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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: E-27

Last update of repository: 15 March 2020

Sankt-Peterburgskii Institut istorii RAN (SPbII)


Nauchno-istoricheskii arkhiv
[Scientific-Historical Archive]

Telephone: +7 812 235-61-11

E-mail: [email protected]

Website: http://www.spbiiran.nw.ru/%D0%B0%D1%8...

Opening hours: Tu–Th 12:30–20:00 (closed July and August)

Head: Tat'iana Anatol'evna Bazarova (tel. +7 812 235-61-11)


Holdings
Russian Section—311 fonds and collections (over 164,000 units) (13th–20th cc.); Western European Section—ca. 80 fonds (over 24,000 units) (6th–20th cc.)

The Archive is divided into Russian (RS) and Western European (ZES) sections.

                Russian Section

The Russian Section contains many important institutional fonds, family and estate archives, and personal papers, dating principally from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. Approximately two-thirds of the Russian section were the legacy of materials collected by the Archeographic Commission during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (103 fonds). There are also the bulk of the extensive prerevolutionary collections of N.P. Likhachev (now divided into 86 fonds and several subsidiary collections). These include many records (some fragmentary) of central and local institutions of state government and administration from the sixteenth to the ninteenth centuries.
        Pre-Petrine records include scattered documentation of agencies of the central Muscovite government, including the Apothecary (Aptekarskii), Treasury (Bol'shaia kazna), and Armory (Pushkarskii prikaz), among others. There are also a number of records of the izby (offices) subordinate to prikazy (government bureaus), such as the military (voevodskie), estate (zemskie), and customs izby, and the izby in the tsarist family’s villages and volosts. There is an important collection of original charters and other documents from Ukrainian lands, including Polish charters from the sixteenth century and part of the so-called “Koshevoi” archive of the Zaporizhian Sich from the seventeenth century.
        Later records of imperial government and administration include documentation from the chancelleries of Arkhangel'sk (1710–1798) and Astrakhan (1719–1775) Guberniias, among others. Northwest Russia is particularly well represented, and there are a number of fonds relating to the Urals and Siberia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There are scattered materials from several collegia, and from various state administrations, chancelleries, palace institutions, and other offices. Within the military realm are a number of important groups of records, which now include the fonds of the Don Army (Voisko Donskoe) of the Chancellery of Army Affairs (1708–1848), and the eighteenth-century field chancelleries of A.D. Menshikov (1697–1723) and B.P. Sheremetev (1711–1722), among others. Documentation relating to economic development includes factory and bank records.
        A large complex of records consists of documentary materials from various monasteries (now comprising over 160 fonds), such as Aleksandrovo-Svirskii, Antoniev-Siiskii, Iverskii Valdaiskii, Kirillo-Belozerskii (the collection of N.K. Nikol'skii), Nikolaevskii Koriazhemskii, Solovetskii, Spaso-Prilutskii, Uspenskii Tikhvinskii, Fedorovskii Pereiaslavl'skii, and others. There are collections from the eparchial residencesof Vologda (collection of P.I. Savvaitov), Novgorod (Sofiia Cathedral), Ustiug, Kholmogory, and elsewhere; and from churches and cathedrals in Moscow, Iaroslavl, Kholmogory, and Ustiug. There is also some documentation of the Russian Orthodox and Uniate Churches in Western Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine (1381–1847) (or as they were known in the nineteenth century—Western Russia and South-Western Russia).
        There are also archival materials from several historical societies and commissions, such as the Society of Russian History and Antiquities (1826–1830), the Historical Society of St. Petersburg University, the Russian Imperial Historical Society (1866–1917), the Commission for Publishing the Collection of Charters of the Collegium of the Economy (Sbornik gramot Kollegii ekonomii), and the Russian Genealogical Society (1890–1923) among others.
        Estate (pomestno-votchinnye) fonds comprise documentation of major landowners—the Arkharov and Tobuzin families, the Buturlin, Divov, Kablukov, Kashkin, Krinitsyn, Menshikov, Obolenskii, Stroganov, Shuvalov, Vel'iaminov-Zernov, and Zagriazhskii families, among many others, as well as archives of landowners in a number of districts of Central and Western Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.
        There are fonds with documentation of Emperor Peter I and Empress Catherine II, and also personal papers of a number of Russian government and military leaders, such as A.A. Arakcheev, General B.P. Lassi, N.N. Novosil'tsev, G.A. Potemkin, and P.P. Tolstoi. There are major archives of the Balashov, Demidov, Gakkel', Somov, and Volkonskii families, among others.The extensive archives of several generations of the Vorontsov family include their private manuscript collection.
        The Archive holds many personal papers of scientists and scholars, including the historian-archeographers V.G. Anastasevich, D.N. Bantysh-Kamenskii, andP.A. Mukhanov; the numismatist I.A. Bartolomei; the historians I.A. Dovatur, A.E. Presniakov, and S.N. Valk; the genealogists A.A. Sivers and Iu.V. Tatishchev; the statistician A.A. Skal'kovskii; the Orientalist A.L. Kun (Kuhn); and the chemist I.Kh. Gamel'.
        Archival collections include charters and various other documents, manuscripts and manuscript books gathered by various institutions, such as the Archeographic Commission (including a collection of court record books and the P.M. Stroev collection), the Museum of the Russian Archeological Society, the Libraryof the Academy of Sciences, the Russian Genealogical Society, and the Treasury Chambers (kazennye palaty) in Kyiv and Novgorod. Of particular importance is a voluminous collection of pre-1613 charters and a collection of documents from the Chernihiv Guberniia Administration. The largest collection is that of N.P. Likhachev (12,340 units in the Russian part), including over 700 manuscript books, a collection of early charters, and a collection of 1,252 autographs, among a number of smaller subcollections. There are also several other important private collections ofhistorical documents and manuscripts, including those of P.N. Dobrokhotov, V.O. Kliuchevskii, A.S. Lappo-Danilevskii, and I.A. Shliapkin, among others. In addition there are some subject-related materials on historical events, institutions, and some territories. There are also a number of photographs.
        The list of fonds and collections of Russian section available on the website (in PDF): http://www.spbiiran.nw.ru/%d0%b0%d1%8....

