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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: F-10

Last update of repository: 15 March 2020

Nauchno-informatsionnyi tsentr “Memorial” v Sankt-Peterburge (NITs “Memorial” SPb)


Sankt-Peterburgskii Arkhiv-kollektsiia netraditsionnykh periodicheskikh izdanii i dokumentov obshchestvennykh dvizhenii — Alekseevskii Arkhiv”
[St. Petersburg Archive-Collection of Nontraditional Periodicals and Documents of Social Movements—Alekseev Archive”]

Address: 191002, St. Petersburg, ul. Rubinshteina, 23

Telephone: +7 812 572-23-11, +7 812 575-58-61

Fax: +7 812 572-23-11

Website: http://www.memorial-nic.org/alarch


Holdings

The archive retains a collection from the recent press of Russia and the former Soviet republics (about 4,500 different periodical titles issued after 1985, including about 1,000 samizdat imprints); a collection of documents of many non-governmental associations and mass movements of various political and socio-cultural orientation, which developed during the last decade of the Soviet era and which have mushroomed in Russia and neighboring countries (former union republics) since the collapse of the USSR; and a collection of press clippings from periodicals in Russian and foreign languages.
        The recent (post-1985) press collection includes ongoing and suspended periodicals. These include more than 1,000 imprints of samizdat (unofficial, uncensored, independent publications from the 1980s) and those editions which have not been officially registered after the “Law on the Press and other Mass Media” was enacted in 1990; about 500 quasi-legitimate press titles (i.e. nonregistered periodicals during the years 1986–1990 published within the framework of official institutions); about 3,000 legitimate press titles (i.e., publications started after the enactment of the 1990 “Law on the Press” and officially registered in accordance with it); and about 2,500 so-called “traditional” press titles (i. e. pre-1986 periodicals, some of which have changed their names). Represented to a greater extent are samizdatand new periodicals of St. Petersburg and Moscow, along with some regions of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic countries, and to a lesser extent—those of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Complexes of the most significant periodical publications of mass movements and political parties, as well as some of the rarest publications from the late 1980s and early 1990s, are nearly complete.
        The collection of documentation of social movements (originals and copies) and informational-analytical materials (late 1980s to the early 1990s), includes nonperiodical publications of or relating to social movements, as well as working documents of social associations and mass movements. There is a large collection of leaflets relating to election campaigns from 1989 to 1994, a considerable complex of documentary materials of recently established governmentalagencies, as well as personal papers of activists in social movements during the late 1980s. Accessions actively continue for the collection of informational-analytical materials related to social movements, political processes, and social change in the former USSR from 1986 to the present.
        The archive is constantly enlarging its holdings with new periodicals and filling its lacunae of individual issues in other serials. There is a fond of duplicates, including samizdat, for open access. Other duplicates are subject to sale or exchange.


History:
The archive, which had collected over half a million samizdat issues and related documentation on social movements, was organized in 1989 on the basis of private collections of scholars connected with the St. Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Sociology (SPbF IS RAN) and documentary materials of the Commission for the Study of Social Movements of the Leningrad (Northwest) Division of the Soviet Sociological Association. Technically outside the structure of the Institute, the Archive-Collection functions as a separate, nonprofit association of researchers within the Sector for Sociology of Social Movements, with the participation of the Group for the Study of the Dynamics of Mass Mentality, and the Group for Political Sociology of the SPbF IS RAN. The Archive serves as a scientific information base for research activities in the field of the sociology of mass movements and social change in Russia, undertaken by the Institute and other Russian and foreign research centers. The Archive continues to accession documentation through the subsidy of its organizers and regular users. It is administered by a Council of its organizers and main sponsors, who elect a Chairman.

Reference facilities:
All materials in the collection of recent press are systematized. Newspapers, journals, and books are recorded in alphabetic and subject catalogues (with rubrics for the sphere of activity, political orientation, and regional orientation). The collection of materials on social movements is still being arranged and described in thematic folders in groups of documents. An electronic catalogue of periodical publications is available electronically: http://www.memorial-nic.org/catalog.html.


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted