Scientific archive

Institute for the History of Material Culture of RAS as the Empire Archaeological Commission successor holds main archaeological collections of Russian Empire and main materials on the USSR archaeology up to 1941, kept in two archives (of manuscript and photos). The library of IHMC RAS is one of the biggest libraries on archaeology and as well as the archives belongs to the national property.

Archive of manuscripts

The archive had been formed by the middle of the XIX-th c. and acquired materials on archaeology and sites monitoring starting from the end of the XVIII-th c. It contains large collections of the Empire Archaeological Commission, Russian Archaeological Society (Saint-Petersburg), Moscow Archaeological Society, the Emperor administration departments regarding to antiquities recording and monitoring (Home Office of Russia and the Emperor Court Ministry). The archive stock numbers 102 collections and exceeds 70 000 units (manuscripts, maps, pictures and drawings). It also holds unique data outside strict archaeology that belongs to the national cultural property.

The archive owns the unique collection of church metrics (passports) for all christian buildings of the Russian Empire from chapels to cathedrals (exceeds 2000) accompanied with the corresponding graphic documentation, unique albums of illustrations on surveys north of European Russia, in Siberia, Crimea, Transcaucasus, drawings and measurements of Novgorodian and Pskov temples, surveys materials of architectural monuments of Middle Asia (Samarkand, Bukhara etc.). It holds core documentation on sites monitoring and preservation for USSR territory starting from 1917, documents on the Church Assets Seizure Commission, reports on churches destructions (years 1922-1929), lists of church assets and antiquities given to museums and moved abroad, records on sites monitoring in regions flooded in the 1930-ths during the total electrification campaign, museums collections schedules lost during the World War II. The section of Personalities commands materials of prince archaeologists, historians, architects, art historians like the president of the Academy of Art A.Olenin, The Empire Arch. Commission chairman A.Bobrinskiy, academitians N.Veselovskiy, P.Pokryshkin, K.Romanov etc., drawings of N.Rerikh. The archive presents the only depository in the country collected by the principle — archaeology and sites preservation in all diversities of these disciplines.

Staff:

Natalia Belova, scientific fellow.
Tatiana Ivanova, senior assistant.

Photoarchive

The foundation date of the Photoarchive is deemed to be the year 1859, — the year of foundation of the Empire Archaeological Commission. The Commission’s collections of photographs and negatives formed the base of the archive’s stock. Nowadays it includes more than 1200000 units (negatives, slides, 8 movies). The archive is the oldest one in Russia and the only special archive on the Academy of Sciences. The archive’s matter is much broader compare to the archive of manuscripts: archaeology within the ambit of Russian Empire, Soviet Republics and foreign countries (Mongolia, Czech, Slovakia, Romania, China, Vietnam, India, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary), anthropology, ethnography, russian civil, military and cult architecture, painting and sculpture of the Renaissance and Modern Time, applied art, epigraphics, russian paleography and heraldry, sphragistics. The archive stocks total documentation on archaeological surveys in Russian Empire and the USSR dated up to 1945 as well as materials from the later expeditions. Interesting collections on epigraphics of the Volga, Crimea, Turkmenia peoples, the orochens of the Amur basin have been acquired over the past time. There are materials on applied art and ancient Armenian and Georgian architecture, byzantian miniature. Due to reorganization of some soviet establishments in the 1920-30-ths collections from the State Museum Fund, GlavNauka Restoration Workshop, Sites Preservation Department of Art Committee and Publications on Art Popularization Committee, collections from the Earls Shuvalovs’ Palace-museum, the Winter and Marble Palaces libraries were passed to the Photoarchive. Those collections include the unique materials on architecture of Saint-Petersburg, Moscow and their suburbs as well as other cities of Eurasia. The archive represents materials on architecture of Germany, France, Italy, Spain and some other countries of Europe and Asia. The Photoarchive has the best and most representative collections regarding Russian Orthodox Church (around 450 000 units) since church monuments preservation was among the most important tasks of the Empire Archaeological Commission. The archive also stocks personal data collections of the foremost archaeologists and archaeologists-art historians such as A.Bobrinskiy, N.Marr, N.Repnikov, A.Spitsin, J.Smirnov, B.Formakovskiy; photographers such N.Matveev, V.Mashechkin etc.; architects such M.Preobrazhenskiy, V.Suslov, N.Sultanova etc.; L.Matsulevich; K.Faberge.

Staff:

Galina Dluzhnevskaja. Head of the Scientific Archive, Senior scientific fellow, Candidate of Hist. Sciences.
Natalia Lazarevskaja, Junior scientific fellow.
Maria Medvedeva, Junior scientific fellow.
Nadezhda Moiseeva, Junior scientific fellow.

Contact information:

191186. St.-Petersburg. Dvortsovaja nab. 18. IHMC RAS (IIMK RAN). Fotoarchive. Tel. +7 (812) 571-67-78; fax +7 (812) 571-62-71; e-mail: pharch@mail.ru