                Western European section

The Western European section includes documents, letters, autographs and manuscript books of the sixth through the twentieth centuries in the Latin, English, Hungarian, Greek, Spanish,Italian, German, Polish, Portuguese, French, Swedish, Czech, Slovak, Serbian, and Croatian languages, arranged in fonds and collections on the basis of territorial provenance. Many of the materials were acquired as part of the collection of N.P. Likhachev (ca.80 fonds with over 24,000 units). Thereare documents originating from Western, Central, and Eastern European countries, from Mediterranean lands, as well as from India, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and the USA.
        The largest part of the Western Section pertains to the history of Italy (907–1911, with over 10,000 items), including official documents from Italian cities and provinces, letters from the archives of well-known Italian families, such as the Medicis and Sforzas, and an important collection of letters and autographs of Italian humanists, including Michelangelo and Torquato Tasso. The Papacy is represented with a collection of over 2,000 documents (1110–1914), including ca.600 papal bulls.
        There are also significant collections from France, including 985 French royal and private charters and other documents, from Louis VIII, François I, Henri IV, Cardinal Richelieu, and Napoleon Bonaparte, and a separate collection of letters of French scientists and writers (17th–19th cc.).
        Germany is represented by many early imperial charters, including an original charter of Emperor Otto I (969); letters and charters of bishops and archbishops (1027–1846) and religious leaders including Jan Hus and Martin Luther; deeds of municipal councils (such as Bremen and Lübeck); and letters of scientists and writers, including Heinrich Heine, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Immanuel Kant, and Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling.
        There are sizeable collections of diplomatic correspondence, including a collection of copies from Western European archives gathered for publication under the auspices of the Russian Historical Society.
        The collection onthe history of England includes an act of William the Conqueror (1087), and letters and autographs of Mary Stuart, Oliver Cromwell, Isaac Newton, and Charles Dickens.
        There is also a collection of manuscript books with rare manuscripts and fragments of codices. The earliest manuscript in the Western Section is a copy of three poems by Catullus which dates from the sixth century. There are some folios of a seventh-century parchment Gospel from the scriptorium of the Abbey of Corbie. There are significant South-Slavic manuscripts from the collection of the RussianArcheological Society in Constantinople.


Working conditions:
Materials are available in the reading room soon after they are ordered.

Reference facilities:
The Russian section has a catalogue of documents of Peter I (letters, ukazy, drawings, and plans, written in the hand of Peter I or signed by him—see e–263). Almost two-thirds of the opisi are in the form of card inventories. These is a separate card catalogue of letters in the Italian language.

Copy facilities:
There are facilities for preparing microfilm, photographs, and xerox copies. Copying is permitted with written agreement by the head of the archive. Orders can be placed only after payment. The archive does not permit copies of entire documents (only fragments), and does not copy opisi or documents in poor condition. Negatives of photographic copies and microfilms are not given to organizations or individuals.


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted