Harvard Library's Slavic Blog

The new Harvard Library online LibGuide Soviet history: archival resources at Harvard university library and archives is now published. This guide contains a list of Harvard-owned archival materials documenting the history of the Soviet Union. It is arranged chronologically and by topic/provenance.

The guide brings together primary sources that vary in scope and format. Many materials listed are microform copies of archives of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and other government organizations. The originals of these documents reside in Russian and other archives around the world.

The LibGuide also lists a substantial number of personal manuscript collections, including the papers of Leon Trotsky and other Revolutionary leaders as well as the papers of numerous Soviet dissidents, including Andrei Sakharov.

The guide also includes resources available in electronic format, either exclusively (like the Stalin Digital Archive) or along with the original paper documents (like the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System or some ephemera collections).

Special sections of the guide are dedicated to Ukrainian, Judaica and Western archival resources related to the Soviet history.

(This text was written in collaboration with Svetlana Rukhelman, Davis Center Collection)