LibGuides: Slavic Studies: Primary Sources

Digitized Texts

Feb Web, the Fundamental Digital Library of Russian Literature and Folklore
Russian and English versions. Full text access to the canon of Russian literature, with full-text key secondary sources as well. Contents highlight literature from the 18th century onward. Users may opt for a Russian or English search interface, with access to contents in Russian

Slavonic bibles: early printed Cyrillic books from the Lomonosov Moscow State University Library
Collection of the earliest part of the Slavonic early printed books of the Moscow University Library, consisting of 40 Slavonic bibles and Cyrillic religious books printed in the 15th and 16th centuries, including editions of the Gospels, New Testaments, Acts and Epistles, and Psalms. Included are: the first printed edition of the Slavonic Bible by Belorussian printer Franciscus Skorina; the first printed Slavonic text of the complete Bible by Moscow printer Ivan Fedorov; Slavonic books from Moscow, Lvov, Ostrog, and Vilno (the latter from the Mamonichi press of printer Petr Mstislavets); and books from Slavonic printing presses in Nesvizh, Venice, and Skutri, among others
History of modern Russian and Ukrainian art
The collection documents the history of modern Russian and Ukrainian art. It encompasses critical literature, illustrated books, and art periodicals. The collection contains texts by such artists as Wassily Kandinsky, Pavel Filonov, Kazimir Malevich and Anatolii Petrytskyi; publications of art groups such as the Jack of Diamonds (Bubnovyi valet) and Màkovets; theoretical tracts by Nikolai Tarabukin and Boris Kushner; and books by well-known critics such as IAkov Tugendkhol'd, Erikh Gollerbakh, and Nikolai Punin. The collection also offers a selection of early 20th century art-related serials. These historical sources of pre- and post-revolutionary art reflect the diversity of artistic thought in the first thirty years of the 20th century, the intense discussions about the nature of the new art, its form, and its aims. The collection consists of 215 titles that were published in two parts on microfiche.

Digital Archives

Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European Culture
At the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, features manuscripts and visual materials documenting the history of Russian émigrés, Americans in Russia, and US-Russia relations. It is the second largest depository of Russian émigré materials outside Russia.
The Soviet and East European Independent Press Collection
Since 1989, in response to opportunities presented by Perestroika and changes throughout the Communist block in Eastern Europe, Columbia University Libraries has undertaken a broad and extensive effort to collect newspapers, periodicals, leaflets, posters and other materials documenting the activities of different parties and organizations emerging as the result of the sudden collapse of Communism.
Russian & Early Soviet Sheet Music Collection
The Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the Columbia University Libraries holds one of the single-largest collections of Russian sheet music in North America, particularly for the period circa 1924-1929.This collection offers both visual and aural delights, reflecting a period of great creative excitement, political tension, and relative freedom of expression paralleling the economic liberalization of the New Economic Policy, introduced by Lenin at the Tenth Party Congress in March of 1921, and drawing to a close with the consolidation of power by Stalin in 1928. Introduction available here: https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8W96M1C

Soviet woman / Советская женщина
In English. Established in the aftermath of WWII in 1945 by the Soviet Women's Anti-Fascist Committee and the Central Council of Trade Unions of the U.S.S.R., it began as a bimonthly illustrated magazine tasked with countering anti-Soviet propaganda by introducing Western audiences to the lifestyle of Soviet women, their role in the post-WWII rebuilding of the Soviet economy, praising their achievements in the arts and the sciences. Ran till 1991 when the USSR collapsed.
Ogonek / Огонек
In Russian. Established in 1899 and in continuous print until 1918, Ogonek first came on the scene as a weekly illustrated supplement to the influential St.Petersburg-based newspaper Birzhevye Vedomosti. Having posted impressive growth in readership, in 1902 Ogonek would chart an independent course, becoming a separate entity and attracting period’s most notable journalists, photographers, literati and critics. In short, this was the period of the formation of magazine’s foundational aesthetic sensibilities, for which it would become famous until its unceremonious closure by the Bolshevik revolutionaries in 1918 for propagating anti-Soviet views.
East View Information Services Online Resources
This database provides full text in-depth information from Russia and the former Soviet Union. Resources include newspapers, newswires, popular and scholarly periodicals, and government documents. Available in English and Russian.
Soviet cinema: film periodicals, 1918-1942
The collection includes Soviet film magazines and newspapers from the 1920s and 1930s, reflecting an interesting and fertile period in the history of Russian film. Film publications were revived in the early 1920s after being interrupted in 1918 by Bolshevik censorship. In the beginning, the film press offered detailed coverage of the industry, both in the USSR and abroad, in addition to advertising western films playing on Soviet screens. By the end of the 1920s, a partial and eventually complete ban on imported films was introduced, marking the beginning of a campaign to "proletarize" Soviet art. By the mid-1930s, ideological consensus and Socialist Realism as the dominant mode in art came to the fore in film, as in all other areas of Soviet art.
Sovetskaia Kul'tura Digital Archives
Kulʹtura (Culture) is an important Russian weekly newspaper previously published under the titles Rabochiĭ i iskusstvo (1929-1930), Sovetskoe iskusstvo (1931-1941), Literatura i iskusstvo (1942-1944), Sovetskoe iskusstvo (1944-1952) and Sovetskai︠a︡ kulʹtura (1953-1991). Throughout the years the newspaper articles reviewed major events in Russian cultural life, in literature, theater, cinematography and arts. In the Soviet period it published critical diatribes against dissident writers Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn, Aksyonov and others, infamous articles condemning modern art exhibitions, chastising avant-guard composers and abstract painters. In modern Russia its reviews and event listings often focus on the cultural life of Moscow and regions, it is known for its topical commentaries on popular culture and politics.
Alexander III and the policy of "Russification," 1883-1886
This collection, as seen through the eyes of the British diplomatic corps in Russia, provides a unique analysis of this "retro-reform" policy, including the increase of revolutionary agitation, deepening of conservatism and changes from agrarian to industrial society, and spread of pan-Slavism, both in the Russian Empire and Eastern Europe. The British Foreign Office Records of General Correspondence for Russia, in record class F.O. 65, is the basic collection of documents for studying Anglo-Russian relations during this period of fundamental change.