Metadata: Negatives Fond
Collection
- Country:
- Russia
- Holding institution:
- State Museum of the Political History of Russia
- Holding institution (official language):
- Государственный музей политической истории России
- Postal address:
- 197046, Russia, St. Petersburg, ul. Kuibysheva, d. 2–4
- Phone number:
- (812) 233-70-52
- Email:
- polithistmuseum@mail.ru
- Reference number:
- F. IX
- Title:
- Negatives Fond
- Title (official language):
- Фонд негативов
- Creator/accumulator:
- State Museum of the Great October Socialist Revolution (GMR); State Museum of Political History (GMPI); various organisations and individuals
- Date(s):
- 1920/2012
- Language:
- Russian
- Yiddish
- Extent:
- 63,000 storage units
- Type of material:
- Photographic images
- Scope and content:
- Documents pertaining to Jewish history housed in the fonds may be provisionally divided into five thematic groups: 1) Photocopies of documents, letters, leaflets, particular issues of periodicals, and newspapers clippings, including negatives of a fragment of a letter from S. V. Zubatov to G. I. Shaevich, leader of the Independent Jewish Workers’ Party (ENRP) in Odessa, on methods of legalising the labour movement (1903); anti-pogrom leaflets by the joint committee of social-democratic organisations of the city of Nikolaev (1905); particular issues of the Bund newspaper Arbeitershtime [Workers’ Voice] (1897); a resolution of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets against anti-Jewish pogroms from the newspaper Soldatskaia pravda (1917, no. 63); etc. 2) A collection of anti-Semitic caricatures by the artist Zlotnikov, a copy of postcards and pages from the Black Hundreds magazines Vampir [The Vampire] and Pauk [The Spider] (1905-07). 3) Negatives of photographic portraits and group photographs, and in particular of M. M. Beilis, the subject of a “blood libel” accusation (Kiev, 1913); a female revolutionary named Shabad who had been killed in Minsk during a pogrom (1905); etc.; groups of students and teachers of the Trud [Labor] Jewish Vocational School (Odessa, 1905); leaders and members of the Bund, and employees of the editorial offices of the newspaper Der Veker, the press organ of the Bund (Minsk, 1919-20), etc. 4) Negatives of documentary photographs and views, drawings, postcards, and reproductions depicting pogrom-related events in the cities of Odessa (1871, 1905), Kishinev (1905), Vil’na, Kiev, Ekaterinoslav, and Minsk (1905); in the village of Bobry and the town of Kimborovka, etc. (Belorussia, 1918-20); in the city of Zhitomir (1920), etc. 5) Documentary negatives reflecting the life of Jewish agricultural communes and colonies, including negatives annotated as “Threshing in the Jewish commune” (1925), “Jewish peasants engaged in agricultural labor in the field (horse-drawn farming techniques)” (1926), “House construction in a Jewish colony” (1926), etc.
- Archival history:
- This was established in 1919 in Petrograd as the Museum of the Revolution. It was originally located in the building of the Winter Palace. In 1972, it was renamed the State Museum of the Great October Socialist Revolution (GMR), a branch of the Central Museum of the Revolution of the USSR. Since 1991, it has been called the State Museum of Political History (GMPI). In 1974 it was awarded the Order of the October Revolution. Since 1920, it has been located in a building that is a historical and revolutionary monument, the former home of M. Kshesinskaia (from March-June 1917, the operational centre of the central and Petrograd committees of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party [RSDRP], the Bolshevik military organisation, and the “Pravda” soldiers’ club). The museum has fifteen fonds collections containing approximately 500,000 storage units, including collections of banners; weapons; propagandistic and revolutionary-themed china; the numismatic collection; works of art; books in Russian and foreign languages, and in particular, from the library of the Shlisselburg prison fortress; satirical revolutionary magazines of 1905-07; posters; items; and photo- and documentary materials on the history of the revolutionary movement, the October Revolution of 1917, the Civil and Great Patriotic Wars, and the attempt to build socialism in the USSR; personal papers of such prominent state and party figures as V. D. Bonch-Bruevich, Ia. M. Sverdlov, L. D. Trotskii, M. S. Uritskii, A. D. Tsiurupa, etc. The museum has a computer database; materials may be searched for by inventory number; by number in the acquisition log; by the date and location of an event; by terms in the title and description of an event; by index; by date and location of an item’s creation; by author name; by the history of an item’s acquisition; etc.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The fonds consists of glass and film negatives received by the State Museum of the Great October Socialist Revolution (GMR) (1919-91) and State Museum of Political History (GMPI) (1991-2012) from various organisations and individuals.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Beilis, Menahem Mendel
- Shabad
- Shaevich, G I
- Zlotnikov
- Zubatov, S V
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds includes a card file systematised by subject.
- Finding aids:
- A card file is available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary