Problems of ensuring the safety of the documents of departmental archives in the Arkhangelsk province in 1917–1922

Abstract

The article attempts to examine the history of the archival service in the Arkhangelsk province from the point of view of the approach of the Soviet authorities to ensure the safety of documents of the departments and organizations that existed on the territory of the province before the revolution of 1917.
The events described in the article have not previously received their coverage on the pages of scientific and popular publications, as related documents have not yet been introduced into scientific circulation. The period of study was characterized by the great social upheaval, the consequences of which could not but affect the safety of the old archives. For the representatives of the new local administration, as well as for the majority of the population, such archives did not represent any practical or cultural and historical significance, and that fact left an imprint on the way the SNK decrees on archives administration were executed.
In fact, it was only in 1920 that the issue started being resolved, when the Soviet power was re-established in the provincial center. In the conditions of the post-war devastation, the questions of the administration of the provincial archival fund were accomplished on the residual principle, there were neither personnel, nor the rooms suitable in size for archival storage. V. Ivanovsky, the only person, who was entrusted with the duties of preserving the documentary heritage of the region, became the ancestor of the archival service of the Arkhangelsk province.