Archival History Research Articles

Agricultural Sector of Ulyanovsk Region (1966-1970): A Focus on Crop Production

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the modernization processes in the crop production sector of the Ulyanovsk region during the Eighth Five-Year Plan. The research draws on unpublished documents sourced from the State Archive of the Ulyanovsk Region and the State Archive of Contemporary History of the Ulyanovsk Region, a significant portion of which is introduced into scholarly discourse for the first time, alongside statistical materials and periodicals. The study examines the efforts of party organs and farm leadership aimed at intensifying the development of crop production. It addresses the authorities’ personnel policies regarding the expansion of vocational and technical education institutions, the organization of training courses for specialists in mass professions, and the enhancement of their qualifications to meet agricultural needs. The dynamics of crop production development from 1966 to 1970 are analyzed, evaluating the achievements of regional farms in producing key agricultural products. The author concludes that, despite facing problematic farms and a slight reduction in areas allocated for grain crops, the authorities in the Ulyanovsk region managed not only to meet but also to exceed the planned targets for yield, total harvest, and state procurement volumes of primary crop products during this period.

Forms of perpetuating the historical memory of the Heroes of the Soviet Union in urban toponymy (using the example of commissar Moskovsky Street in Tambov)

Importance. The activities of the Tambov city authorities, public organizations and institutions, their motives in the work on the preservation of military historical memory in the urban enviro nment during the second half of the 20th – beginning of the 21th century on the example of perpetuating the memory of the first Hero of the Soviet Union from Tambov region – A.N. Moskovsky, are considered. The importance of the research lies in the fact that the use of trends in modern historical science, namely, an interdisciplinary approach to research, political history and historical urbanism, allows us to obtain qualitatively new knowledge about the activities of the Russian cities authorities (based on Tambov materials) to preserve military historical memory in urban toponymy and objects of monumental art during the second half of the 20th century – the beginning of the 21th century.Materials and Methods. The methodological basis of the research is based on the principles of consistency, historicism, and objectivity. Comparative historical, problem and chronological methods are used. The research is based on such general scientific methods as analysis, synthesis, generalization, and systematization. The main sources of the research are archival materials stored in the State Archive of Tambov Region, the State Archive of Socio-political History of Tambov Region, published and posted on the Internet, as well as materials in the funds of the Museum and Exhibition Center of Tambov Region.Results and Discussion. The features of the ideological work of local authorities on the development of military historical memory are analyzed. The patterns and continuity of approaches in the military historical work of the city authorities at different chronological stages are revealed. The mechanisms of preserving the memory of a particular hero, senior political instructor, commissar A.N. Moskovsky, are investigated. The forms of historical and patriotic information about the objects of urban toponymy and monumental art created during the development of the urban environment, concerning the perpetuation of the memory of A.N. Moskovsky, are highlighted.Conclusion. As a result of studying the problem, conclusions are drawn about the multi-faceted approach in the work of city authorities, institutions and public organizations for the preservation of military historical memory in the region.

Censorship of Agitprop in the Upper Volga press in the 1920s

Importance. The censorship of periodicals in the Upper Volga region during the New Economic Policy years is considered. The research of Soviet propaganda remains relevant in the context of studying the history of the USSR, political communication and mass media. Even in modern Russia, there is a request for the development of a cultural level using the mass media, in the implementation of which the experience of a century ago can help. The purpose of the research is to examine the mechanism for implementing the censorship policy of the Soviet state in the Upper Volga region using the example of the work of agitprop.Materials and Methods. Methods of system analysis, principles of historicism and scientific objectivity are used. The archival materials stored in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History are used.Results and Discussion. The country needed urgent and fairly profound cultural changes, and this had to be done not only by methods of combating illiteracy, but also by propaganda, including in the periodical press. Newspapers are a cheap and easy way to disseminate information, but in an illiterate country it is not very easy to use. The party’s propaganda department had to deal with this phenomenon.Conclusion. Conclusions about the significant intervention of the Agitprop department in regional periodicals in order to form an ideologically correct understanding of the world and the political situation in the country are formulated.

Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Against Romani Women and Girls in Occupied Poland during World War II

ABSTRACT This paper examines the various forms of sexual violence experienced by Romani women and girls in occupied Poland during World War II. These acts were perpetrated by German soldiers and SS men and their collaborators, in particular Ukrainian nationalists, as well as by Soviet soldiers during the period of liberation. Romani women found themselves in an especially precarious situation due to both Nazi persecution as well as long-standing history of exoticization and sexualization of Romani women in Europe, dating back to the eighteenth century. The persecution of Romani people during WWII, including sexual violence and assault of Romani women and girls, still remains on the margins of Holocaust research. Moreover, the harmful and traumatic experiences of gender-based violence continue to remain taboo subjects within Romani culture. Drawing on testimonies of Romani survivors collected in Polish by the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, this article examines how the affected women and girls, as well as other survivors, talked or rather remained silent about sexual violence. I also discuss the forms, situations, and patterns of violence perpetrated by various groups and explore the influence of cultural assumptions and situational conditions on sexual and gender-based violence against Romani women and girls.

Collectivisation in Lithuania 1947–1952: Decisions and Control by the CC of the All-Union CP

Referring to documents from the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History and other sources, the article aims to reveal little-known aspects of the collectivisation policy of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Central Committee and the Communist Party of Lithuania (Bolsheviks) Central Committee in Lithuania, showing the issues that have received constant attention and control from the ACP(B) CC, the decisions taken and the cooperation with the CPL(B) CC.

MILITARY UNITS FROM KAZAKHSTAN AT THE FIRST STAGE OF MILITARY UNITS FROM KAZAKHSTAN AT THE FIRST STAGE OF THE AXIS AGGRESSION AGAINST THE USSR (22 June 1941 – 18 November 1942))

The purpose of the article is to analyse the formation of rifle and cavalry divisions, brigades, regiments and battalions in the territory of Soviet Kazakhstan in 1941-1942, as well as their role in the first period of the Axis aggression against the USSR. The topicality of the research was determined by the necessity to study the history of military formations from Kazakh Soviet Republic from the day of issuing orders of the Supreme Command of the USSR; the execution of those orders by the leadership of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic; the organisation of interaction with the command of Stalingrad, Ural, South Ural, Central Asian military districts; as well as the combat path of military units from Kazakhstan in the first year and a half of the War. The study of the said theme was worked out by both Soviet-system authors and those working in the conditions of modern national states – Kazakhstan and Russia. Collective works of researchers dedicated to World War II East Front events; Kazakhstani President’s Archive historical documents; as well as those from the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History; and combat documents of military units from Soviet Kazakhstan stored in the Russian Federation’s Defence Ministry Central Archive, are used in the work. The peculiarities of the work held for formation of military units and formations are given; the trends of staffing the division military units by senior, junior commanding personnel, and also by privates, are outlined. The combat path of Kazakhstani divisions and brigades in the first period of the War is traced; numerous pages of heroism of soldiers and commanders on the battlefields are outlined. The conclusion, that military formations from Kazakhstan significantly contributted to repelling Hitler’s troops near Moscow and Leningrad; as well as to defence of Stalingrad; just the same as the fact that they created the conditions for a fundamental turning point in the War in favour of the USSR, is made.

What’s in a landscape? Nature, memory, and tourism in Bitterfeld-Wolfen’s post-mining landscape, East Germany

This paper addresses the transformation of the region around the twin-town Bitterfeld-Wolfen in Eastern Germany from a highly polluted industrial hub into a lakeland idyll and destination for recreation and nature-based tourism. From the perspective of local residents of age, the significance of this transformation was fundamentally shaped by German reunification, in particular by the experience of stigmatisation related to high levels of pollution in Bitterfeld-Wolfen in the context of general bias that devalued East German subjectivities in the course of German reunification. As I detail through both historical and ethnographic research, I show how mine restoration and the clean-up of contaminated sites have subsequently acquired meaning beyond ecological recovery and the improvement of public health. Tied up with the uncertainties and ambivalences of the transformation of East Germany and its integration into a West German entity, I demonstrate how the (im)possibility of restoring a destroyed landscape became inseparable from the postulated need of fundamental recovery of an East German region and its inhabitants from, so-perceived, socialist ruination. Consequently, I argue, the clean-up of contaminated sites and the remediation of a large open-cast mine in (former) East Germany produced not only an idyllic post-mining landscape, but a post-socialist one. Furthermore, as an archive of local history, the restored landscape became a way for elderly people to re-appropriate their past through its transformation into a remarkable present. In tracing this contested history, this paper contributes to landscape-centred analyses of post-socialist transformations in Europe.

