Creation of Private Records Catalogue for Russian historians of XVIII-XX centuries


The Private Records Catalogue for Russian historians of XVIII-XX centuries is preparing by Archeographical commission of Russian Academy of sciences. It includes the information about the archival funds of more than 3500 scientists – not only historians, but also archeologists, ethnographers, orientalists, archivists, museum officials, numismatists and collectors of historical documents and even persons who were not the professionals, but popularized the historical knowledge. Their records are storing in the central state and regional archives, in the manuscript departures of the central and scientific libraries and museums. They are not equal in a scale, some of them are enormous as the records of G.-F. Miller (more than 2500 files) or M.P. Pogodin, some (especially in the XVIII century) includes only several documents.

The catalogue embraces the elaborate description of the records: creative works, especially not published and materials for them, correspondence, biographical documents (certificates of education, memoirs, diaries, travel journals), official and family records. It gives the information about the location of the library and of the collection of documents of the scientist, the list of his publications, the bibliography of literature about him and his archives. The documents are described in details, the compilers register autographs and copies, drafts and fair copies, the volume of the document, the inscriptions. The catalogue shows the wide picture of the development of history as a science in Russia from its beginning in the first half of XVIII century to the modern specialized scholarship. It helps to realize the process of creation of global theories and concrete investigations. The correspondence between historians is one of the most important sources not only for the history of science but also for the history of all Russian society.

The first volume of the Catalogue, devoted to the 70 historians, was published. The second volume, including the articles about 340 scientists of the first half of the XIX century, is preparing to be printed. The database of the records of the historians, who lived in XX century, containing the information about more than 2000 scholars, is made by the compiles and is available for studying.