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Contact information • History • Holdings • Access & Facilities • Bibliography
ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: B-3Last update of repository: 2 December 2020Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv (RGIA)Holdings Total: 1,368 fonds, ca. 7,200,000 units, late 18th–early 20th cc. (a few documents 13th c.–1920s) institutional fonds—1,020 fonds (6,280,241 units); collections—35 fonds; personal papers—337 fonds (156,644 units); MS books—5,408 units; technical documentation—11 fonds (139,735 units) An annotated lists of all fonds and opisi are available on the RGIA website at: http://www.fgurgia.ru/search.do?objec.... RGIA holds the major records of high-level and central state and administrative institutions and agencies of the Russian Empire from the nineteenth century to 1917 (except the records of the Army, Navy, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Further consolidation bought additional fonds of pre-Revolutionary social organizations, institutions, and many prominent individuals. Among records of legislative bodies are those of the State Council (1810–1917), its departments and other committees, such as the Main Committee on Peasant Affairs (1858–1861), which prepared and examined laws, regulations, and other state acts, and those of the State Duma (1905–1917), the first Russian elected legislature. Most of these fonds had earlier been stored in the Archive of the State Council. Records of state executive agencies and administrative organs include fonds of the Committee of Ministers (1802–1906) and Council of Ministers (1857–1882; 1905–1917). Records of legal codification institutions of nineteenth-century Russia—involved with preparing and publishing Polnoe sobranie zakonov and Svod zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii—include those of the Codification Department of the State Council and the Code of Laws Department of the Chancery of State. One of the largest complex of fonds is that of the former Archive of the Governing Senate (Arkhiv Pravitel'stvuiushchego Senata) (1711–1917). Part of its eighteenth-century records (mainly those of Senate Commissions that existed prior to 1802), were transferred to what is RGADA in Moscow at different times, but many eighteenth-century records are retained in RGIA; similarly many nineteenth-century Senate records previously held in Moscow were transferred to Leningrad and are now held in RGIA. The fond of the Special Office on Political Affairs was transferred to Moscow and is now held in GA RF. Senate fonds, some of which were transferred from Moscow, contain imperial edicts (ukazy), administrative correspondence with provincial governors, records of senatorial inspectors for various provinces, and criminal, petition, and appeal files for practically all categories of population. The fond of the Senate Heraldry Department (1725–1917) and the Collection of Charters, Diplomas, and Patents of Nobility contain vast complexes of genealogical documentation pertaining to noble ranks and titles. Fonds of the Holy Synod (1721–1918) (Arkhiv Sviateishego pravitel'stvuiushchego Sinoda), the supreme administrative, judicial, and cultural organs of the Russian Orthodox Church, include records of many church agencies and internal Church activities—the organization of dioceses, vicariates, consistories, and parishes, as well as some monastic records, including the archive of the Alexander Nevskii Monastery (Aleksandro-Nevskaia Lavra) (1713–1918). There are a number of educational, publishing, and censorship records among Synod fonds, such as those of the School Council and the Educational Committee. Records of the Greek-Catholic (Uniate) Church include documentation from Belarusian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian lands (15th c.–1839). Records of other religious denominations include those of the Lutheran Consistory. There are also important collections of religious manuscript books (14th–early 20th cc.), charters, maps, building plans, and photographs. RGIA holds fonds of the various separate ministries of the imperial government from the nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries. These include the Ministries of Internal Affairs, Justice, Finance, Trade and Industry, Agriculture and Transportation, Communication, Public Education, and the Imperial Court, as well as various commissions and committees under their jurisdiction. Part of the records of police and justice agencies were earlier transferred to Moscow with the Historico-Revolutionary Archive in the 1920s and remain in the prerevolutionary division of GA RF. These include records of the Department of Police and the Special Chancellery of the Minister of the Interior, the Provisional Chancellery for the Management of Special Criminal Affairs, the Third Criminal Division, and the Main Prison Administration of the Ministry of Justice. Fonds of non-ministerial and interagency institutions include the records of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancery (1812–1917), which managed the emperor's correspondence, awards and service of high government officials and other problems (excluding the materials of the Third Department, held in GA RF), and also Her Imperial Majesty's Own Chancery for Agencies of the Empress Maria, which carried out tutelage activities and educational functions. In the economic, commerical, and financial spheres, RGIA retains many business records of private joint-stock companies, trade and industrial associations, banks, railways, steamship and insurance companies, various private trade and industrial societies, and some important factory records. RGIA houses a number of fonds of scientific, cultural, educational and artistic institutions, including the Imperial Academy of the Arts (1812–1917), the Free Economic Society (1765–1918), the Russian Technical Society, and the Russian Historical Society, among others. There are personal fonds of outstanding scientists, inventors, painters, composers, writers, and social figures in Russia. The most extensive holdings of private origin are archives of major Russian noble families, such as Abamelek-Lazarev, Bobrinskii, Dolgorukov, Kochubei, Miliutin, Pahlen, Panin, Tolstoi, Trubetskoi, Vasil'chikov, and Volkonskii. The archive also presents personal papers of a number of statesmen, such as K.P. Pobedonostsev, P.A. Stolypin, and S.Iu. Vitte (Witte). Papers of scholars include those of the Orientalist V.V. Grigor'ev, historians of antiquity B.V. Farmakovskii and M.I. Rostovtsev, archeographer N.V. Kalachov, historians N.M. Karamzin, N.P. Pavlov-Sil'vanskii, M.P. Pogodin, S.S. Tatishchev, and P.E. Shchegolev, Byzantine historian V.E. Regel', and genealogists and numismatists B.V. Koehne and Iu.G. Iversen, among others. Many fonds and collections of graphic materials include documents on the history of architecture, city planning, and construction in Russia, including drafts, sketches, and drawings by such masters as V.I. Bazhenov, M.F. Kazakov, Giacomo Quarenghi, Bartolomeo Rastrelli, Antonio Rinaldi, Carlo Rossi, A.I. Shtakenshneider (Stakenschneider), V.P. Stasov, and A.N. Voronikhin. |
