's essay, ‘The Great Patriotic War as Myth and Memory’, The Atlantic, no. 267, June 1991, 26–31. Tumarkin's recent book, The Living and The Dead: The Rise and Fall of the Cult of World War II in Russia (New York: Basic Books, 1994), expands her analysis on a personal memoir basis. See also Tumarkin's essay, ‘The War of Remembrance’, in Stites, Richard, ed., Culture and Entertainment in Wartime Russia (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995), 194–207Google Scholar, along with a number of other insightful essays in that collection.

¹⁶⁹ Lyndel V. Prott, currently Chief, International Standards Section, division of Physical Heritage of the UNESCO secretariat, earlier chaired the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation. Her recommendations, as presented at the Bard symposium, were summarised in the Wall Street Journal and are now published in full in the proceedings.

¹⁷⁰ Initial publication in the Conseil International des Archives/International Council on Archives, Bulletin, no. 43 (1994), 14–15. CITRA Resolution 1: The XXX International conference of the Round Table on Archives, Considering that it is in the interests of all peoples that solutions be found to disputed claims arising from the displacement of archives as a result of the Second World War and of the process of decolonisation, reaffirms the mission of archives in guaranteeing every nation's right to historical continuity, recalls the accepted archival principles that archives are inalienable and imprescriptible, and should not be regarded as ‘trophies’ or objects of exchange, confirms the support of the archival community for the principles embodied in the report of the Director General to the 20th session of the General Conference of UNESCO (20C/102) … expresses the wish that relevant intergovernmental organisations, in particular the United Nations, UNESCO and the Council of Europe, support, with their member States, non-governmental initiatives intended to settle disputed claims and reconstitute the historical heritage of each nation.