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Imperial Russia - Research Guide

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This guide will help you find primary materials and secondary sources on Russian history. Most materials will be found at the Van Pelt Library. If you do not find what you need, please ask for assistance.

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I. Background Materials - The Reference Collection

A. Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

Cambridge Companion to Russia

Tremendous overview of the history of Russia, with one volume devoted entirely to the imperial period. Fabulous bibliography included.

Great Soviet Encyclopedia. New York, Macmillan, c1973-.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: AE5 .B58], v. 1-31 and index.

English translation of the 3rd edition of the Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia [Van Pelt Library Stacks: AE55 .B623]. Work was translated on a volume-for-volume basis and articles are arranged within each volume according to the English form of the entry. Covers all areas of soviet life - history, geography, industry, agriculture, arts, and popular culture.

The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History. Gulf Breeze, Fl: Academic International Press, 1976-.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: DK14 .M6], v. 1-60.

Provides, in English, information contained in many standard Russian reference works, as well as some new articles.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica; a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information. 11th edition. Cambridge, Eng., New York, At the University Press, 1910-11.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: AE5 .E36]

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the former Soviet Union. Edited by Archie Brown, Michael Kaser and Gerald S. Smith ; associate editor Patricia Brown. 2nd ed. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1994.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: DK14 .C35 1994]

Single volume survey of topics including peoples, religion, history, art, and politics.

Pushkarev, Sergei Germanovich. Dictionary of Russian Historical Terms from the Eleventh Century to 1917. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1970.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: DK36 .P78 1970]

Designed to explain specialized terms encountered in reading.

Paxton, John. Encyclopedia of Russian History: from the Christianization of Kiev to the break-up of the U.S.S.R. Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-CLIO, 1993.

[Van Pelt Library Reference: DK36 .P39 1993]

Covers the tenth century to the present.

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Russian Revolution. Edited by Harold Shukman. Rev. and updated. Oxford, OX, UK ; Cambridge, Mass., USA : Blackwell Reference, 1994.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: DK265 .B54 1995]

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B. Bibliographies

The American Historical Association's Guide to Historical Literature. General editor, Mary Beth Norton ; associate editor, Pamela Gerardi. 3rd ed. New York : Oxford University Press, 1995. 2 v.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Desk: D20 .A55 1995]

Covers works between 1961 and 1992. See section 34: Rus', Russia, and the Russian Empire, pp. 1070-1099. The first edition from 1931 [Van Pelt Library Stacks: Z 6201 G94] and the second edition from 1961 [Van Pelt Library Stacks: D20 .A55] will provide other useful listings.

Crowther, Peter A. A bibliography of Works in English on Early Russian History to 1800. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1969.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: Z2506 .C75]

Shapiro, David. A Select Bibliography of Works in English on Russian History, 1801-1917. Oxford, Blackwell, 1962.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: Z 2509 .S5]

Clendenning, Philip. Eighteenth century Russia: a select bibliography of works published since 1955. Newtonville, Mass. : Oriental Research Partners, 1981.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: DK127 .C58]

Egan, David R. Russian Autocrats from Ivan the Great to the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty: an Annotated Bibliography of English Language Sources to 1985. Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1987.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: DK100 .E33 1987]

Comprehensive bibliography of English sources on Russian monarchs.

Guide to the Study of the Soviet Nationalities: non-Russian Peoples of the USSR. Stephan M. Horak, editor ; contributors, Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer ... [et al.]. Littleton, Colo. : Libraries Unlimited, 1982.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: DK33 .G85]

Arranged by nationality; each section covers reference works, economy, history, literature, religion, etc.

Nerhood, Marshall. To Russia and Return. Columbus, Ohio : Slavica Publishers, 1995.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: Z2491 .N435]

Annotated bibliography of English-language accounts of Russia from the ninth century to the present.

Poe, Marshall. Foreign Descriptions of Muscovy: An Analytic Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources. Columbus, Ohio : Slavica Publishers, 1995.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: DK21 .P64]

Muscovy in newspapers, narrative sources, diplomatic reports, travel literature. Also covers secondary studies of descriptions of Muscovy from a variety of disciplines.

Schaffner, Bradley L. Bibliography of the Soviet Union, its predecessors and successors. Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1995.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: DK17 .S34 1995]

Lists by subject monographs in the social sciences and humanities. Focuses on history, political sciences, and economics.

Fundamental'naia biblioteka obshchestvennykh nauk (Akademiia nauk SSSR). Istoriia SSSR : ukazatel' sovetskoi literatury za 1917-1952. Moskva, Izd-vo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1956-1958.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: 947B AK12]

A Major Bibliography of Soviet Historical Writing, Published Between 1917 and 1952 on Russian History.

