A New Soviet Directory of Archives and Manuscript Repositories: A Major Contribution in Light of Recent Reference Aids

Abstract

A directory of all archives and manuscript repositories in the USSR with a comprehensive bibliography of finding aids has long been needed by researchers. Yet one of the most highly centralized, state-run archival systems in the world, with its subsidiary strong publication division under the world's first specialized research institute for archival affairs, has still not seen fit to provide researchers with such a basic reference aid. Now, significantly not from Moscow but from the western Ukrainian center of Lviv, comes the second edition of a research handbook of all-union scope that more closely approaches that optimal directory than any other single volume available. The expanded second edition still does not cover all repositories by any means, or even all of the largest and most important manuscript-holding institutions in some areas. Its bibliography remains far from comprehensive and is awkwardly presented.