of the Ministry of Justice became the most important historical archive. Before the revolutions of 1917, however, most recent and current records were maintained by state agencies themselves, such as the various ministries, paralleled, for example, by the archive of the Holy Synod, the governing body of the Orthodox Church. The Imperial Archeographic Commission, provincial archival commissions, the Academy of Sciences, major libraries, and museums likewise contributed to the growth of archives and rich manuscript collections.
The Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 had as revolutionary an impact on archives as it did on most other aspects of society and culture, and stands as the single most important turning point in the history of Russian archives. To be sure, the turmoil of the revolution and civil war years brought considerable disruption, and indeed destruction, to the archival and manuscript legacy. Yet it brought with it the most highly centralized state archival system and the most highly state-directed principles of preservation and management of documentary records that the world had ever seen. Deeply grounded in historical theory and committed to its own orthodoxy of historical interpretation, Marxism-Leninism as an ideology gave both extensive philosophical justification and crucial political importance to documentary control. As the highly centralized political system established firm rule over of state and society, the now famous archival decree of Vladimr Lenin (June 1, 1918) initiated total reorganization and state control of the entire archival legacy of the Russian Empire.
One of the most significant Soviet innovations was the formation of the so-called State Archival Fond (Gosudarstvennyi arkhivnyi fond-GAF), a legal entity extending state proprietorship to all archival records regardless of their institutional or private origin. With nationalization, this theoretical and legal structure also extended state custody and control to all current records produced by curARCHIVES rent agencies of state and society. Subsequently a parallel Archival Fond of the Communist Party emerged with proprietorship and custody of Party records.
A second innovation was the establishment of a centralized state agency charged with the management of the State Archival Fond, enabling the centralization, standardization, and planning that characterized Soviet archival development. Indicative of the importance that Stalin attributed to control of archives and their utilization, from 1938 through 1960 the Main Archival Administration of the USSR (Glavarkhiv SSSR) was under the Commissariat and later (after 1946), Ministry of Internal Affairs (NKVD, MVD). Subsequently it was responsible directly to the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
A third innovation saw the organization of a network of archival repositories, although with substantial reorganizations during the decades of Soviet rule. A series of central state archives of the USSR paralleled central state archives for the union republics, with a hierarchical network of regional archives, all controlled and adopting standardized organizational and methodological guidelines dictated by Glavarkhiv in Moscow. Strict disposal and retention schedules regulated what went into the archives. A parallel network of Communist Party archives emerged. Records of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs remained separate, as did those of the security services and other specialized repositories ranging from geological data to Gosfilmofond for feature films. The Academy of Sciences maintained its own archival network, and archival materials in libraries and museums remained under their own controlling agencies.
Public research availability of the nation’s documentary legacy was severely restricted during the Soviet era, although there was a brief thaw after 1956, and more significant research possibilities starting in the Gorbachev era of glasnost after the mid-1980s. But while limited public access to archives was a hallmark of the regime, so was the preservation and control of the nation’s documentary legacy in all spheres.
In many ways, those three Soviet innovations continue to characterize the archival system in the Russian Federation, with the most notable innovation of more openness and public accessibility. Already in the summer of 1991, a presidential decree nationalized the archival legacy of the Communist Party, to the extent that the newly reorganized state archival system was actually broader than its Soviet predecessor. The Soviet-era Glavarkhiv was replaced by the Archival Service of the Russian Federation (Rosarkhiv, initially Roskomarkhiv). Russia’s first archival law, the Basic Legislature of the Russian Federation on the Archival Fond of the Russian Federation and Archives, enacted in July 1993, extended the concept of a state “Archival Fond.” Although it also provided for a “non-State” component to comprise records of non-governmental, commercial, religious, and other societal agencies, it did not permit re-privatization of holdings nationalized during the Soviet period. Nor did it provide for the apportionment of archival records and manuscript materials gathered in central Soviet repositories from the union republics that after 1991 emerged as independent countries. The latter all remained legally part of the new Russian “Archival Fond.”
In most cases, the actual archival repositories that developed during the Soviet era continue to exist, although almost all of their names have changed, with some combined or reorganized. As heir to Soviet-period predecessors, fourteen central state archives constitute the main repositories for governmental (and former Communist Party) records in different historical, military, and economic categories, along with separate repositories for literature and art, sound recordings, documentary films, and photographs, as well as technical and engineering documentation. As a second category of central archives, a number of federal agencies still have the right to retain their own records, including the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defense, Internal Affairs, and the security services. Municipal archives in Moscow and St. Peteresburg comprise a third category. As there were in the Soviet period, there are also many archival repositories in institutes and libraries under the Russian Academy of Sciences, and libraries and museums under the Ministry of Culture and other agencies. The extensive network of regional state (including former Communist Party) archives for each and every subject administrative-territorial unit of the Russian Federation, all of which have considerable more autonomy from Moscow than had been the case before 1991.
The most important distinction between Russian archives in the early twenty-first century and those under Soviet rule is the principle of openness and general public accessibility. Significantly, such openness extends to the information sphere, whereby
ARMAND, INESSA
published directories now identify all major repositories and their reference systems. New archival guides and specialized finding aids reveal the holdings of many important archives (many with foreign subsidies). And since 1997, information about an increasing number of archives is publicly available in both Russian and English-language versions on the Internet.
Complaints abound about continued restrictions in sensitive areas, such as the contemporary archives of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defense, and the security services. Declassification has been all to slow in many areas, including more recent Communist Party records, and new laws governing state secrets often limit the otherwise proclaimed openness. Yet often the most serious research complaints stem from economic causes- closures due to leaking roofs or lack of heat, slow delivery time, and high copying fees. While Russia has opened its archives to the world, there have been more dangers of loss due to inadequate support for physical facilities and professional staff, leading to commercialization and higher service charges, because the new federal government has had less ideological and political cause than its Soviet predecessors to subsidize new buildings, physical preservation, and information resources adequately for the archival heritage of the nation. See also: CENSORSHIP; NATIONAL LIBRARY OF RUSSIA; RUSSIAN STATE LIBRARY; SMOLENSK ARCHIVE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy. (1989). A Handbook for Archival Research in the USSR. Washington, DC,: Ken- nan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies and the International Research amp; Exchanges Board. Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy. (1998). Archives of Russia Seven Years After: “Purveyors of Sensations” or “Shadows Cast out to the Past.” Washington, DC: Cold War International History Project, Working Paper, no. 20, parts 1 and 2. Electronic version: «http://cwihp .si.edu/topics/pubs». Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy, ed. (2000). Archives of Russia: A Directory and Bibliographic Guide to Holdings in Moscow and St. Petersburg. 2 vols. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy. (2003). “Archives of Rus-sia-ArcheoBiblioBase on Line.” «http://www.iisg .nl/~abb».
(1874-1920), n?e Elisabeth Stefan, revolutionary and feminist, first head of the zhenotdel, the women’s section of the Communist Party.
Born in France, Inessa Armand came to Russia as a child when her parents died and her aunt took a job as governess in the wealthy Armand merchant family. At age nineteen she married Alexander Armand, who was to
