10/1/2010
Selected General Resources & Resources for the Soviet Union, Russia,
Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia
Karen Rondestvedt
Molly Molloy
Curator for Slavic & East European Collections
345A Green Library East; (650) 725-1052
Slavic Reference Librarian
Green Lib. Information Center; (650) 725-6243
e-mail: rondest@stanford.edu
e-mail: mfmolloy@stanford.edu
http://library.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/slavic/index.html
Machine-readable version of this guide: http://www.stanford.edu/~rondest/GuideRuss10.doc
For bibliographic sources not covered in this guide, see:
For the Soviet Union, Russia: Wojciech Zalewski’s Russian Reference Works,
http://library.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/slavic/3refint.html.
For most countries of the region: University of Illinois Slavic and East European Library,
http://www.library.illinois.edu/spx/ has guides on many countries and subjects.
FINDING JOURNAL AND NEWS ARTICLES, BROADCASTS, GOVERNMENT
DOCUMENTS and OTHER MATERIAL SHORTER THAN BOOK LENGTH
For material listed below with “Link in Databases section,” go to Stanford University Libraries home
page, http://library.stanford.edu/, click on Databases & Articles. Search title of database or use the
By Title A-Z list. You can also find most of the Slavic ones listed under the category Slavic and
Eastern European Studies.
Note that material in databases Stanford subscribes to generally does not appear in the results of
Google searches.
Academic OneFile.
Indexes articles from over 8000 major English-language journals. Includes coverage of physical
sciences, technology, and medicine, in addition to social sciences and humanities. Some full text.
Also includes podcasts and transcripts from NPR, CNN, and CBC, plus full-text New York Times
content beginning 1985. Overlaps partially with Academic Search Premier. Link in Databases
section.
*Academic Search Premier. Covers 1965- .
Multidisciplinary database providing full text for over 4,650 English-language scholarly publications, more
than 3,600 of them peer-reviewed. Abstracts and indexing for 8,200 English-language journals. Link in
Databases section.
American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies (ABSEES). Covers 1990Indexes scholarly books & articles published in North America. Before 1990, use paper version. Indexing
here is way behind. Link in Databases section.
Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports. Covers 1916CRS is a “think tank” that provides research reports to the U.S. Congress on subjects of policy
interest. Link in Databases section.
C.R.I.S.: The Combined Retrospective Index Set to Journals in History, 1838-1974. Washington: Carrollton
Press; 1977-. Z6205 .C18 Green Information Center
Articles in English. Dates refer to dates articles were published. Vols. 1-4=World history, alphabetical by
country and region (vol. 2=Colombia - Europe, Eastern, Central and Southern; vol. 3=Europe, general
through Latin America, general; vol. 4= Mexico - West Indies and Caribbean Area.); vols. 10-11=Author
index. Useful for articles published before online Historical Abstracts begins.
The Current Digest of the (Post-)Soviet Press [Columbus, Ohio, etc.]: American Association for the
Advancement of Slavic Studies [etc.], 1949- .
D839 .C87 Green stacks & SAL3
Weekly. Translated summaries of selected articles in Soviet and post-Soviet press. In addition to paper
version, full run is online as part of East View’s Universal Databases. It is also indexed in several other
databases of English-language sources. Find link in SearchWorks record, in E-Journals section of SUL
website, or go to http://dlib.eastview.com/ and click on its title. Be sure to read “A Special Note on
Transliteration in The Current Digest” on front online page. Current Digest can be used as partial index to
articles in original Russian.
Digital National Security Archive. Full text of thousands of declassified U.S. documents that led to policy
decisions. Includes collection “The Soviet Estimate: U.S. Analysis of the Soviet Union, 1947-1991”:
documents from Director of Central Intelligence, the National Intelligence Council, the Central Intelligence
Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and others. Link in Databases section.
East View Universal Databases. Aggregation of over 300 full-text Russian (mostly), Baltic and NIS newspapers,
newswires, magazines, scholarly journals and government publications. Language is predominantly Russian,
but there is also material in English and some in Ukrainian. Contents categories include: Russian Central
Newspapers, Russian Regional Newspapers, Social Sciences & Humanities (scholarly journals, mostly
Russian), Russian Governmental Publications, Russian Military & Security Periodicals, Russian/NIS
Newswires, CIS & Baltic Newspapers, Ukrainian Periodicals, Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press,
Vestnik Evropy (digitized 19th-century newspaper), Pravda Digital Archive. Lists of titles included in each
category can be found by clicking on name of category. Most categories include material in English. Link in
Databases section. In Databases section, each of the categories of Universal Databases is also listed
separately.
L'Emigration russe: revues et recueils, 1920-1980: index général des articles. Paris : Institut d'études
slaves, 1988.
Z2513 .E42 E44 1988 (Lane Room)
AI15 .E43 1988 (Hoover Reference)
Indexes 45 Russian emigré periodicals and 16 collections. Supplemented for 1981-1995 by
Russkaia emigratsiia: zhurnaly i sborniki (see below)
Film Periodicals, Index. Covers 1972- Link in Databases section.
Film/TV Documentation Collections. Link in Databases section.
FEB: Fundamental’naia elektronnaia biblioteka “Russkaia literatura i folklor.” <http://feb-web.ru/> Also
accessible via link in Databases section.
Huge collection of digitized texts, from Gorky Institute of World Literature and Informregistr Center at the
Russian Ministry for Communications. “A repository of Russian verbal art and the scholarly and other texts
vital to understanding it.” Primary texts are searchable, as well as viewable as they appeared in original
editions. Also secondary sources, bibliographies, Literaturnaia entsiklopediia (1929-1939), etc.
Guide to Law Online: Nations of the World <http://www.loc.gov/law/guide/nations.html>. From Law
Library of Congress. Constitutions, legislation, laws, other fairly current government documents.
Material linked to is typically in language(s) of country and/or English. Not all governments have
everything online.
Historical Abstracts. Covers 1954- .
Indexes articles from major journals published all over the world in many languages. For items published
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before 1954, use paper version and/or C.R.I.S.: The Combined Retrospective Index Set to Journals in History,
1838-1974. Foreign language coverage is considerably less in earlier years. Link in Databases section.
ICON (International Coalition on Newspapers). Newspaper Digitization <http://icon.crl.edu/digitization>.
Links to digitized newspapers (often historical), arranged by country.
International Statistical Agencies <http://www.census.gov/aboutus/stat_int.html>. Links to other countries’
statistical agencies, provided by U.S. Census Bureau. Most statistical agencies put a great deal of
statistical information online.
*LexisNexis Academic.
Index, abstracts and some full text of thousands of sources, some back to 1980s. Its particular strength for our
purposes is news. Includes BBC monitoring of major international news sources. Material indexed is in
English. Link in Databases section.
Letopis’ gazetnykh statei. Moskva: Vsesoiuznaia knizhnaia palata, 1936AI15 .L35 Green stacks; Hoover
Soviet/Russian general newspaper index. Works like Letopis’ zhurnal’nykh statei below. 1998- available
online as part of Russian National Bibliography. Link in SearchWorks record and in Databases section.
Letopis’ zhurnal’nykh statei. Moskva: Kniga, 1926AI15 .L4 Green stacks; latest year in Green Information Center. SAL1/2 has another set through
2000, including issues Green may be missing.
Soviet/Russian general journal index. Earlier title: Zhurnal’naia letopis’. Frequency has been weekly for
many years. Does not cumulate. Arranged by broad subject, then alphabetically by author. Some years have
proper name and geographical indexes, others don’t. Indiana University’s digitized version of 1956-1975:
http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/letopis/index.jsp. 1998- available online as part of Russian National
Bibliography. Links in SearchWorks record and in Databases section.
Litopys hazetnykh statei = Letopis’ gazetnykh statei. Kharkiv: Knyzhkova palata Ukraïns’koï RSR, 1937AI15 .L48 (Green stacks) Library has: 1971- with some issues missing.
Ukrainian general newspaper index. Until breakup of Soviet Union, Ukrainian articles were also
included in Soviet Letopis’ gazetnykh statei, although Ukrainian index may be more
comprehensive. 2002- available online as part of Universal Databases, Ukrainian Publications (a
piece of East View Universal Databases). Link on Databases list.
Litopys zhurnal’nykh statei = Letopis’ zhurnal’nykh statei. Kharkiv: Knyzhkova palata Ukraïns’koï RSR,
1936AI15 .L5 (Green stacks) Library has: 1971-78; 1995-98 with some issues missing; 1999Ukrainian equivalent of Letopis’ zhurnal’nykh statei. Until breakup of Soviet Union, Ukrainian
articles were also included in Soviet Letopis’ zhurnal’nykh statei, although Ukrainian index may
be more comprehensive. 2002- available online as part of Universal Databases, Ukrainian
Publications. Link on Databases list.
MLA International Bibliography of Books and Articles on the Modern Languages and Literatures, 1921Z7006 .M64 Green Information Center (1921-1959 only).
1926- available online for sure, and maybe whole run. Link on Databases list. If earlier issues not online, use
paper version.
Novaia literatura po sotsial’nym i gumanitarnym naukam: istoriia, arkheologiia, etnografiia. Moskva:
INION, 1993Z6205 .N66 Green stacks Early incarnations of this bibliography in SAL-NEWARK.
Monthly. Well-selected scholarly articles, mostly from Russian journals. For other subjects covered by
INION bibliographies, look in SearchWorks under first part of title above. Earlier incarnations were called
Novaia otechestvennaia literatura po sotsial’nym i gumanitarnym naukam, Novaia sovetskaia literatura po
obshchestvennym naukam and Novaia sovetskaia literatura po/o… For more information on INION
bibliographies, see Wojciech Zalewski’s online Russian Reference Works,
http://library.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/slavic/3refint.html. Scroll down to link INION Bibliographies.
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Contents 1993- available online in Russian Academy of Sciences Bibliographies (see its entry below), but
database is not updated very often.
PAIS International. Covers 1972- .
Index of articles on public and international affairs. English and Western languages. There are paper volumes
that index articles from 1920 to 1971. Indexes Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press and its earlier
incarnations, among other things. Link in Databases section.
Russian Academy of Sciences Bibliographies, 1993Indexes well-selected scholarly articles in social sciences and humanities, mostly from Russian journals.
Duplicates content of paper-format Novaia literatura po sotsial’nym i gumanitarnym naukam, 1993- (see its
entry above). Search in Cyrillic. Link in Databases section.
Russian National Bibliography. Covers 1998- Searchable online version of 8 parts of official national
bibliography, including Letopis’ zhurnal’nykh statei, Letopis’ gazetnykh statei and Letopis’ avtoreferatov
dissertatsii. Link in Databases section. 1996 and 1997 available on CD-ROM; see SearchWorks for location.
Russkaia emigratsiia: zhurnaly i sborniki na russkom iazyke, 1981-1995: svodnyi ukazatel’ statei. Paris:
Institut d'études slaves; Moskva: Rosspen, 2005.
Z6955 .R87 2005 (Green stacks)
Supplements L'Emigration russe: revues et recueils, 1920-1980 above.
*Web of Science. Combination of Science Citation Index Expanded, 1900- , Social Sciences Citation Index, 1956- ,
and Arts & Humanities Citation Index, 1975- . Especially useful for topics with a science component (e.g.,
environment, public health). Indexes English-language articles only. Link in Databases section.
World News Connection. Full-text English language translations of selected foreign television and radio broadcasts,
newspaper & journal articles, press releases, 1996- . Before 1996, appeared in print as Daily Report: Central
Eurasia (1992-1996) and Daily Report: Eastern Europe, among other sections. Before 1992 appeared under
various similar titles, which are retrievable in SearchWorks using term FBIS. This search will also pull up
topical reports on microfiche (example: FBIS Report: Science & Technology: Central Eurasia) and paper and
CD-ROM indexes to this material. Link in Databases section.
xSearch. Searches several databases at once, including starred (*) ones above, plus many science databases. Over the
next year we will add more databases related to international studies. http://xsearch.stanford.edu/ and also
linked directly from library home page, http://library.stanford.edu/.
FINDING BOOKS & JOURNAL TITLES IF YOU CAN’T FIND THEM AT
STANFORD
Some sources for determining whether you can borrow them on interlibrary loan
Note: if you can't find a wanted item using SearchWorks, try our old catalog, Socrates (http://socrates.stanford.edu/;
also linked from library home page), before investigating interlibrary loan.
University of California, Berkeley’s library, http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/index.html. Click on OskiCat for
their catalog. Getting material from Berkeley is your fastest choice. There is also a link on the Databases
page.
WorldCat (OCLC). Huge database of holdings of many libraries, the majority of which are in North America. Largest
library database in world. Books and journal titles only, no articles. Use to see if a book or journal is likely to
be available on interlibrary loan. Search Cyrillic titles in LC transliteration. Link in Databases section.
If you still can’t find the book or journal title
Note: In all of these sources, look up authors and/or titles of books and titles of journals. (These
catalogs do not list articles.)
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The National Union Catalog, Pre-1956 Imprints; A Cumulative Author List Representing Library of
Congress Printed Cards and Titles Reported by Other American Libraries. London, Mansell,
1968-1981. 754 vols.
Z881 .U49 A19 F (Green stacks)
Photocopy entry and attach it to paper interlibrary loan form, or write NUC pre-56 + vol. no. and
page no. on online form.
The Slavic Cyrillic Union Catalog of Pre-1956 Imprints. Totowa, N. J. : Rowman and Littlefield, 1980. 174
microfiches (in binder).
MFICHE 333 Green Media-Microtext Collection; ask for it by number at Media-Micro desk.
Useful for items in Cyrillic from before 1956. If you find it here, print page or copy holdings information and
put it into your interlibrary loan request. This source duplicates Cyrillic items in National Union Catalog
above, but includes additional titles and additional holding libraries.
Online catalogs of the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg, http://www.nlr.ru/. Click on Электронные
каталоги. For older publications see their Генеральный алфавитный каталог книг на русском языке
(1725-1997). This is scanned catalog cards of the library’s entire general card catalog. A Cyrillic keyboard
program is required to use it. Put in the beginning of the author’s surname if you have it or the title if you
don’t. You’ll be given a range of numbered cards; find the proper one by trial and error. For books published
1986 and later, you can use their regular электронный каталог. There are separate electronic catalogs of
periodicals, 18th-century books, and other things. If you find your item only here, print the card and bring the
print-out to me. We do not have an interlibrary loan arrangement with this library. (You can use their
document delivery service, but you will have to pay for it. It is not terribly expensive.)
University of Washington’s list of websites of selected important libraries in region,
http://www.lib.washington.edu/subject/RussiaEastEurope/dr/elcat.html.
Most online library catalogs will have much better coverage for more recent material than for older. If you
find а book or periodical only in one of those libraries, you will not be able to use interlibrary loan. Bring the
information to me.
INTERLIBRARY LOAN (ILL)
For fastest service, determine whether UC Berkeley has the item and if it’s available. Details on Stanford’s
reciprocal borrowing program with Berkeley, as well as eligibility, forms and links, can be found via SUL
home page, http://library.stanford.edu/, -> Services-> Interlibrary Services-> Document Delivery Request
Forms. Choose RLCP Request Form if you found the material at Berkeley and you are eligible to use this
service.
