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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: E-28

Last update of repository: 15 March 2020

Institut russkoi literatury (Pushkinskii Dom) RAN (IRLI/PD)


Otdel russkogo fol'klora
[Division of Russian Folk]

Telephone: +7 812 328-09-02

Website: http://www.pushkinskijdom.ru/Default....  (Rus); http://www.pushkinskijdom.ru/Default....  (Eng)

Opening hours: MTh 11:00–17:00

Head: Andrei Nikolaevich Vlasov


Holdings

Total: 11 fonds; ca. 130,000 units; 1890–1990s
174 collections

The Division of Oral Folk Poetic Art is one of the richest folklore archives in the former USSR, with many important institutional collections of ethnographic and folklore materials, including materials from various expeditions, covering areas throughout the former Russian Empire and the USSR, as well as personal papers of ethnographers, folklore scholars, and other specialists in the field, dating from the late nineteenth century to the present.
        There are significant collections from ethnographic expeditions and folklore research that were transferred to PD, starting in the 1930s, which had been collected in or with various other institutions—including, for example, the prerevolutionary Peter I Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (1910–1914), the State Museum of Geography (1926–1927), the State Institute for the History of Art (GIII) (1927–1930), the Leningrad State Conservatory (1927–1931), the Institute for the Study of Peoples of the USSR (IPIN) of the Academy of Sciences (1927–1932), the Karelian Scientific Research Institute of Culture (1931–1932), the Academy of Sciences of the Belorussian SSR (1932), and many different fonds from expeditions of the Institute of Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, among others.
        Extensive collections result from expeditions conducted by IRLI specialists dating from the 1930s to the 1980s. These include Russian folklore materials collected by expeditions in northern and central regions of European Russia and Eastern Siberia. There are also materials from Central Asia and the Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia, and Osetia) and particularly rich folklore materials gathered from Ukraine, Buriat-Mongolia, Croatia, and Serbia.
        There are a number of collections made by specific scholars, such as those of V.S. Bakhtin (1942–1959—with tales and songs from various oblasts of the RSFSR), M.S. Druskin (1934–1938—particularly rich in revolutionary songs), N.P. Kolpakova (1923–1955—Vologda and Leningrad Oblasts, and the Terek coastal region), O.E. Ozarovskaia (1914–1921—especially from the Arkhangel'sk region), V.N. Peretts (1879–1891), A.A. Shakhmatov (1884), and V.P. Vladimirtsev (especially from the Tatar ASSR), V.M. Zhirmunskii (1926–1930—with German ballads, and other materials from the Trans-Volga area, Crimean, and the Caucasus) to name only a few.
        Collections produced by various expeditions are arranged in archival groups according to the expedition involved in a specific region, which include reports, minutes of meetings, expeditionary documentation (route maps, diaries, and photographic materials), as well as collected texts of byliny, songs, tales, proverbs, and other folklore. There are materials from peasants, factory workers, and soldiers. Materials from World War II include folklore of prisoners of Nazi concentration camps in Austria, Hungary, and Romania (from the N.I. Imshenetskii collection). There are also collections for specific ethnic groups, such as Belorussian Jews (1934), Russian Germans (1926–1930), and Don Cossacks (1936), among others. Collections of various genres of folklore include a card catalogue of subjects of fairy tales (partly from the S.F. Ol'denburg collection).
        Personal papers of ethnographers and folklore scholars include those of L.V. Domanovskii, O.I. Kapitsa, E.E. Lineva, S.S. Nekhoroshev, and P.K. Simoni, containing manuscripts of scholarly works, biographical data and materials reflecting professional activities, correspondence, portraits, and the like. Many of the personal fonds are joined with major folklore collections gathered by individual scholars.
        The repository also houses an impressive collection of Russian lubok (popular woodblock prints) dating from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, along with other graphic materials, including portraits of performers and folklorists.


Working conditions:
Researchers are received in the repository working area, since there is no formal reading room. Files are delivered immediately upon order.

Reference facilities:
There are opisi for most fonds. Some of the materials are covered by card catalogues according to the type of folklore involved. Internal inventory and accession registers are compiled on chronological and territorial principle.

Copy facilities:
Xerox copies by arrangement with the IRLI administration.


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted