Metadata: Archival Information Fonds
Collection
- Country:
- Russia
- Holding institution:
- The Memorial Research and Information Center (St. Petersburg)
- Holding institution (official language):
- Научно-информационный центр «Мемориал»
- Postal address:
- 191002, ul. Rubinshteina, d. 23, ofis 103; Mailing address: 191002, St. Petersburg, a/ia 4 [P.O. Box #4]
- Phone number:
- (812) 572-23-11
- Web address:
- http://www.memorial-nic.org/
- Email:
- gulagmuseum@gmail.com
- Reference number:
- F. 6
- Title:
- Archival Information Fonds
- Title (official language):
- Фонд архивных справок
- Creator/accumulator:
- V. V. Iofe; various archives
- Date(s):
- 1991/2014
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 19 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
- The fonds’ materials, which reflect state policies regarding the repression of dissidents in the USSR in the 1930s-70s, consist of original documents and copies received by V. V. Iofe from various archival administrations, public prosecutors’ offices, informational centres of the Administration for Internal Affairs, and other institutions in response to queries regarding the fate of persons who had been subjected to political repression. These documents may be provisionally divided into two groups: 1) those that indicate, in reply to the query, that the archive in question either has or does not have information on the specific person; 2) brief summaries of information that archive staff found in accordance with the query that sheds light on the fate of the person who had been subjected to political repression. The archival documents have a set format, and contain information on the date and place of the given individual’s birth, their social status, pre-1917 party affiliation, ethnicity, education, family composition, place of employment, the date and grounds of their indictment, the verdict and date of its implementation, and in several cases, the date of official exoneration. Appended to some documents are copies of excerpts from minutes of sessions of the NKVD troika that heard the case. In particular, some of the documents concern indictments for involvement in Trotskyist-Zinov’evian or Zionist organisations, the “True Orthodox” religious association, scouts groups, the “Intelligentsia Party,” etc. Pertaining to the history of Jews in Russia are archival documents that contain information on the fate of persons subjected to political repression that indicate these persons’ Jewish background, as well as past membership in the Bund or Zionist organisations; among these are an archival document on P. Z. Rozen, who had been a member of the Bund in 1917 (1996); and a copy of an excerpt from minutes of a 1937 session of the NKVD troika for the Cheliabinsk region regarding the indictment against A. L. Groisman, said to be “a confirmed Zionist and a regular member of ‘Hashomer-Hatsioner’) [sic; i.e., the left Zionist youth organisation Hashomer Hatzair); etc.
- Archival history:
- The Memorial Research and Information Center (NITs “Memorial”) is a regional public institution. Its emergence as a resource centre for the study of Soviet state terror, resistance against the totalitarian regime, and the history of the Gulag, providing research support for operations of the historical-archival commission of the Memorial Society, began in 1987; it was officially registered in 1991. The centre’s founder and director was Veniamin Viktorovich Iofe (1938-2002), a public figure, historian, and philosopher who from 1964 on was involved in the publication of the underground public-political journal Kolokol [The Bell], for which he was arrested and sentenced in 1965 by the Leningrad Municipal Court according to articles 70 pt. 1 and 72 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (anti-Soviet propaganda and group agitation) to a maximum-security camp. In the 1970s and 80s, he studied the history of political opposition in the USSR, and in particular, taking part in publication of the samizdat review journal Summa (1979-82). He worked with the Russian Society Foundation (the Foundation to Aid the Families of Political Prisoners), which got him fired from his job. From 1988 on, he served as chair of the historical-archival commission of the Leningrad / St. Petersburg Memorial Society, and from 1989 on, as the society’s co-chair. In 1992 he became director of the Memorial Research and Information Center and editor-in-chief of its publishing house. The materials and collections V. V. Iofe assembled in the 1970s-80s (an archive, library, and card catalogue of political prisoners), as well as the methods he developed to study the history of resistance against the Soviet regime, and the alternatives to official Soviet historiography he developed, became the basis for the operations of the Memorial Research and Information Center. At present the centre works closely with state and non-state organisations that deal with human rights, sociology, education, and history, both in Russia and in other countries.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- This fonds represents part of the collection of documents assembled by V. V. Iofe that became the basis for the Memorial Research and Information Center. The vast majority of the fonds consists of archival information provided in response to queries submitted by V. Iofe to archival administrations, public prosecutors’ offices, the Federal Security Service Administration, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and other organisations regarding the fate of persons subjected to political repression in the USSR.
- Access points: locations:
- Russia
- St Petersburg
- USSR
- Access points: persons/families:
- Groisman, A. L.
- Iofe, V. V.
- Rozen, P. Z.
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds includes a single inventory systematised chronologically.
- Finding aids:
- An inventory is available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
