Manuals for Archive Studies for Students-Historians: Achievements and Prospects

Abstract

The paper contains an overview of manuals for undergraduate students (of baccalaureate) of historical faculties dedicated to archives and archival studies published in Russia in the 2000s and the 2010s. The author underlines the advantages of each manual, as well as possible perspectives of creating a new manual, more appropriate for those students who do not specialize in archival work proper, but, as historians, must be familiar with the archives and the principles of their functioning. The period of the 2000s differs much from the previous years due to significant changes in the life of archives in Russia in the 1990s and the early 2000s, which should have been reflected in manuals for students. A student of historical faculty, as a potential user of archives, should be familiar with the history of the formation of at least the biggest of them and of the main complexes of archival documents, with the specific features of federal, local, departmental archives, documental collections of museums and libraries, with the history of legislation concerning archives, etc. The author concludes that even the best manuals published in Russia in the 2000s and the 2010s are not completely appropriate for teaching future historians, and it is advisable to prepare a new concise manual addressed to such students.