Hoover Institution (Stanford, CA) — The Hoover Institution Library & Archives has achieved a significant milestone in international scholarly cooperation through its partnership with Prague’s Slavnoic Library (Slovanská knihovna), a premier division of the Czech National Library. This collaboration addresses a crucial gap in historical documentation by digitizing the world's largest known repository of Russian diaspora periodicals — publications that emerged in the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution and chronicle the émigré experience across dozens of countries worldwide.
Deputy director of the Hoover Institution and the Everett and Jane Hauck Director of the Library and Archives Eric Wakin and Vladimir von Tsurikov, Russian Diaspora project director, visited the Slavonic Library to participate in the 53rd Annual Conference of ABDOS — the principal academic organization advancing Slavic studies throughout Central Europe and German-speaking nations — and to celebrate the two institutions’ cooperation in the ambitious digital preservation initiative that promises to transform Russian diaspora studies. The visit also coincided with the centenary celebration of the Slavnoic Library itself.
Since October 2024, the institutions have worked in concert to digitize nearly 1,300 publications for Hoover's Russia Abroad Digital Collection (RADC) — representing approximately three-quarters of the project's comprehensive scope of 1,700 identified titles. Vladimir von Tsurikov oversaw the periodical selection at the Slavonic Library, together with other project partners.
This undertaking has required extraordinary care and technical expertise. The source materials — overwhelmingly fragile, rare, and bound — demanded meticulous handling during their transformation into high-quality digital format. For the first time, these invaluable historical publications are available to researchers worldwide via an open-access platform, presenting the materials in one location rather than requiring scholars to traverse continents and archives to access scattered holdings.
The project's momentum is already evident: more than 600 digitized titles are currently accessible online, with an additional 700,000 pages anticipated to join the platform in the coming months. This wealth of material offers unprecedented opportunities for scholars examining the Russian émigré experience, political movements, cultural preservation, and the broader narrative of twentieth-century displacement and adaptation.
At the conference opening, Director Wakin shared the podium with distinguished colleagues: Tomáš Foltýn, director general of the Czech National Library; Jürgen Warmbrunn, ABDOS chairman; and Peter Reuss, German ambassador to the Czech Republic. During the conference's inaugural session, Vladimir von Tsurikov presented "Digitizing a Diaspora: The Russian Émigré Press, 1917–1992," offering a comprehensive overview of the project's scope and methodology. The presentation garnered enthusiastic support from the assembled international scholarly community, affirming the project's vital contribution to the field.
The partnership with Prague’s Slavonic Library exemplifies Hoover's commitment to advancing scholarship through innovative international collaboration, ensuring that crucial historical voices — once scattered and endangered — will resonate clearly for generations of researchers to come.
