Table of Contents
Available on campus, in California and online
Use SearchWorks to find published collections of documents as well archival collections in Stanford's and Hoover's archives. SearchWorks records for collections of documents often include the subject term "sources." So a search might look like this: [topic, geographic entity, or keywords from name of organization] sources. To find archival collections, try this search: [name of person or organization] papers. Some examples:
Hoover Archives » Stacks » 91014
A large archival collection retrieved with a search [name of organization] papers. Search was: Radio Liberty papers.
Woodbury, CT : Research Publications, 2001.
Media & Microtext Center » Ask at Media Microtext desk » MFILM N.S. 16486
181 microfilm reels + 690 microfiche + guide. Search terms: Soviet Communist history sources
London : printed for J. Read, in White-Fryars, MDCCXXXIX. [1739]
Stanford University Libraries » Online resource » eResource
E-book from subscription collection Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Search terms: Russia history Peter sources. (Names of rulers can be used to designate historical time periods.)
Sankt-Peterburg : Rossiĭskai͡a nat͡sionalʹnai͡a biblioteka, 2003.
Green Library » Stacks » DK106 .S67 2003
Series: Rukopis'nye pamiatniki. Search terms: Oprichnina sources
Kyïv : Vydavnychyĭ dim "Kyi͡evo-Mohyli͡ansʹka akademii͡a", 2008.
Green Library » Stacks » HC340.19 .Z9 F3775 2008 T.1
4 volumes of testimonies gathered by the Oral History Project of the Commission on the Ukraine Famine of 1932-1933. Search terms: Ukraine famine sources
Bloomington, IN : Indiana University Press, c2010.
Green Library » Stacks » DS327.3 .I75 2010
"[T]he first English-language anthology of primary documents for the study of Central Asian history." Search terms: Islam Central Asia sources
Moskva : Sov. pisatelʹ, 1982.
SAL3 (off-campus storage) » Stacks » D764.3.L4 A3 1982
Records for memoirs and diaries contain the term "personal narratives." Search terms: Saint Petersburg siege personal narratives. (Geographical names, if the place still exists, are tagged with their current names; thus Saint Petersburg as a search term instead of Leningrad.)
[Cambridge, MA] : Harvard College Library, [2008?]
Stanford University Libraries » Online resource » eResource
Primarily "summary transcripts of 705 interviews conducted with refugees from the USSR during the early years of the Cold War." In SearchWorks, interviews are tagged with the term "interviews." Search terms: Soviet Union social conditions interviews
Additional resources
A rich online archive of texts, images, maps and audio and video materials from the Soviet era (1917-1991). The materials are arranged by year and by subject, are fully searchable, and are translated into English.
Provides free access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 200 repositories throughout California. Use finding aids here to learn what is in collections and which boxes to examine. (Not all California collections are listed here, though.)
Selected digitized Russian books, maps and primary source materials from 19th and early 20th centuries. Site is entirely in Russian.
Can I get it on interlibrary loan?
How to get access to material that Stanford does not have.
If Stanford doesn't have an item, you can often get it on interlibrary loan. BUT if what you need is a book and it's 2 years old or less, ask me to order it for our library instead.
Collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. Look here especially if a book or journal was published before 1923. Such material is out of copyright in the US, meaning you could have access to the full text online.
Check here to see if a library in North America has it. If you find a record for it, click on the holdings link. Note if Berkeley has it. If Berkeley does not, copy the Accession Number from the bottom of the record. Put "WorldCat" and the Accession Number into the interlibrary borrowing form.
Same huge multi-library database as above, with different interface.
UC Berkeley libraries' online catalog. If WorldCat shows that Berkeley has your item, check here to make sure it's available now. Copy their call number into the RLCP form.
If Not Available on Interlibrary Loan
If WorldCat doesn't have your item or it just isn't available, I may be able to get it for you from one of our exchange partner libraries in Russia. That process is likely to take at least 6 months. Try these:
If you find it in one of this library's several online catalogs and want me to try to get for you on exchange, send me the catalog record. It would come as a photocopy or microfilm, and there would be no charge to you.
This service will get you material more quickly than requesting it through me, but you will need pay for it. Prices are not terribly high. Check the Russian National Library's catalog (see entry above) before using the service.
Our exchange relations with this library are not as good as with the Russian National Library have been, but we can try. Send me the catalog record with your request.
Russian archives and their holdings
Many archival guides can be found through the sources listed below. Some are online. If not, look in SearchWorks. Use the whole name of the archive, not its abbreviation. You may be able to request a copy of a document from the U.S., but you would almost certainly need to pay for it. For more extensive use of an archive, you will need to travel to Russia.
Brief online guide to the subject by a history professor. Includes many links, not only to archival sites, but also to additional material like terminology related to archival organization. Very helpful. Find books referred to in the guide at Stanford using SearchWorks.
Developed by Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, this is an English-language version of Портал Архивы России (see entry below), but organized differently and including additional material and a search engine. Архивы России itself is likely to be more up-to-date for service hours and contact information.
From Федеральное архивное агенство (Росархив). Up-to-date site covering many types of archives, not only those administered by Rosarkhiv. Coverage is best for those under Rosarkhiv, as one might expect.
Search engine does not work like Google's: use AND between terms if you want both of them to appear in what you retrieve. Click on the name of an archive to see which guides to it were digitized.
European archives and their holdings
Access to information on archival material from several European countries. Search holdings of more than one archive at once. (Not all countries are included yet.)
Links to websites of the National or State Archives of the 25 Member States of the European Union.
Links to websites of many national archives, including several outside of European Union and even outside of Europe. From European Board of National Archivists.
Can't find it? Try these search engines, link sites, etc.
Find additional sources using search engines, link sites, guides and bibliographies (online and in paper).
Link site from Duke University's Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies and Slavic and East European Language Resource Center.
Collection of useful links from Slavic-Eurasian Research Center of Hokkaido University.
Large, attractive and well-organized site from Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, Univesity of Texas at Austin.
Search engine from Center for Russian & East European Studies, University of Pittsburgh. All subjects, with emphasis on humanities and social sciences.
From Berlin State Library, financed by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Interface, instructions and description in German, Russian or English, although German version is most complete. Large, sophisticated database with a variety of ways to retrieve information. All social sciences and humanities subjects, but emphasis is on languages and literatures of the region.
From a partnership of several libraries & research institutes in Germany and beyond, financed by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Interface, instructions and description in German, Russian or English. Large, sophisticated database covering social sciences and humanities subjects, with emphasis on history and social sciences.
Selected digitized Russian books, maps and primary source materials from 19th and early 20th centuries. Site is entirely in Russian.
Thousands of Cyrillic pre-1917 books digitized by Google. Subjects include history, archeology, geography, ethnography, philology, linguistics, genealogy, philosophy.
See particularly the many Research Guides compiled about most of the countries and many subjects.
Thorough guide to Soviet and Russian reference works through 1984. The online 1999 expanded edition will be available again shortly.
Find IGO websites.
Find NGO websites.
This was a large, well-organized site created by Eric Herron while he was at the University of Kansas. Although the 2012 version on the Web Archive's WayBack Machine is now a bit out-of-date, it still includes many valid links to government offices, NGOs, institutes, news sources, political parties, etc.
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