Chornobyl': Newspapers Collection is a small suite of collections comprised of three previously unavailable local newspapers (Tribuna Energetika, Prapor peremogy, and Trybuna pratsi) published in towns in the exclusion zone and its immediate vicinity offering researchers essential information for the study of the social background of the Chornobyl' disaster. While Prapor peremogy and Trybuna pratsi provide readers with an opportunity to explore the larger socio-cultural and historical context of the regions affected by the Chornobyl' disaster, Tribuna Energetika, published under the aegis of the Chornobyl' Nuclear Power Plant, invites researchers to explore the everyday life in the plant and the city of Prip'yat' more generally. As such researchers are provided with a unique access to some of the most important and less known primary sources from the era encapsulating the voices, concerns and experiences of the victims up until the catastrophe.

The explosion of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26, 1986 in the Ukrainian city of Pripyat is considered one of the worst nuclear disasters in history, especially if one is to consider its economic and environmental consequences. Affected were not only the areas in the NPP's immediate vicinity but also large parts of what was then Soviet Ukraine, Soviet Belorussia, and many countries in Europe. Much has been written on the accident, the structural shortcomings of the disaster management operations and the subsequent cover-up by the Soviet authorities, and recently Belorussian writer and journalist Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize in Literature for her book Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster where she painstakingly documents the fallout and its effects on ordinary Ukrainian and Belarusians. Yet 30 years after the disaster, a definitive account of the Chernobyl tragedy seems to be lacking, if only because many of the government documents and other relevant material had been classified and were out of the reach of academics. The recently declassified documents, now available through East View Information Services, makes fresh research into the causes and the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster not only possible but urgent allowing researchers, policy-makers, environmentalists and nuclear industry insiders unprecedented insight into the Ukrainian and Soviet decision-making process. The importance of such insights cannot be overestimated, since among other things it can serve as a valuable learning resource.
The collection includes more than 70 maps of the area, reports prepared for and by a variety of Soviet and Ukrainian government agencies, such as the KGB, documenting and detailing the most important developments in the wake of the disaster, but also internal reports and investigations on the its various causes. These include the problems with the design of the NPP, and the extent of the Soviet and Ukrainian government knowledge on many of the shortcomings that made the Chernobyl meltdown not only possible but in a sense inevitable. Some of the most fascinating items from the collection are internal reports, communiques, and correspondences between various heads of local and regional KGB officials long before the tragedy. Some reports going as far back as the beginning phase of the construction of the plant provide solid documentary evidence of criminal neglect in the building process, the unwillingness of the authorities to address the issues raised by the KGB and its vast network of informants, and the subsequent attempts at cover-up. One such report provides a painstakingly detailed description of the use of subpar building materials offering up a particularly spectacular microcosm of corruption, theft, and neglect that underlined Soviet central planning. The collection also contains documents relating to the less known September 9, 1982 partial meltdown of the reactor Block no. 1, the subsequent mishandling of which was perhaps the first indication of the inevitability of the 1986 accident. All in all, the collection contains materials going as far back as 1971 and up to 1991 offering a unique window into the entire spectrum of the secret information circulating within the Soviet and Ukrainian governmental structures.

Among the longest-running Russian newspapers, Izvestiia was founded in March 1917 and during the Soviet period was the official organ of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Remarkable for its serious and balanced treatment of subject matter, Izvestiia has traditionally been a popular news source within intellectual and academic circles.

Search through the full text of the chief chronicle of Russian and Soviet history in the 20th century, from the beginnings of the Russian Revolution through World War II, the Cold War, and the fall of the Soviet Union. Kommunisticheskaia partiia Rossiiskoi Federatsii is the official organ of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and is published by Zhurnalistskaia organizatsiia Pravdy.