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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: C-8

Last update of repository: 14 March 2020

Tsentral'nyi arkhiv Ministerstva vnutrennikh del RF (Tretii otdel Tsentra reabilitatsii zhertv politicheskikh repressii i arkhivnoi informatsii Glavnogo informatsionno-analiticheskogo tsentra MVD RF) (TsA MVD Rossii)


Holdings

Total: 113 fonds, (3 fonds unarranged), 128,349 units, 1920s–present (some files starting in 1918)

The archive retains records of the NKVD–MVD RSFSR (1918–1966) as well as those of the all-union NKVD–MVD (to 1960) and subsequently the Ministry for the Protection of Public Order (Ministerstvo okhrany obshchestvennogo poriadka—MOOP) of the USSR (1966–1991). The bulk of its holdings date from 1955 to the present, since many earlier records have been transferred to state archival custody. All these records, fonds, and collections have been accessioned to the archive from central organs of the MVD SSSR and RSFSR and the successive MOOP RSFSR and SSSR, together with records of their subordinate agencies. These include general institutional records, statistical materials, dossiers on former officials who served in central and subordinate divisions of the ministry, criminal files, and records of operational activities of the MVD RF and its predecessors.
        At the heart of the MVD archive are a series of reference card files maintained by the Main Information Center that are estimated to contain 25 million cards on arrested and/or incarcerated individuals in a single alphabetic index, dating from 1918 to the present. There are, however, distinctions within the files depending on the nature of the incarceration—prison, labor camp, or internal exile. The card file leads the archivist to appropriate files. There is also a centralized file of an estimated 17 million fingerprint cards. Additional card files are kept at the local level, but files for important cases, and usually those involving foreigners, are forwarded to the center. In some cases cards in the central file duplicate those retained locally.
        Separate groups of records (or fonds) are kept for persons convicted, persons “convicted and rehabilitated,&кdquo; and for those “repressed” (which usually was a euphemism for those put to death).

N.B. Many of the archival records, especially those produced by the central organs of the NKVD–MVD SSSR predating 1960, are held by GA RF (B–1), including the records of the Main Administration for Prisons and Labor Camps (GULAG). Some general economic relating records of several directorates are retained in RGAE (B–6). Records of the Main Administration for Prisoners of War and Internees of the MVD SSSR (GUPVI) are retained in TsKhIDK (now part of RGVA—B–8). Fonds of the commands, divisions, and units of the Internal and Convoy Troops (vnutrennie i konvoinye voiska) under the NKVD–MVD SSSR predating 1951, are maintained in RGVA (B–8). Post-1951 materials are held in the Central Archive of Internal Troops of MVD RF (C–9).


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted