Russian/CIS

Images from the collection Click on the image to start the slideshow. Once the slideshow has begun, mouse over the right/left side of image to see the next/previous buttons

Symbol of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Mastheads of Russian newspapers from the Hoover Institution Library Opposition Press Collection, the largest such collection in North America. Hoover Institution Records

Frank A. Golder, 1877–1929, curator of the Hoover Collection and a history professor at Stanford, made several collecting trips to Europe and Soviet Russia. His acquisitions formed the foundation of the Hoover Institution's holdings on modern Russia and early Soviet history. Hoover Institution Archives

Russian World War I caricature showing Kaisers Wilhelm and Franz Joseph climbing a tree to escape the Russian bear, 1914. Poster Collection, Hoover Institution Archives

Drawing of a Red Army soldier brandishing a sword over a pile of White generals to get to Donets, Russia, 1920. Artist: Dmitrii S. Moor. Hoover Institution Archives Poster Collection

The premier of Russia's 1917 Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky (right, with Witold Sworakowski, former assistant director of the Hoover Institution), contributed to the institution's three-volume documentary study of that government. Hoover Institution Records

Page from a book of photos of wanted revolutionaries used by the Okhrana, or Russian secret police. In the upper-right corner are two mug shots of Leon Trotsky. Okhrana Records, Hoover Institution Archives

Portrait of General Vrangel', commander of the White Russian volunteer army, 1917–20. Poster Collection, Hoover Institution Archives

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Hoover honorary fellow, examines Russian newspapers from the collection of the Hoover Institution Library. Hoover Institution Records

Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev with former archivist Anne Van Camp. Stanford University

Campaign poster and flyer from the Ukrainian collection. Hoover Institution Archives

Saint Nicholas Cathedral in the New City, Harbin, China. I. I. Serebrennikov papers, Hoover Institution Archives

Poster pillar in Harbin, China. I. I. Serebrennikov papers, Hoover Institution Archives

Russian émigré Tamara Semenovna Filimonova, 1906–96, owner of a publishing house in China. I. I. Serebrennikov papers, Hoover Institution Archives

• History
• Guides

The majority of the materials collected are in the Russian language; however, materials can be found in the collection in all the languages of the CIS states, as well as in most Western languages.

The various national collections of library materials for the area of Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, with approximate volumes of holdings, are as follows:

In addition to monographs and serials, the collection encompasses 26,000 reels of microfilm, 750 motion pictures, more than 1,000 manuscript collections, 20,000 pamphlets, 10,000 political posters, and 23,000 photographs.

Files of more than 1,400 newspapers are held, ranging from imperial Russian newspapers of the late nineteenth century to many hundreds of files from the Soviet period, including complete files of such important newspapers as Pravda and Izvestiia. For the post-Soviet period, the Russian/CIS independent opposition press collection of some 3,000 titles (20,000 individual issues) is a unique resource.

The Russian/Soviet pamphlet collection of more than 20,000 pieces consists of ephemeral materials seldom collected or preserved by other repositories. The pamphlets cover all aspects of Russian and Soviet history of the twentieth century.

Hoover also possesses a massive collection of Russian and other Soviet government documents (some 5,000 volumes). Included are Imperial Russian government documents; a complete collection of laws of the Russian empire; Duma records, ministry records, and documents of local gubernias and cities; and a comprehensive collection of government and Communist Party documents for the Soviet period.

Curator(s)
Anatol Shmelev
Acting as Associate Curator