A First Encounter with Soviet Archives, 1960, by Professor Walter Pintner
From MemoryArchive
Who: Professor Walter Pintner What: The first American scholars in Soviet archives When: 1960 Where: St. Petersburg, Russia
I was fortunate to be one of a few American scholars to be granted archival access in the Soviet Union after the Second World War. It was April 1st, 1960 and we (the IUCTG exchange group in Leningrad) had been waiting since September for permission to use archival materials in what was then called TsGAIL (Tsentralnyi Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv-Leningrad) David Munford of IUCTG and Leslie Brady, Cultural Affairs Officer of the US Embassy, had been petitioning the Central Archival Administration for months and we students had virtually given up hope.
Once we got the permission it was anti-climactic. We had no access to the catalogs (opisi) and were assigned to an archive worker who brought us whatever he/she felt was relevant to our topic. In my case, the minder was a genial former manager of a sugar beet factory. We could order specific items if we had a reference from a published source. The Americans and other non-Soviets were assigned to a special room which had the advantage of a large cupboard where many archival folders (dela) could be stored. It also had a nice view of the Neva river. I had only a few months to work there but I did get some interesting material that was ultimately incorporated in my dissertation and subsequent book on economic policy under Nicholas I.
On trips in later years the system did not change , although the special room assigned us did vary.
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