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C. Atlases

Chew, Allen F. An Atlas of Russian History; Eleven Centuries of Changing Borders. Rev. ed. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1970.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: G2111.S1 C5 1970]

Changes in Russian boundaries and possessions from the ninth century to World War II.

Gilbert, Martin. Atlas of Russian History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: G 2111 .S1 G52 1993]

The Penguin Historical Atlas of Russia. John Channon with Robert Hudson. London ; New York, NY : Viking, 1995.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: DK38 .C43 1995]

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D. Chronologies

Longley, David. The Longman Companion to Imperial Russia, 1689-1917. Harlow, England ; New York : Longman, 2000.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: DK113 .L66 2000]

Topically arranged chronologies cover politics, society, economics, nationalities, and foreign policy.

Great Dates in Russian and Soviet History. General editor Francis Conte. New York : Facts on File, c 1994.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: DK36 .G74 1994]

Straight chronology of key dates in Russian history from the earliest times to present.

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II. Using Library Catalogs

A. Franklin

Franklin lists books, journals titles (but not articles within journals), conference proceedings, and other library materials at the Penn Libraries. Franklin includes about 95% of the Library's holdings.

Keyword searches look for the search terms anywhere in the record, i.e. the author, subject, title fields, etc.

catherine and voltaire
peasant? and russia

Also use Subject Heading searches based on the formal Library of Congress Subject Headings assigned to each work. When you find a work of interest, check the full view of the record to see the subject headings. Some useful headings are listed below.

Russia-- Soviet Union-- Russia (Federation)-- Russia--History--1533-1613-- Russia--History--1689-1801 Russia--History--1801-1917 Russia--History--Revolution, 1905-1907 Russia--Church History-- Russia--Economic conditions-- Russia--Foreign relations-- Russia--Politics and government-- Russia--Social conditions-- Russia--Social life and customs-- Kiev (Ukraine)-- Saint Petersburg (Russia) Siberia (Russia)--History

Catherine II, Empress of Russia, 1729-1796 Ivan IV, Czar of Russia, 1530-1584 Peter I, Emperor of Russia, 1672-1725 Romanov, House of. Borodino, Battle of, 1812 Crimean War, 1853-1856 Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905 Agriculture, Cooperative--Russia--History-- Cossacks-- Ethnology-- Intellectuals--Russia Middle classes--Russia--History Peasantry--Russia--History-- Social classes--Russia Social structure--Russia Women--Russia--History

B. Finding Works Beyond Penn (InterLibrary Loan)

For works not available at Penn, the Library will try to obtain them for you on loan from another library. The services below can be used to locate materials at other libraries.

BorrowDirect+.

Two services that enable searching of combined library catalogs and direct placement of requests for books not available at Penn.

-  BorrowDirect: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton, and Yale.

-  E-ZBorrow: Over 40 academic and research libraries in Pennsylvania and nearby states, including: Rutgers, Penn State, Temple, and Pittsburgh.

WorldCat

Another large union catalog that includes the holdings of many university, college, and public libraries. Many Philadelphia-area libraries are included in WorldCat. Items that are not held by Penn can be requested through BorrowDirect or Interlibrary Loan.

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III. Finding Journal Articles using Indexes

Indexes are generally used to locate journal articles. [Franklin lists journal titles subscribed to by Penn, but does not list articles within journals, newspapers, or other collected works.] The online indexes listed below are accessible from the Databases page link on the Penn Library Web.

History

Historical Abstracts. (online database)

Covers the history of the world (excluding North America) from 1450 to the present. Although 1450 is the general starting date, there are many articles in Historical Abstracts that survey topics from the 12th-15th centuries. Indexes books and journals published since 1973. Excludes book reviews.

C.R.I.S.: the Combined Retrospective Index Set to Journals in History, 1838-1974. (print index)

Washington : Carrollton Press, 1977-1978.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: D 1 .C18], v.1-11.

Indexes articles on the history of the world. Volumes II & III cover Europe. Useful for finding important articles published before most database coverage begins.

Religion

ATLA Religion database. (online database)

Evanston, Ill: American Theological Library Association. Combines: Religion Index One: Periodicals (1949-), Religion Index Two: Multi-author Works (1960-), Index to Book Reviews in Religion (1949-), Research in Ministry (1981-), Methodist Reviews Index (1818- 1985).

RAMBI, the Index of Articles on Jewish Studies. (online database).

Coverage from 1966 to the present. Updated annually.

Indexes articles mainly from the holdings of the Jewish National and University Library (JNUL). Topics covered include the Bible, post-Biblical literature and early Christianity, Rabbinic literature and Jewish Law, philosophy and religion, and Jewish history.

Art History and Architecture

Avery Index. (online database)

Covers works on architecture, archaeology, city planning, and the history of architecture. Covers 1977 to the present.

Bibliography of the History of Art. (online database)

Covers works on the History of Art.

Multidisciplinary

JSTOR. (online database)

Multidisciplinary index will all content being available online.

Ebsco MegaFile. (online database)

Multidisciplinary index with much full text.

American Bibliography of Slavic and Eastern European Studies. (online database)

Covers North American scholarship on East-Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, 1990-present.

Periodicals Contents Index. (online database)

A retrospective file covering publications from 1770-1995.

Includes citations to many journals in the humanities and social sciences. A good resource for finding older journal references and book reviews.

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IV. Primary Sources

A. Using Franklin

First try individuals as authors:

Catherine II, Empress of Russia, 1729-1796
Peter I, Emperor of Russia, 1672-1725

Government offices should also be searched as authors.

Russia. Ministerstvo inostrannykh del.

There are many collections of primary source materials. To locate these, try subject searches and look for the keyword sources within the subject field.

Russia--History--Sources
Russia--History--Time of Troubles, 1598-1613--Sources

Or add the word sources to a keyword search. Skey means subject keyword - use this or try a Guided Keyword search.

skey russia AND skey sources

B. Check Bibliographies

Good bibliographies will contain listings of primary sources including collections, contemporary descriptions, travel narratives, memoirs, correspondence, and government/legal documents. See secion I.B. above.

Please note in particular A Bibliography of Works in English on Early Russian History to 1800 by Peter Crowther. This is a very useful work.

C. A Very Selected List of Collections

Freeze, Gregory L. From Supplication to Revolution: a Documentary Social History of Imperial Russia. New York : Oxford University Press, 1988.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: HN526 .F74 1988]

Lenin, Vladimir. Collected Works. [Moscow] Foreign Publishing House [1960-1970]

[Van Pelt Library: DK254.L3 A2323 ]

Collected Works of Vladimir Lenin--before and after the Revolution--in English.

Life and Thought in Old Russia. [University Park] Pennsylvania State University Press [1961]

[Van Pelt Library: 947.03 B617]

Anthology of writings and documents from the late 15th to the end of the 19th century.

Page, Stanley W. Russia in Revolution: Selected Readings in Russian Domestic History since 1855. Princeton, N.J. : Van Nostrand, [1965].

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: DK251 .P3]

Raeff, Marc. Plans for Political Reform in Imperial Russia, 1730-1905. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall, 1966.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: 947.06 R123.2]

Reinterpreting Russian History: Readings, 860-1860's. Compiled and edited by Daniel H. Kaiser, Gary Marker. New York : Oxford University Press, 1994.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: DK3 .R45 1994]

Russia and the Armenians of Transcaucasia, 1797-1889 : a documentary record. Annotated translation and commentary by George A. Bournoutian. Costa Mesa, Calif. : Mazda Publishers, c1998.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: DK509 .R87 1998]

Russia under Catherine the Great. Edited by Paul Dukes. Newtonville, Mass. : Oriental Research Partners, 1977-1978.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: DK171 .R87], v. 1-2.

Russia's conquest of Siberia, 1558-1700 : a documentary record. Edited and translated by Basil Dmytryshyn, E.A.P. Crownhart-Vaughan, Thomas Vaughan. Portland, Or. : Western Imprints, The Press of the Oregon Historical Society, 1985.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: DK43 .T6 1985 v.1]

Sbornik. Imperial Russian Historical Society. Nendeln, Liechtenstein, Kraus Reprint, 1966. T. 1 (1867)-t. 101 (1928).

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: PG2013 .A65]

Devoted to the publication of documentary materials. Much of the material is in Russia, some in other languages.

A Source book for Russian history from early times to 1917. George Vernadsky, senior editor. Ralph T. Fisher, Jr., managing editor. Alan D. Ferguson, Andrew Lossky. Sergei Pushkarev, compiler. New Haven [Conn.] Yale University Press, 1972.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: DK3 .S67 1972], v. 1-3.

D. A Very Selected List of Individual Writings

Kurbskii, Andrei Mikhailovich, kniaz', d. 1583. The correspondence between Prince A.M. Kurbsky and Tsar Ivan IV, of Russia, 1564-1579. Edited with a translation and notes by J.L.I. Fennell. Cambridge [Eng.] University Press, 1955.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: DK106 .A25 1955]

Shafirov, Petr Pavlovich, baron, 1669-1739. A discourse concerning the just causes of the war between Sweden and Russia: 1700-1721, by P. P. Shafirov. With an introd. by William E. Butler. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., Oceana Publications, 1973.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: DK136 .S45 1973]

Shcherbatov, M. M. (Mikhail Mikhailovich), kniaz', 1733-1790. On the corruption of morals in Russia / [by] Prince M. M. Shcherbatov; edited and translated [from the Russian] with an introduction and notes by A. Lentin. London, Cambridge U.P., 1969.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: HN525 .S513]

Radishchev, Aleksandr Nikolaevich, 1749-1802. A journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Translation by Leo Wiener. Edited with an introd. and notes by Roderick Page Thaler. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1958.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: HN525 .R313]

Pobedonostsev, Konstantin Petrovich, 1827-1907. Reflections of a Russian statesman / [by] Konstantin P. Pobedonostsev. With a new foreword by Murray Polner. [Translated from the Russian by Robert Crozier Long. Ann Arbor], University of Michigan Press, [1965].

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: HN526 .P66 1965]

Catherine II, Empress of Russia, 1729-1796. Memoirs of Catherine the Great / translated by Katharine Anthony. New York : Tudor, 1935.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: DK170 .A5 1935]

Gordon, Patrick, 1635-1699. Passages from the diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries in the years 1635-1699. New York, Da Capo Press, 1968.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: DK114.5.G6 A33 1968]

E. Contemporary Popular Periodicals: U.S. and British

19th Century Masterfile.

Provides indexing to nineteenth century periodicals, books, newspapers, and government documents. The main index is Poole's Index to Periodical Literature (1802-1906), which includes date and title information not available in the print version. Poole's Plus also includes Stead's Index to Periodicals (1890-1902), known as the "British Poole's"), Jones and Chipman's Index to Legal Periodicals (1786-1922), and Richardson's Index to Periodical Articles in Religion (1890-1899).

http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/8240

Reader's Guide Retrospective. NY: H. W. Wilson, 1904-.

Indexes American high-circulation magazines from 1900 to the present.

http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/7065

American Periodical Series.

Includes digitized images of the pages of 1,100 American magazines and journals published from colonial days to the dawn of the 20th century.

http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/8291

F. Contemporary Newspapers: U.S. and British

New York Times, Proquest Historical Newspapers

Full-text of the New York Times from 1851 to 1999.

London Times, 1785-1985

G. Selected Government Publications

Great Britain. Foreign Office. British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office confidential print. Part I, from the mid-nineteenth century to the First World War. Series A, Russia, 1859-1914. Editor, Dominic Lieven. [Frederick, Md.] : University Publications of America, 1983.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: JX632 .B74 1983], 6 vols.

Great Britain. Foreign Office. Correspondence respecting contraband of war in connection with the hostilites between Russia and Japan ... London, Printed for H.M. Stationery off. by Harrison and sons, [1905]

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: 341.3 G793.2]

United States. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1870-1931. Washington, D.C.: G. P. O., 1870-1931.

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: JX 233 A3; microfiche 483, 1870-1931]

Followed by Foreign Relations of the United States below.

United States. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1932- . Washington, D.C.: The Department. U.S. G.P.O., 1948- Library

[Van Pelt Library Stacks: JX 233 A3], 1932-1964/68 and continuing. The Foreign Relations of the United States is an important source of information about American foreign policy. It is organized by year or groups of years, with geographical or topical sub-divisions. The documents in each volume are arranged chronologically. Each document has notes indicating its source and, where necessary, annotations providing contextual information or data relating the document to others. There is also a table of sources and abbreviations at the beginning of each volume, and each volume has its own detailed subject and author index. Cumulative indexes, shelved with the set, cover 1861-1899 and 1900-1918 (but the latter does not include the volumes dealing with World War I or the Russian Revolution).

CIS U.S. Serial Set Index. Washington, Cong. Info. Serv., 1975-.

[Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks: J 74 C66 1975]

Covers 1789-1969 and indexes documents contained in the American State Papers and the Serial Set. Each entry gives document title, publication series & number, congress and session, and Serial Set volume number. There is a separate index of names and organizations as subjects of private relief and a numerical list of reports and documents and schedule of Serial Set volume numbers. The majority of the Serial Set is in LIBRA; volumes can be requested to be brought to Van Pelt for use. The Serial Set volumes are also available on microcard.

Last update: Wednesday, 22-May-2008 13:40:29 EDT
Send mail concerning this page to: Nick Okrent at okrent@pobox.upenn.edu.