Detrital monazite evidence for crustal evolution of the North and South American continents during the Boring Billion

Orogenic processes associated with the supercontinent cycle play crucial roles in the evolution of continental crust and surface environments. Detrital zircon records, useful archives of orogenic history, have recently suggested the possibility of orogenic quiescence during the Mesoproterozoic, the so-called Boring Billion. However, detrital zircon may not always provide a precise record of crustal evolution due to preservation bias. Detrital monazite, another beneficial accessory mineral, can provide key archives for a better understanding of the continental crust evolution over geological history. Here, we present the U–Pb ages, trace element abundances, and Nd isotope compositions of detrital monazites from four major rivers on the North and South American continents: the Mackenzie, Mississippi, Amazon, and Paraná rivers. The monazite U–Pb age data showed an uneven distribution, with peaks even during the Mesoproterozoic. The age distribution of the detrital monazites was broadly consistent with that of the detrital zircons in the same rivers. However, the two mineral's different occurrences and preservation potentials result in significant differences. The trace element and Nd isotope data of the detrital monazites indicate that the monazite U–Pb age peaks reflect the timing of the collision stage rather than the subduction stage. We further found cyclic secular variations in the detrital monazite Nd isotope compositions: their 143Nd/144Nd averages shifted from juvenile to reworked crustal signatures during the interval of supercontinent assembly, including the Proterozoic period. The Nd isotope shifts can be interpreted as crustal maturation through crustal re-melting and metamorphism driven by orogenic events. The monazite U–Pb age peaks and Nd isotope shift during the Mesoproterozoic suggest sustained crustal evolution rather than orogenic quiescence during the Boring Billion.

Exercises in ethically engaged work in biological anthropology.

An ethical paradigm shift currently taking place within biological anthropology is pushing scholars to envisage and develop paths toward more ethical futures. Drawing from case studies in our own teaching, research, and fieldwork experience, we reflect on the complex, diverse, and dynamic nature of ethical considerations in our field. We discuss the acquisition and institutional narrative of a human osteological teaching collection at the University of Louisville as an embodiment of structural apathy turned structural violence, and the need for professional guidance in the potential retirement of deceased individuals from our classrooms. In documented collections (i.e., the Robert J. Terry Collection), we share our process and scholarly reemphasis of the humanity of a deceased individual through contextualized analysis (i.e., osteobiography and archival history) and postmortem agentive acts. Lastly, we present an archeological site in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which poses ethical concerns as biocultural bioarcheologists and archeologists attempt to negotiate the possible wishes of the deceased with the cultural value of reconstructing the community's otherwise undocumented past, all amidst the immediate threat of anthropogenic climate change. We offer these exercises and discussion in ethically engaged projects transparently and with an overarching admission that none are models for replication. Rather, at various stages in our careers and engagement with ethics, we acknowledge that progress is worthwhile, albeit challenging, and that proceeding forward collectively as biological anthropologists should be deliberate, reflexive, and compassionate for deceased individuals and their descendant communities, as well as among and between colleagues.

Editorial to the Special Collection “Controls and Biasing Factors in Sediment Generation, Routing, and Provenance: Models, Methods, and Case Studies”

AbstractClastic sediment composition constitutes a key archive of Earth history, controlled by allogenic and autogenic processes that impact weathering, erosion, sediment transfer, and deposition. Deciphering those processes can provide valuable insights into ancient and modern tectonic, geomorphic, climatic, and anthropogenic controls that shape sediment routing systems over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. However, in order to clearly identify the controls on sediment composition, it is necessary to exclude sources of bias that may mask or diminish the original provenance signal. Such biases may be natural, including mineral fertility, sediment recycling, and grain size, or analytical. This special collection arises from the fifth meeting of the working group on sediment generation held at the University Milano‐Bicocca in Milan, Italy, from 28 to 30 June 2022. The collation includes studies that investigate biasing factors affecting all steps of the sediment cascade and all stages of sample collection, preparation, and analysis, as well as case studies that aim to disentangle original provenance signals from geological, environmental, or analytical noise.

Vicente Lombardo Toledano and the Soviet Approach to the Mexican Left After the Second World War

In the history of relations between the USSR and Latin American states, support for the Soviet foreign policy course from non-communist forces – national reformist parties, trade unions, and leftist intelligentsia associations – was of great importance. The Mexican syndicalist Vicente Lombardo Toledano, founder of the Confederation of Latin American Workers and the Socialist People’s Party, had the greatest political weight among the members of all these organizations. He proclaimed himself a supporter of orthodox Marxism, always supported the USSR in the international arena, and actively interacted with the communists. In this article, the author examines the formation of Lombardo Toledano’s views, his ideas about the significance of the Russian revolution and the USSR for the development of Mexico and other Latin American countries. He notes that communication with him helped the Soviet party and state leadership to avoid excessive dogmatism in assessing the domestic and foreign policies of Mexico in the 1940s–1960s. The author places special emphasis on the extent to which contacts with Lombardo Toledano enabled the CPSU Central Committee and the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs to better understand the state of the Mexican left-wing forces and, above all, the Communist Party of Mexico. The author also demonstrates that he was of interest to Soviet strategists as someone who both had access to the Mexican ruling elite and enjoyed prestige in the Latin American and international labour and anti-war movements. He shows that Lombardo Toledano tried to benefit politically and materially from friendly relations with the USSR, while in return supporting Moscow in its struggle against its ideological opponents such as the Trotskyists and Maoists. The source base of the study comprises Lombardo Toledano’s polemical and propaganda writings, documents from Russian archives (the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History and the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History), declassified archival materials and published documents emanating from the U.S. Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency.

“We Are Alone Here Like Orphans”: Leningrad Students’ Rural Practice in the Initial Period of Collectivisation

In this article, the author explores the problems of collective farm construction in the north-west of the RSFSR. The purpose of the article is to introduce into the academic circuit a set of ego-documents, reflecting household and economic peculiarities of everyday life of the Leningrad region peasantry during the period of continuous collectivisation. The study draws on the texts of two industrial practice diaries of Leningrad branch students of the Communist University of National Minorities of the West for December 1929 – January 1930, which are part of a set of similar documents identified in the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, previously unknown to researchers and not reflected in the historiography. The texts are prepared for publication according to the accepted archeographic rules. The publication of the diaries’ contents is intended to familiarise the academic community with this type of historical sources and to show their information potential. Student diaries make it possible to expand the source base of research in the field of the history of everyday life in the Soviet rural areas and the Bolshevik cultural revolution. These documents can also be used in prosopographical studies on the lives of political workers and educators of the 1920s–1930s.

India’s rich science history archives are at risk

India’s rich science history archives are at risk

Freedom dreaming from the university‐community nexus: Relational praxis as counterspace

AbstractIn this article we draw on storytelling and bricolage to reflect on critical accompaniment as relational praxis with cultural workers from the African diaspora inside/outside/in‐between the university‐community nexus in Australia. We write together weaving our voices as we re‐member our journey and our coming together fuelled by our shared desire, to tell our own stories on our terms; to contest virulent racisms and misrecognition of the African diaspora in media, academic, and political discourse; and to create spaces, settings, and narratives for identity, community and belonging. In reflecting on this journey we distil some insights on our efforts to enact just methods, our routes and roots of creating praxis inside/outside and with the university. We suggest that our relationships, forged through critical dialogue and examination of racism in settings that we intentionally create, is central to developing communality. Drawing from the rich history of African and diasporic archives, we also advocate for expanding ecologies of knowledge and practice and modalities for endarkened counter storytelling.

A Rough Guide to the Oil Archive

The omnipresence of petroleum makes it an essential part of a history of the modern world. However, this ubiquity also presents a challenge as to which archival materials historians should use to tell this story. By using material gathered during fieldwork in the Colombian oil city of Barrancabermeja, this article aims to investigate the nature of the oil archive. Situated within the broader field of literature on the history of petroleum and archives, the investigation touches upon records in diverse archives, the urban fabric, and repositories of oil’s history to be found underground. By pinpointing such materials across Barrancabermeja, the article argues that the oil archive is not just found in historical documents but embedded in the landscape, in social practices, in human bodies, and even in the geology of the earth. To understand the deep-seated influence of oil, the article argues for the establishment of an interdisciplinary working group of the oil archive. Faced with the impending challenge of climate change and the long-lasting legacy of the fossil fuel age, such a group could provide evidence for how humanity got to this stage, point to different imaginaries of past and future, and clarify issues surrounding climate justice and responsibility.

Azerbaijan—The Land of Unquenchable Fire

_ For millennia, Zoroastrian fire worshippers traveled on pilgrimage to pray at temples built where methane seeping from deep underground caused flames to burst from the earth on the Absheron Peninsula near Baku, the capital of today’s Azerbaijan. The Venetian merchant Marco Polo observed such mysterious fires and puddles of oil that bubbled or even gushed as fountains to the surface as he trekked along the Silk Road through the Caucasus Mountains in the 13th century. In a travelogue written in 1298, The Travels of Marco Polo, he is said to have described: “Near the Georgian border there is a spring from which gushes a stream of oil in such abundance that a hundred ships may load here at once. This oil is not good to eat, but it is good for burning and as a salve for men and camels affected with itch or scab.” He was referring to the Khanates of Azerbaijan, a part of the Persian Empire in Marco Polo’s time but absorbed in 1806 into the Russian Empire whose czars took an interest in financing early oil production—hand dug and exported on camel back. Its high paraffin content was valued for producing kerosene lamp oil and lubricants including cannon grease. World’s First Mechanically Drilled Oil Well As the Industrial Revolution swept from West to East in the mid-19th century, many of the innovations and business systems around which the modern oil and gas industry were soon to coalesce were tested in the ancient “Land of Fire.” Czar Nicholas I (1825–1855) financed the world’s first mechanically drilled oil well in 1846 using a cable-tool percussion drilling method. A 21-m-deep (69 ft) exploration well was the result. This happened a decade before Edwin Drake added steam-engine power to a mechanical drill to put Titusville, Pennsylvania, on the map in 1859, as described in the Branobel History archives. By 1871, with Nicholas’ son, the reformer Alexander II now on the Russian throne, boreholes had replaced buckets across the Bibi-Heybat and Balakhani oil fields. The arrival from Sweden in the 1870s of Alfred Nobel’s brothers, Ludvig and Robert, brought a step change to Azerbaijan in terms of industrial innovation, construction, and logistics such that by 1900 Azerbaijan was producing 50% of the world’s oil, historical sources agree. Alexander II had abolished the state monopoly on oil production in 1869, opening the door to foreign industrialists and their capital. Robert Nobel obliged and opened the joint stock Branobel Co. in 1878 with a partner from a weapons plant in the Russian town of Izhevsk. He put down share capital of 3 million rubles ($30,000 in today’s money) to register Tovarishestvo Neftyanogo Proizvodstva Bratyev Nobel—in English, The Brothers Nobel Paraffin Production Company (aka Branobel). The transformation of Baku’s oil fields into a capitalist production sector had begun in 1872 with the auction of 15 blocks in the Balakhani oil field and two blocks in Bibi-Heybat, according to a history prepared by Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Energy in 2020. This drove a 340% growth in oil production between 1876 and 1882, from 24,000 to 816,000 tons, respectively, between those years. By 1894 Azerbaijan’s production equaled that of the US (5.55 million tons per year) though Baku’s fields were 20 times less productive, according to Branobel archivists.

The Czortoryski Princes Cultural Heritage: the Beginnings of the Family History Archive (15–16 centuries)

The Czortoryski princely family representatives held high government positions first in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and then in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The cultural heritage of the family is extremely extensive: from written documents to architectural monuments on the territory of the modern states: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus. The subject of the article is the history of the Czortoryski princes family archive formation during the 15–16th centuries. Having started since the 40s of the 16th century, the number of written documents increased significantly, so we limited the upper chronological limit with 1524, the death year of Semen Oleksandrovych Czortoryski, the representative of the Lithuanian branch. The origin of the family is connected with the name of Prince Kostiantyn, the son of Grand Duke of Lithuania Olgerd or his brother Koriat. His own documentary heritage is not known to us. His descendants, namely Vasyl Kostiantynovych and his sons Ivan, Olexandr and Mykhailo are of great importance for the study of the subject matter in this research. Among the documentary materials studied, we note the first grants of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Kazimierz Jagiellonczyk to Prince Ivan Vasylovych, which are known from later confirmations. This prince left no descendants, and thus it is unlikely that his personal archive has survived. Two other Vasyl Kostiantynovich's sons Olexandr and Mykhailo founded two branches of the family: Lithuanian (Lohoisk/Lohozsk) and Volyn. According to the information from the sources we have found, we can assume that, firstly the family archive dates back to the 40s of the 15th century, when the first source information was recorded, and secondly each family branch kept its family documents separately. Accordingly, two collections were formed: 1) descendants of Oleksandr Vasylovych; 2) descendants of Mykhailo Vasylovych.

Красный спортивный Интернационал в отечественной и зарубежной историографии

This article examines the main approaches and assessments that were given in Russian and foreign scientific literature to the Red Sports International (Sportintern, RSI). The author shows the context of mentioning the organization in scientific literature and identifies controversial issues in its history. The article analyzes the source base of existing works on the his-tory of Sportintern in the context of the archival revolution of the 1990s. and documents from the Sportintern fund in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI). The author shows the differences between Russian and for-eign approaches to the history of Sportintern, differences in assessments of its activities. The author traces how the per-ception of RSI has changed in Soviet and Russian historiog-raphy, notes the peculiarities of the views of individual au-thors on the factors of the creation of the Sport International, the goals and objectives of its activities, the role of individual historical characters in the activities of the Sports Internation-al. Particular attention is paid to the issue of the initiator of the creation of Sportintern and the role of N. I. Podvoisky in the formation and development of the organization. Special attention is paid to the activities of the RSI in Latin America and the Latin American historiography of the work of Sportintern in the countries of the region.

Demystifying oral history with natural language processing and data analytics: a case study of the Densho digital collection

PurposeThis study aims to explore the applications of natural language processing (NLP) and data analytics in understanding large-scale digital collections in oral history archives.Design/methodology/approachNLP and data analytics were used to analyse the oral interview transcripts of 904 survivors of the Japanese American incarceration camps collected from Densho Digital Repository, relying specifically on descriptive analysis, keyword extraction, topic modelling and sentiment analysis (SA).FindingsThe researchers found multiple geographic areas of large residential communities of ethnic Japanese people and the place names of the concentration camps. The keywords and topics extracted reflect the deplorable conditions and militaristic nature of the camps and the forced labour of the internees. When remembering history, the main focus for the narrators remains the redress and reparation movement to obtain the restitution of their civil rights. SA further found that the forcible removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during Second World War negatively impacted and brought deep trauma to the narrators.Originality/valueThis case study demonstrated how NLP and data analytics could be applied to analyse oral history archives and open avenues for discovery. Archival researchers and the general public may benefit from this type of analysis in making connections between temporal, spatial and emotional elements, which will contribute to a holistic understanding of individuals and communities in terms of their collective memory.

When the Archives Speak for Themselves

The first published text book on the history of the Bulgarian archives is presented. In the two volumes of the "Archive of the Bulgarian Archives" there are 523 authentic documentary evidence of the long way from the birth of archival thought and practice from the Middle Ages to the normative documents in the mid-50s of the 20th century that led to the establishment of the Bulgarian state archives.