Documentary Publications on the History of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War on the Website of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library

Abstract

The article analyses publication of a large set of historical and archival documents on the history of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War on the website of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library. Since 2009 it functions as the national electronic repository of digital copies of the most important documents on the history of Russian statehood and Russian language, as well as multimedia, multifunctional, cultural, scientific, educational and information-analytical centre with the status of the national library of Russia. In the “Collections” section, the libraryʼs website places online publications of various forms and subjects. The author considers the methods of publishing digitized copies of archival documents. Within the frames of the first part of the Internet project “The Second World War in archival documents (set of digitized archival documents, footage and photo materials)” there are published 1767 electronic copies of documents, then promised to continue. There is placed the full list of published documents, it provides the ability to sort them, search by date and place of storage. Virtual multimedia exhibition “The Great Patriotic War, which determined the outcome of the Second World War. For the 75th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941—1945” presents more than 500 official documents, documentary photographs, periodical materials and leaflets. The authors of the exhibition apparently consider the online publication “Combat actions of the air defence forces of the navy in the Great Patriotic War of 1941—1945” as a kind of rare publication, therefore they decided to publish the facsimile reproduction of it. The article concludes on the great significance of the project “The Second World War in archival documents (set of digitized archival documents, footage and photo materials)” that placed a large set of documents from Federal and departmental archives, many of which were first declassified. The author reveals shortcomings of Internet publications of archival documents in the field of placement methods related to inaccurate determination of their readership.