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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: C-2

Last update of repository: 14 March 2020

Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii (AVP RF)


Holdings

Total: 1,873 fonds, over 1,500,000 units, 1917–present
personal papers—ca. 150 fonds; photographs—5,250 units (1917–1988)

AVP RF retains the records of the Ministry (pre-1946–People's Commissariat) of Foreign Affairs from the period since 1917. A group of 30 fonds from 1918 through 1956 comprise the records of the secretariats of successive commissars and ministers: G.V. Chicherin (1918–1930), M.M. Litvinov (pseud. of Maks Vallach) (1930–1930), and V.M. Molotov (pseud. of Skriabin) (1939–1949), A.Ia. Vyshinskii (1949–1953), and again V.M. Molotov (1953–1956), their deputies (including L.M. Karakhan and N.N. Krestinskii), including their official diplomatic correspondence with foreign countries. Starting in 1957, the records of the Secretariat were organized into fonds along structural, functional, and subject lines. Part of the documentation consists of fonds of structural subdivisions of the Ministry.
        The archive stores the separate records of all Soviet embassies abroad. These include documentation of Soviet missions to international organizations, such as the Headquarters of the United Nations (New York), the European Branch of the United Nations (Geneva), and UNESCO (Paris). Consular records constitute a separate group of fonds. There is a group of fonds for MID (NKID) representatives in cities within the Russian Federation where foreign consulates are located (St. Petersburg, Syktyvkar, Nakhodka, and others). Another group of fonds contains records of Russian missions to the independent governments of Armenia, Azerbaidzhan, and Georgia (1918–1921) and representatives of the Russian Federation to Ukraine, Belorussia, and Central Asia.
        Special collections of records relate to various international conferences, including the peace conferences at Brest-Litovsk (1918) and Genoa (1922); conferences under the aegis of the League of Nations; the conferences of Teheran (1943), Yalta (1945), and Potsdam (1945); and the United Nations founding conference in San Francisco (1945), and some later ones. Separate fonds contain materials from the Nuremberg and Tokyo International Tribunals (see also B–1).
        The archive maintains a special collection of ciphered cables and telegrams (fond 059), which have been brought together from other groups of records, but are not normally open to researchers.
        The archive now maintains 139 fonds of personal papers of Soviet diplomatic officials, including their memoirs, private correspondence, and museum exhibits (medals, etc.).
        The special collection of treaties, agreements, and other official documents concluded with foreign countries are not normally accessible to researchers, but most of them have been published. There is also a separate collection of photographs.
        The Historical-Diplomatic Archive of MID comprises a large complex of documents within AVP RF, consisting of collections of photocopies of documents (xerox and microfilms) from foreign archives. Especially large collections have been acquired from the U.S. National Archives and the British Public Record Office.


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted