The State Archive of the Russian Federation (SA RF)

O.V. Marinin, Deputy Director, SA RF,
Ph.D. in History

The State Archive of the Russian Federation official site

The State Archive of the Russian Federation (SA RF) is both the youngest and the oldest state archive of Russia. It is the youngest, because in its current status it was created later than any other archive. But it is the oldest, because the two already existing archives — the State Archive of October Revolution of the USSR (SAOR USSR) and the Central State Archive of RSFSR (CSA RSFSR) — merged and gave birth to SA RF, and those two "parents" were institutionalised back in 1920, when the State Archive was created with the purpose of storing the most important documents of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and "the most valuable documents of the preceding regimes".

The Archive stores document evidence of various historical epochs: 1 million files on the history of the Russian Empire and the Conventional Government period; about 3 million files on the history of the USSR; over 1.5 million files on the history of RSFSR; about 33,000 files on the history of the Russian Federation. In total there are over 5.5 million files. The last years have proved that the re-created State Archive is a dynamic multi-level system, which is capable of efficient implementation of all major functions of state archives: acquisition of new materials, ensuring their registration and safety, providing the historical data to government agencies, public associations and individuals, research and publication of the archive materials.

SA RF has been and still remains the archive busily involved of acquisition of new materials, over 600,000 files were accepted from 1992. For example, a collection of materials on the tsar family security from Police Department of the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Empire was accepted from the Central Archive of the Federal Security Service in 1995. Then a collection of archival files on people who had been illegally oppressed in 1930-1950 and in relation to which the criminal persecution was afterwards terminated was accepted from the FSS Department for Moscow and Moscow Oblast in 1995. The documents on investigating the circumstances of death of the Emperor Nicholas II and his family were provided by the ruling Prince of Liechtenstein Hans Adam II in 1996 in compliance with the International Agreement. The unique documents form personal archive of Her Highness Princess Е.М. Yurievskaya were received with the assistance of the Rotshilde family as intermediaries in 2001. And then there are letters of Dr. Botkin, the Holy Consistory file of the Tobolsk Province peasant Gregory Rasputin, documents from family archives of the Great Prince Andrei Vladimirovich and Matilda Kshesinskaya, of А.I. Denikin, О.P. Shidlovski, Boldyrevs, B.V. Pryanishnikov, N.A. Troitski and others. Among the latest acquisition special place belongs to the collection of documents of the former Supreme Soviet of RF, over 2,300 personal files of people's deputies for the period 1989-1990, personal collections the Distinguished Artist of RSFSR М.А. Troyanovski, the People's Artist of USSR B.Е. Yefimov, and of the Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences А.N. Yakovlev.

The demand for retrospective archival data in the field of science, information and references is currently growing in Russia. The number of researches in the archive reading rooms has increased, as well as the number of thematic and socio-legal inquiries. Developing and publishing the new multi-volume SA RF Collections Guide was extremely important. The new interesting direction of the Archive's activities is working on a series of historical TV documentaries. The first one was called "The Documents and the Life Stories", it consisted of 156 series and was shown on the First Channel in mid-90-ies. The second one — "Archival Mysteries" — was shown in 2000-2001 by RTR (State TV Channel).

Preparing and organising exhibitions has become an independent activity of SA RF. Along with traditional thematic display of documents, SA RF starting from mid-90-ies has begun to organise major historic documentary exhibitions and historic artistic exhibitions, including exhibits from the best museums of Russia: State Museum of History, State Hermitage, State Russian Museum, from the preserve museums "Peterhof", "Pavlovsk", "Tsarskoye Selo", "Gatchina", "Oranienbaum" and others. The new Exhibition Hall of Federal Archives was opened recently in 17, B. Pirogovskaya St., which has become another incentive to continue the exhibition activities. During to years of its operation this Exhibition Hall has hosted more than 20 exhibitions and received over 35,000 visitors. Six out of those exhibitions were prepared by the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the most popular with the public were the following: "The Agony of III Reich. Retribution.", "The World of Russian Empress", "Orthodoxy and Russian State, Х-ХX centuries", "State Council of Russia, 1801-2001". The Archive sees its major task in turning each exhibition organised in these premises into a noticeable event of the cultural life of Moscow, so that the high-ranking leaders of RF participate in their ceremonial openings, as it was, for example in 2001, when we received the Vice-Premier of the RF Government V.I. Matvienko, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexis II, the Head of the Federal Archive Service V.P. Kozlov, the First Deputy Minister of Culture N.L. Dementyeva. SA RF has an unalterable rule: each time a historic exhibition is organised, a special catalogue is published comprising of several articles on scientific research on that topic, a collection of colourful photographs of the most interesting exhibits, and a full list of the exhibition materials indicating the institution they are stored in and quoting the most interesting abstracts of the documents.