If neither Stanford nor Berkeley has the item, you need regular ILL. In general, you do not need to
determine who has it; Interlibrary Services staff will do that. Forms are available online (from SUL home
page, http://library.stanford.edu/: Services-> Interlibrary Services-> Document Delivery Request Forms =>
SULAIR Interlibrary Borrowing) and at Green Information Desk. FOR CYRILLIC, USE LC
TRANSLITERATION WITHOUT DIACRITICS. Do not abbreviate journal or book titles. Print clearly if
using paper form. Also note where you got the citation from, in such a way that others can find that item.
The older the item you want is, the more chance there is that the Interlibrary Services staff will have trouble
finding it.
It will speed your request for a book (or journal article if Stanford does not have the journal at all) if you
check WorldCat. If you find it there, that’s enough. In the Source of Citation blank on the form, write
WorldCat and the Accession Number from the record for the item. If you don’t find it there and it pre-dates
1956, check it in one of sources above.
If you still cannot find the item, come and see me or e-mail me the citation. Please transliterate the Cyrillic
correctly. (A large proportion of unfindable items involve transliteration problems, especially when the
item is—or is likely to be—in old orthography. The LC transliteration system does not modernize old
orthography.)
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SUBJECT GUIDES, SEARCH ENGINES AND OTHER USEFUL SITES
Computer-Related
Cyrillic at GWU: Cyrillicize Windows, http://www.gwu.edu/~slavic/gw-cyrillic/cyrilize.htm.
Detailed, illustrated instructions for installing Russian keyboards on Windows Vista and XP, with link to
another site for installing Cyrillic on computers running other operating systems including Macintosh, Linux
and older Windows versions. Instructions work, by analogy, for Latin-alphabet languages with non-Western
diacritics.
Paul Gorodyansky's Russian Keyboard Online, http://winrus.com/onscreen.htm.
Type Russian and Ukrainian Cyrillic with Windows computer when no system keyboard tools are available.
Geographic Information
FEEFHS Map Library, http://www.feefhs.org/maplibrary.html. Online historical maps, posted by the Federation
of East European Family History Societies. Includes entire Russian Empire, with Asian part, as well
as eastern Europe.
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection,
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/Map_collection.html.
Extensive collection of online maps from the University of Texas at Austin.
U.S. Board on Geographic Names Geonames server, http://geonames.usgs.gov/. Extremely detailed,
searchable gazetteer, which includes even small villages, geographic features, etc., throughout the world.
Transliterate Cyrillic names using ya, yu, etc., instead of ia, iu, etc. Also use y for Й.
News Sources (Current)
EurasiaNet, http://www.eurasianet.org/.
Current news, business, environment, foreign relations, human rights, politics, culture of Caucasian and
Central Asian countries. Site in English, Russian or Arabic.
Nathan Birman’s Newspaper Registration and Tracking System at the Stanford University Library,
http://www.stanford.edu/~nbirman/.
Nathan checks in current hardcopy newspapers in Green Library. This is his database of which titles we have
received and which issues you can expect to find on the shelf in the newspaper area. You do not need a user
name and password to view it; just click on Newspapers. He has also included URLs for the newspapers’
own websites, if available. For Russian newspapers, East View’s Universal Databases will have a more
complete backfile if they include that paper. (If Nathan’s site does not work in the morning, he is inputting
information. Try again later.)
Newspaper refdesk.com: My Virtual Newspaper, http://www.refdesk.com/paper2.html.
Hundreds of online newspapers, listed by continent, then country.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, http://www.rferl.org/.
Daily online news from 19 countries and regions. Also photos, streaming and archived mutimedia, blogs,
commentary, etc., in English and languages of region.
East View Universal Databases.
See full description in the first section. Link in Databases section.
World News Connection. Full-text English language translations of foreign television and radio broadcasts,
newspaper & journal articles, press releases. Link in Databases section.
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Search Engines and Link Sites
Erik Herron’s Guide to Politics in East Central Europe and Eurasia, http://www.ku.edu/~herron/.
Large, well-organized site from University of Kansas includes links to government offices, NGOs, institutes,
news sources, political parties, etc.
Guide to Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Information Resources,
http://www.library.illinois.edu/spx/webct/. From University of Illinois Slavic Reference Service.
Intergovernmental and Non-Governmental Organizations Search, links from
http://library.stanford.edu/depts/jonsson/collections/intl/igosearch.html.
From International Documents Taskforce of American Library Association. Searches across hundreds of
IGOs or NGOs.
Link Collection, from Slavic Research Center of Hokkaido University, http://slavdb.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/fmi/xsl/link-e.xsl .
Portals to the World, http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/portals.html. [Site down as of 9/16/2010]
From the Library of Congress. Well-chosen sites organized by country, then topic.
REENIC: Russian and East European Network Information Center, http://reenic.utexas.edu/. From Center
for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, Univesity of Texas at Austin.
REESWeb, http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/reesweb/. From Center for Russian & East European Studies, University of
Pittsburgh. All subjects, but emphasis on humanities and social sciences.
Search Engine Colossus, http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/. Search engines categorized by country. Find
engines that will search web space of country you’re interested in. For countries using Cyrillic alphabet, you
will typically need Cyrillic keyboards to use their search engines. For countries using Roman alphabet with
diacritics, you will typically find more if you put diacritics into your search.
Slavic and Eastern European Collections in the Stanford University Libraries,
http://library.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/slavic/index.html. Also accessible from Stanford University
Libraries home page. Under Research Help, click on Humanities & Area Studies -> Slavic & Eastern
European Collections. Content at present compiled mostly by my predecessor, Wojciech Zalewski, although I
have updated some of it. Contains a huge amount of information, including additional electronic resources,
film listings, music, art, Russian bibliographical sources, etc. We have more films than are listed there, a few
links may no longer work, etc.
Slavistik-Portal = Portal po slavistike, http://www.slavistik-portal.de/. From Berlin State Library, financed by
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation). Interface, instructions and description in
German, Russian or English, although German version is the most complete. Large, sophisticated database
with a variety of ways to retrieve information. All social sciences and humanities subjects, but emphasis is
on languages and literatures of the region.
ViFaOst, http://www.vifaost.de/. From a partnership of Bavarian State Library, Department for East and South
East European History at the Historical Seminar of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Institute
for Eastern European Studies in Regensburg, Herder-Institut in Marburg, and Göttingen State and University
Library. Also financed by German Research Foundation. Interface, instructions and description in German,
Russian or English. Large, sophisticated database covering social sciences and humanities subjects, with
emphasis on history and social sciences.
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Transliteration Tables
ALA-LC Romanization Tables: Transliteration Schemes for Non-Roman Scripts,
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html. If you don’t see your language listed individually,
look at table called Non-Slavic Languages in Cyrillic Script.
Transliteration of Non-Roman Scripts, http://transliteration.eki.ee/. From Thomas T. Pedersen. Scroll
down for list of languages.
ONLINE JOURNALS
One particularly useful journal (plus blogs, etc.) for current REEE social sciences topics is Transitions
Online, http://www.transitions-online.org/. Must be accessed from Stanford computer or proxy
server. Link also on SearchWorks record and in E-Journals list.
If you’re hoping to find a particular journal or newspaper online, check its title in SearchWorks. Sometimes
there is more than one record for a title, and the link is in only one of them, so scroll down and read the
records carefully. If you don't find it there, try searching it on Stanford’s e-journals site (click on E-Journals
from the libraries’ home page, http://library.stanford.edu/). If necessary, try browsing the alphabetical list by
initial letter. Not all journals are online, of course.
If you find problems with paper-format newspapers, tell Molly. She’s in charge of newspapers as well as
being a reference librarian.
RSS FEEDS FROM SEARCHWORKS FOR NEWLY CATALOGED BOOKS
RSS feeds from SearchWorks will alert you to Stanford’s newly cataloged books on the history of Russia,
the Soviet Union and its successor states; Russian literature; and selected other fields. URL:
http://sulrss.stanford.edu/. You can see them online or subscribe to individual ones.
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