One hundred and sixty-seven scholars from 54 nations have contributed their time and knowledge to improving the accuracy of a new electronically searchable database to the archive of the Communist International. The opening in the early 1990s of the archives of the Communist International made available to scholars around the world a tremendously rich resource. The 20 million pages of Comintern records, located at the Russian State Archive of Social-Political History (RGASPI) in Moscow, provide documentation on the history of political, trade union, and left-wing cultural activities in scores of nations where the Comintern and affiliated Communist parties operated during the period from 1919 to 1943. The great size of the Communist International archive, however, slowed exploration of this valuable source of original documentation. Even the finding aids (opisi) prepared by RGASPI archivists totaled more than twenty thousand pages of description of the Comintern's records. Scholars whose principal interest was in the politics of a particular country found the Russian language of the RGASPI finding aids a barrier, and to examine the finding aids and actual documents required travelling to Moscow.
The International Committee for the Computerization of the Comintern Archive (Incomka) was set up by the International Council on Archives to facilitate access to the Comintern's archival materials. Incomka partners include the Russian State Archive of Social-Political History, the Federal Archival Service of Russia, the Archives of France, the Federal Archives of Germany, the State Archives of Italy, the National Archives of Sweden, the Federal Archives of Switzerland, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport of Spain, the Library of Congress of the USA, and the Open Society Archives of Hungary.
The Incomka project had two parts: first, to digitize as images 5% (one million pages) of the most used and historically significant documents of the Comintern and, second, to digitize the finding aids to Comintern collections at RGASPI into an electronically text-searchable database. The scanning of the documents was undertaken by RGASPI archivists, who also prepared the Russian-language database. The database is essentially an edited electronic version of the printed finding aids allowing computer searches using file descriptors, key words, and personal or organizational names. The database allows rapid location of file descriptions of the entire twenty-million pages of the Communist International archive at RGASPI, not just the one-million pages electronically scanned for the Incomka project.
However, to facilitate international use, Incomka determined that the database was to be electronically searchable in both Cyrillic-alphabet Russian and Latin-alphabet English. The U.S. Library of Congress agreed to be the lead agency for translation of the database with Dr. Ronald D. Bachman, the Library's Polish and East European area specialist, as the supervising linguist. Library of Congress linguists found translating most of the descriptors from Russian to English to be an uncomplicated translation task although accurate translation of some Comintern organizational titles and operational "jargon" required consultation with historians familiar with Comintern history. Library of Congress linguists quickly found, however, that conversion of the more than 170,000 personal names in the database from Russian Cyrillic to their standard spelling in the Latin alphabet was a far more difficult task.
These personal names occurred in descriptions of files of various Comintern secretariats and agencies. The greatest number, however, came from more than 100,000 personal files maintained by the Comintern. These files are background files for persons for whom for one reason or another the Comintern at some point set up a biographical file. Many are for Comintern personnel, students at Comintern schools, and senior members of foreign parties. However, many files were also established for persons who were prominent opponents of the Communist movement. For example, the Comintern maintained a biographical file on J. Edgar Hoover, a strong anti-Communist who headed the USA's Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Comintern established files on thousands of persons who were simply of political importance such as major political or governmental figures, journalists, diplomats, and trade union officials, as well as thousands of lower-level functionaries.
Note: The database and the Library of Congress do not have the contents of the personal files (lichnye fondy). They are available only in the archives in Moscow.
While the Library of Congress handled the initial conversion of most national personal file lists from Cyrillic to Latin, the Archives of France, the Federal Archives of Germany, and the Federal Archives of Switzerland undertook this task for their respective national lists. The Library of Congress provided these partners with only a computer transliteration from Cyrillic to Latin.
The Comintern labeled its personal files in Russian, and all names were transliterated into Russian over a period of many years by file clerks with varying levels of linguistic competence. Incomka's linguists now faced the task of converting these Russian Cyrillic spellings of personal names to their standard spellings in the Latin alphabet. The difficulty of this conversion from Cyrillic is compounded by homonyms, which have a single spelling in Russian but multiple spellings in Latin letters. A simple example is the name Рид, which can be spelled Reed, Ried, Read, Rede, or Reede. To go back into the files to verify the native language spelling of more than 100,000 names was not a practical possibility. Incomka addressed the problem by sending the lists prepared by Library of Congress linguists to scholars who know the national parties and can identify known persons.
The American personal file list illustrates the nature of the problem and the usefulness of having the Latin spellings reviewed by subject area scholars. The Comintern maintained personal files on more than 6,800 Americans. One of the files has the name, in Russian, of БРАУДЕР, ЭРЛ. The computer transliteration program produced the string BRAUDER, ERL, which a linguist enhanced to BRAUDER, EARL. Historians reviewing the USA list then corrected the spelling to BROWDER, EARL, the name of the man who headed the Communist Party, USA from the early 1930s to 1945.
The Incomka project sought out specialists throughout the world to review the personal names lists and correct spelling errors. Sometimes the specialists were also able to identify files that were labeled with a pseudonym and supply the real name. By any measure it was a highly successful example of international cooperation. Thousands of spellings of personal names have been corrected. Thanks to this international effort, researchers using the Incomka database will be spared frustration, wasted time, and missed files. For that, the international community of scholars should be truly grateful.
Of these 167 persons, 32 are U.S. Library of Congress staff and 134 are not, 70 are resident in the USA (including LoC staff) and 97 are resident outside the USA, with a total of 54 countries represented.
Afghanistan | Albania | Australia |
Austria | Belgium | Brazil |
Bulgaria | Canada | China (PRC) |
Cyprus | Czech Republic | Denmark |
Ecuador | Egypt | Finland |
France | Germany | Greece |
Hungary | Iceland | India |
Ireland | Israel | Italy |
Japan | Korea (ROK) | Lebanon |
Luxembourg | Martinique (France) | Mexico |
Mongolia | Morocco | Nepal |
Netherlands | New Zealand | Norway |
Phillippines | Poland | Portugal |
Puerto Rico (USA) | Russia | Senegal |
Slovenia | South Africa | Spain |
Sweden | Switzerland | Thailand |
Turkey | United Kingdom (Great Britain) | Ukraine |
Uruguay | USA | Vietnam |
Ronald Bachman supervised the initial conversion to Latin spelling by Library of Congress specialists. John Haynes coordinated the recruitment of reviewers and distributed the lists to specialists outside of the Library of Congress.