Reflection of the History of the Russian Monarchic Émigré Community in the Documentary Collections: “The Russian Military Émigré Community of the 1920s – 1940s”

Abstract

The article describes the subject matter and the significance of the monarchic émigré community documents that were published in Volumes 7 and 8 of the documentary collection: “The Russian Monarchic Émigré Community”. This unique and extensive archaeographic project, which is characterized in the main, contains ten volumes of documents and papers that are stored in the archives of the Russian intelligence service and that have been kept as top secret documents for almost 100 years. The publication of the 10-volume work has been finished by now, and the authors consider it to be one of the most successful archaeographic projects in contemporary Russia. Volumes 7 and 8 contain Soviet intelligence service documents that do not only cover various issues of the history of the Russian military émigré community but also deal with the activity of the monarchic organizations in Japan and China in the 1920s – 1930s. The authors see the significance of the documents in the fact that it is for the first time that they disclose the contradictions between different monarchic trends which existed within the émigré community. Besides, they present a vast picture of conflict relations between the military and monarchic groups and their leaders. Lastly, the extensive comments and sophisticated finding aids of Volumes 7 and 8 expand substantially the general picture of the life of the monarchic émigré community in Japan and China. Therefore, the authors come to the conclusion that these two volumes of the well known documentary series have significantly broadened the source basis of the research on the Russian monarchic émigré community in the 1920s – 1930s.