In the Russian and Eastern Europe collections at the IISH, Russia and the former USSR are dominant. Additional collection development efforts cover most countries in Eastern Europe that became communist after 1945. The former Czechoslovakia and Poland are especially well represented and the Balkans slightly less so. Interest in the Asian part of the former Soviet Union is more recent.
The collections fit the traditional IISH profile: history of socialism and the labour movement in the 19th and 20th centuries. Because the setting in which the social movement emerged in Russia and Eastern Europe was so specific, this collection is distinctive. The agrarian question, for example, receives consideration, as does the role of the intelligentsia and the dissidents, as well as emigration movements and compelling nationalities questions.
The collections may be accessed in various ways. The archives index contains individual archival descriptions and a list of all archives by country: Bulgaria, (former) Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Soviet Union, (former) Yugoslavia. Archives, books, periodicals, and image and audio materials are retrievable via the IISH catalogue.
Contact: If you would like to discuss a donation or deposit, please contact Gijs Kessler gke@iisg.nl
Archeobibliobase contains information on all archival collections in Russia and the former Soviet Union.