In the article with reference to some little-known documents from the personal fund of the princes Beloselsky-Belozersky in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, an issue of economic adaptation of large landowners in the conditions of industrial modernization of Russia in 1890–1917 is considered. The basis of the property of this aristocratic family was a huge complex of land holdings in the Ural provinces. These non-agricultural estates could provide their owners in the new economic conditions with excellent opportunities to increase incomes and general well-being. The main attention is paid to the economic and financial decisions of the owners in relation to the Urals industrial enterprises and urban realty. Some aspects of the private, everyday life of this aristocratic family are also considered, including those connected with the use of extensive estates on Krestovsky island in St. Petersburg. The conclusion is made about the extremely ambiguous consequences of the economic policy of the princes Beloselsky-Belozersky in the period under review. The refusal of independent management and financing of the Ural factories led, on the one hand, to the loss of landed property, on the other hand, it facilitated the transfer of basic assets into bank capital and securities. Government support in the 1880–1890s of the mining district of Beloselsky-Belozersky, and, moreover, the establishment later on of guardianship were by no means a charity. Financial failures in the organization of industrial production led to a completely reasonable decision to sell the Ural possessions.

The article analyzes ideological assessments of the place for political police in the system of public relations and state institutions in the Russian Empire of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as the incorrect use of the term “provocation” as a symptom pointing to an uncritical selection of sources in the current historiography. The use of this term is analyzed through the example of the gendarme lieutenant colonel A.D. Zavaritsky’s case, presented in the article of DA. Butyrin, as well as the IP. Kalyayev’s case in the works by RS. Zakirov. Special attention is paid to the specific understanding of the practice of police provocation by V.F. Dzhunkovskii the Independent Corps of Gendarmes commander and the reflection of that concept in the article by DA. Gutnov. The article also presents other consequences of uncritical analysis of the sources of the epoch, such as: unconfirmed statements about the systematic physical coercion practiced by gendarmerie officers on suspects during interrogations, on the one hand, and idealization of the career of gendarme memoirists , on the other. The article make the assumption of the collective portrait of the ultimate beneficiary of the unjustified use of the term “provocation” as applied to the practices of Russian special services in the early 20th century, as well as it names the reasons for the spread of this phenomenon today.

 

The article studies exercising the information function of the Belarusian archives in the context of discussions about the relationship of archives with libraries and museums that took place in 1918-1920, as well as politicization of archives that started in the late 1920s, and led to the restriction of access to the documents stored there. The initiative of the famous Russian historian-archivist I.L. Mayakovsky on the wide involvement of local historians in the archival building, about which he spoke at the First All-Russian Conference of Archival Activists in the autumn of 1921, was supported at the First All-Belarusian Conference of Archival Workers held in Minsk in May 1924 and at the Second Meeting of Archival Workers of Belarus (December 1927). A large role in that was played by former commissioners of the Glavarhiv of RSFSR on Mogilev and Vitebsk provinces D.I. Dovgyallo, B.R. Brezhgo and the first rector of the Belarusian State University, opened in the fall of 1922 in Minsk, V.I. Picheta, who also worked in the Glavarhiv of Russia. It is noted that, in contrast to Russia, the “People’s Commissariat of Education period” (1918–1920) in the history of the Belarusian archives is hardly traceable due to the peculiarities of national-state building in Belarus of that period (the occupation of its western regions by Poland, the inclusion of the Vitebsk and Mogilev provinces into RSFSR). Attention is drawn to the active participation of the Glavarhiv of Russia in providing organizational, methodological, personnel, financial support to the Belarusian archives. It is stated that the clauses of the decree “On the reorganization and centralization of archival work in RSFSR” approved on June 1, 1918, formed the basis for the “Regulations of the Central Archive of SSRB” adopted on September 12, 1922, which marked the creation of the State Archival Service of Belarus.

 

The article is based on documents of State archive of Russian Federation and Russian state archives of ancient acts, as well as several guides to the state archives of Russia. It is devoted to almost unknown page of the history of functioning of Russian State Archives of Ancient Acts, named in 1931–1941 State Archives of the Feudal Era. In its structure there was the “Jewish section”, consisted of documentary materials, the fund formers of which were various Jewish companies, organizations and institutions, as well as the Jewish public and political figures and workers of culture. Those documents were at the secret storage because all the research in the field of academic Judaica was curtailed in the early 1930s. Therefore, the main task of the “Jewish section” was only collection and storage of documentary materials of the Jewish origin. The article provides a complete list of funds and founders of the “Jewish section”, its scope and timelines, and identifies the state archives, where to those documents were transferred. Transferring process of materials of the “Jewish section” to other archives began in Central State Archives of Ancient Acts in 1971, the last non-core funds were transferred from Russian State Archives of Ancient Acts in 1993. The author concludes that “Jewish section” in a certain way did its function, saving extensive complex of documentary sources on the history of Russian Jewry of the 18th – the first third of the 20th century for nowadays researchers.

This article covers the history of the reorganization in the State archives acquisition of the Russian Federation carried out in 1960–1980-s. Its essence and measures for its implementation, through the restrictive approach to the definition of a range of institutions and organizations whose documents are subject to admission to public archives are discussed in historical context. The author showed that ideas of reorganization in the archives acquisition with Soviet agencies documents were formulated by pre-war archivists B.I. Anfilov, L.I. Polyanskaya, Z.H. Nagorova, O.E. Karnauhova. Those ideas got their development and theoretical justification after the end of the Great Patriotic War in the writings of C.G. Mityaev, I.S. Nazin, V.V. Tsaplin, A.V. Elpatievsky, N.A. Orlova and other scientists and specialists in the field of archives. The practical implementation of those ideas in the Russian Federation carried out jointly alongside the Union-Republican and Republican ministries and agencies with support of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Federation and basing on its regulatory acts. The article attempted to understand an impact of reorganization in the archives acquisition that determined the structure and informative value of archival fund of the Russian Federation source base. Challenging and unresolved issues of theoretical and practical nature are also considered. A conclusion is made on the need of the representativeness study for source base of the Soviet era.

The article deals with the establishment of archive-keeping in the Republic of Ingushetia, including the experience of the State Archive of the Republic of Ingushetia – the main repository of historical and cultural documentary heritage and national memory of the Ingush people. The history of archival affairs of the North Caucasus regions, and in particular the Republic of Ingushetia, is practically not investigated. Meanwhile, an issue of archives establishment and the formation of archival funds of the North Caucasus region is the great interest not only for specialists in the field of history and organization of archival affairs, but also for a wide range of researchers. This is due to the fact that the prism of the “destiny” of the archives refracts the history of the region as a whole, including its entry into the state space of the Russian Empire, the formation of national autonomies in Soviet Russia and, finally, development at the present stage in the Russian Federation. All those periods and processes were directly reflected in the documents of the Archival Fund of the region, and, in their turn, had a direct impact on the layout of the archives, which eventually took shape , on their territorial structure and specificity of the information deposited in them. At the same time, each of the subjects of the North Caucasus has its own historical experience in the development of archival affairs that deserves attention. In this regard, in its own unique and remarkable history of archives and archival affairs of the Republic of Ingushetia, presented in this article in a brief (compressed) form, in its close relationship with the history of archival affairs of the North Caucasus and Russia.

 

The aim of the paper consists in definition of the topical for practice of archival work development in Russia issues of securing an access to archival documents and of organizing the use of those documents. The research presented in the article is based on the use of the method of comparative analysis of norms existing in legislative and other legally relevant documents with the existing practice of organizing the use of documents in public archival institutions. Also the author uses a retrospective method for the evaluation of historical experience in standardization of access to archival documents in Russia and systematic approach for analyzing the whole of existing norms and practices realizable in access to documents at Russian state archival institutions. The paper is based on a combination of scientific approaches used in the archives and records management and the juridical science. Besides the interdisciplinary methodology its novelty consists in identifying the global methodical problems of archival development in Russia caused by gaps in legislation. The main conclusion of the article is in confirmation of the need to improve the archival legislation in force in the Russian Federation in accordance with other normative sources of law that are more significant in the systems of constitutional and of information law and with determined in the paper specific features of archival practice in conditions of an information society.

 

The article considers the theoretical and practical issues of organizing the storage of cinema, photo and video documents within funds of personal origin and archival collections acquired by Russian archives from private property as well as the issues of searching, attributing and studying audio-visual documents separated from the main body of relevant written documents on the strength of the current domestic specific practice of working with such documents. Based on the experience of the major Russian archives in working with documents author analyzes the meaning of debatable definition “audiovisual documents of personal origin” which in practice covers a wider range of documents than is commonly considered. The author considers the actual consequences of the fragmentation of archival funds containing audiovisual documents, the main of which is the loss of information about the content of documents. By the example of collections of photographers and filmmakers also the problem of improvement of archives’ finding aids is examined. As a result studying the fragmented complexes of documents of personal origin and the comparative analysis in written and audiovisual documents the author succeeded in correcting an attribution for some photos and sound records within collections of federal archives. The article offers some ways of overcoming the consequences of fragmentation of personal collections of documents and separate storage of written and audiovisual documents of personal origin in Russian archives, among them the way of performing an interdisciplinary research based on a multiple source base in the history, theory and practice of audiovisual communications.

Archival science of scientific and technical documents is considered from the standpoint of existing research, pedagogical and methodological practices. Historiographical aspects of the formation of the discipline “Archival science of scientific and technical documents” are designated. The author formulates the definition of the concept “Archival science of scientific and technical documents” and describes it as a system of scientific knowledge that studies the theory, history, methodology and organization of activities for the preservation and use of scientific and technical documentation as a source on the history of science and technology. The author has developed a periodization of archival scientific knowledge of scientific and technical documents, since the 1970s of the XX century. The author’s historiographic review of the materials of the round tables of the RSUH “Problem 2000” is given, which reflects the movement of the vector of the problems of archival science of scientific and technical documents from 2000 to 2007: new approaches to the completion of scientific and technical documentation; technology of preservation of especially valuable documents; innovative directions of teaching disciplines related to scientific and technical documents; legal aspects of scientific and technical archives; economic history and the formation of business archives; socio-cultural aspects of the use of scientific and technical documents; virtual exhibitions of archival scientific and technical documents in the electronic information environment. The main directions of development of archival science of scientific and technical documents as an object of scientific research, teaching and organizational and methodological activity are outlined.

The article analyzes the content of the monograph of the famous historian, philosopher and political scientist A.N. Medushevsky, whose work is dedicated to the constitutional and legal component of the Russia’s political history of the last century. For this purpose, the introduction to the main text is considered. Special attention is drawn to the originality of the concept and the conceptual apparatus, the historiographical and source base, the totality of the scientific methods for a wide range of the humanities used by the author. The main content of the work is set out in the twelve chapters of the study, which consistently examines the constitutional projects and their implementation in the form of basic laws in Russia throughout the twentieth century. The analysis, in accordance with the stated methodology, starts with the results recorded in the texts of the constitutions and leads to the intentions and the goals of their authors. The last chapter of the work ties the previous chapters, which, in passing, deal with the final solution to the problems of the current state of the Russian statehood. Devotion to the research methods of legal sciences leads to the fact that in the work politically biased legal history prevails over political history. A certain number of discussion points do not depreciate the value of this research, addressed to a serious and thoughtful reader, who loves Russia and takes its destiny to heart.

The article analyzes the content of the third collection of articles of the project “Museums – Libraries – Archives in Information Support of Historical Science”. The paper presents the characteristic of the main issues raised by the authors of the project. The author defines views of the authoritative representatives of the historical and archival community on the issue of archives functioning in the digital information space. The author expands on the high relevance and the scientific and practical importance of the discussion under consideration. The conclusion is formulated about the continuing high value of archives as primary repositories of historical sources. At the same time, the author points to new research opportunities in the conditions of digital technologies penetration into the archival environment. In the consolidation and the development of the interaction between historians and archivists, the author emphasizes a special role of such research centers as M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Institute for History and Archives of the Russian State University for the Humanities and the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Attention is drawn to the need to continue such a dialogue between the representatives of the scientific community, to increase attention to the applied issues of the relationship of historians and archives, taking into account the experience of not only central but also regional archives. The discussion on the pages of the collection of articles is very promising in terms of expanding the research horizons. They will make it possible to keep current the potential of separate archives as well as documentary complexes, to outline the vectors for the further development of research thought, and also through dialogue – to develop some common models of the interaction between historians and archivists. According to the author, the archives are essential in the formation of cultural and educational space necessary for researchers and for the development of modern educated society.