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State Archive of Russian Federation (Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federazii-GARF)

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Description
GARF was established in 1992 on the basis of the combined holdings of several Russian archives. Its assets consist of about 3,000 fonds with over five million file units, covering the period from 1800 to 1993.

The Archive holds files on Russian/Soviet historical issues as well as on judicial and political matters and it includes a wide range of personal papers from several politicians and state functionaries. The files are consolidated from archives all over Russia as well as from private collections transferred to Moscow after World War II.

Although ninety percent of the archival records have been declassified and are open to research, a number of files related to property matters are still not accessible. Of special interest for provenance research on displaced cultural property are the records of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany SMAG (Sovetskoi Voennoi Administratsii v Germanii - SVAG). The records provide information on the provenance of artworks and books taken from Germany to Russia by the Soviet Trophy Brigades during and after World War II. A joint Russo-German project on the microfilming and description of the SVAG records in the State Archive of the Russian Federation was launched in 1998. It is entitled: Exploration and publication of archival records of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany 1945 to 1949 (Izucheniia i izdaniia dokumentov Sovetskoi Voennoi Administratsii v Germanii 1945-1949). General information on the project is available at http://www.rusarchives.ru/projects/swag.shtml. Detailed information for the following archival records are available online:

· P 5704 Party organisations launched in the SMAG
· P 5707 Records of Communist organisations of the SMAG, of the Soviet Commissioner for the Union Control Commission and of other institutions and organisations within the SMAG
· P 7317 Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAG)
· P 7077 SMA for Brandenburg
· P 7103 SMA for Mecklenburg
· P 7212 SMA for Saxony
· P 7133 SMA for Saxony-Anhalt
· P 7184 SVA for Thuringia
· P 7375 Board of Transport of the SMA in Germany (collection)
· P 7399 Head of the occupying Soviet troops in Germany
· P 7405 Central SMAG-Commission for Liquidation
· P 7408 Newspaper 'Tägliche Rundschau' (Daily Review)
· P 9409 Special Camps of the Soviet Ministry of Interior in Germany
· P 9433 Editorial and publishing department of the newspaper 'Sovetskovo slovo' (The Soviet Word)
· P 9434 House of the Cultures of the USSR, Berlin
· P 9435 Central club of the SVAG

In addition, a general finding aid Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii: Putevoditel' (The State Archive of the Russian Federation: A Research Guide, Vol. 1 to 6) on all archival records was published in 1994 and distributed abroad by the Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of Pittsburgh. GARF is in the process of establishing an electronic catalogue on all archival records, with file- and document-level annotations.

Contact Information
State Archive of the Russian Federation
17, Ul. Bolschaya Pirogovskaya
Moscow, 119817
Russia
Tel.: 007 095 245 1287
Fax: 007 095 245 8141
Email: garf@online.ru
<http://garf.narod.ru/>

Source
ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: State Archive of the Russian Federation (Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federazii)
< http://www.iisg.nl/~abb/abb_b1.html>, accessed 16 March 2004.

State Archive of the Russian Federation (Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federazii) - Records of the SVAG
< http://www.rusarchives.ru/secret/swag.shtml >, accessed 16 March 2004.

 

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