Electronic copy from the Library of Congress: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/gdclccn.61060095
Tatiana Fessenko (1915-1995) was a cataloger at the Library of Congress for several decades, retiring in the early 1980s. A native of Kiev with an educational background in Russian language and literature, Ms. Fessenko was particularly interested in the Library's Yudin Collection, acquired in 1906. It was she who cataloged most of the 18th and early 19th century materials from the 80,000 volume Yudin Collection, in many cases doing extensive bibliographical and biographical detective work to discover the authors of pseudonymous and anonymous works, and the original titles of works originally published in French, German, or English. The printed catalog cards of the 18th century publications -- because of the size and importance of this collection -- were published in book form in 1961. The catalog contains entries for 1,316 bibliographic units. A number of 18th century Russian publications remained uncataloged at the time the book was published; these titles have since been cataloged, and entries for them appear in the Library's online catalog. Nevertheless, the 1961 book catalog remains very useful for researchers interested in Russian publications from the 1700s, and is presented here in complete digital form. The Library of Congress' collection of 18th century Russian imprints is most likely the largest in the United States and compares with similar collections at major libraries in Russia.

Electronic copy from the Library of Congress: Volume 1 (A-N): http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/scd0001.00180117106
Electronic copy from the Library of Congress: Volume 2 (O-Z): http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/scd0001.00180117118
According to its preface, this bibliography details "all known serial publications [except newspapers] appearing in the Soviet Union . . . since 1917, in all except oriental languages, such as Armenian, Georgian, Kirghiz, etc." Many titles published in the various former republics are included, but a serial must have a Russian title page and some text in Russian for it to qualify for inclusion. A complementary bibliography of non-Russian Soviet serials was planned, but never completed. Although the entries are numbered at 27,699, there are actually 29,761 because of last minute titles inserted with alphanumeric IDs. The entries are constructed according to the old Rules for Descriptive Cataloging in the Library of Congress, that is, for corporate bodies that are perceived as being permanently physically located in a particular place, one must look under the place. For example, publications by universities are found under the city (in its English spelling) in which they are located, e.g., Moscow. Universitet. Filologicheskii fakul'tet. Doklady i soobshcheniia. Corporate bodies that are not permanently tied to physical locations, such as societies that can move from place to place, will be found under the name of the society, e.g., Obshchestvo po izucheniiu Kryma, Simferopol. Biulleten'. Fortunately, there are over 28,000 cross references to help mitigate potential confusion. The bibliography uses the Library of Congress' romanization (transliteration) system.

As a union list, Half a Century of Soviet Serials provides locations of U.S. and Canadian libraries that hold issues of the serial titles included. Detailed holdings are given for the Library of Congress, but symbols only are listed for other libraries. The library symbols, a complete list of which is found in the prefatory materials in both volumes, are the same as those used in the Union List of Serials and the National Union Catalog. The abbreviation "w" is used to indicate that LC lacks or "wants" a particular volume or issue. An asterisk indicates that no library in the United States or Canada was found to hold that title. The LC holdings and call numbers are still mostly correct except for items marked Cyr. 4 and Unclass. Please check LC's online catalog or contact the European Reading Room for more information about those items. Half a Century of Soviet Serials expands and supersedes Smits' earlier bibliography, Serial Publications of the Soviet Union, 1939-1957.

Electronic copy from the Library of Congress: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/gdclccn.91021174
For Russian language content, this volume has been superseded by the online guide Soviet Independent Press 1987-1992: a Guide to Holdings at the Library of Congress.

Electronic copy from Hathi Trust: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001174904 External
Electronic copy from the Library of Congress: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/scd0001.20100111001ne.1
Although this bibliography is mostly superceded by the online catalog or this guide, it can be helpful to trace the development of East European newspaper collecting at the Library of Congress. The content is newspapers from Eastern Europe in any language, including Russian titles published in the former Eastern bloc.

(Slavic, 1954-1960; Non-Slavic, 1917-1960)
Electronic copy from Hathi Trust: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001174962 External
Although this bibliography is mostly superceded by the online catalog or this guide, it can be helpful to trace the development of Russian newspaper collecting at the Library of Congress.

Electronic copy from Hathi Trust: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001174966? External
Although this bibliography is mostly superceded by the online catalog or this guide, it can be helpful to trace the development of Russian newspaper collecting at the Library of Congress.

Electronic edition from Hathi Trust: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001108468 External

Electronic copy from the Library of Congress: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/gdclccn.85600026
Harold M. Leich in 1979 completed a detailed catalog of a large collection of uncataloged Russian serial publications at the Library of Congress. The serials are primarily those of the Russian Imperial (national-level) government and of provincial and local governments throughout the Russian Empire, often including annual reports, financial statements, and histories of executive committees, legislative bodies, cultural institutions, military units, and religious organizations. In addition, the collection contains a number of publications of local civic organizations, non-governmental bodies such as charities, educational institutions, financial institutions, benevolent societies, recreational clubs, and the like. The collection as a whole thus documents not only the development of civil society in pre-revolutionary Russia, but also the growing importance of provincial and local governmental bodies in 19th and early 20th century Russia. The entire collection of serials was microfilmed in the early 1980s, and the catalog digitized here, originally published in 1985, provides detailed bibliographic and holdings information for the collection. Indexes provide access to corporate issuing bodies and cities of publication. The microfilms of these serials, contained on 208 reels, are located in the Library's Microform and Electronic Resources Center and have the call number Microfilm 83/5231.

Electronic copy from Hathi Trust: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000024850 External

Companion book to the PBS series - about the development of art and culture in Russia.
C-SPAN video of James Billington, Librarian of Congress, discussing his book Face of Russia: https://www.c-span.org/video/?115080-1/the-face-russia External

Through the lens of James Billington and the institution he led as Librarian of Congress during a key period of US-Russian relations, The Geopolitics of Culture examines culture as a neglected area of US foreign policy. Billington advised presidents and members of Congress and mobilized the resources of the Library of Congress to promote reform in Russia. He believed that rather than preaching to the Russians, the United States should expose the rising generation of Russian leaders to what was best in America and encourage them to rediscover positive elements in pre-Bolshevik Russian culture. The Geopolitics of Culture is the first book to chronicle Billington's influence on US engagement with Russia as it transitioned from communism to democracy under Gorbachev and Yeltsin and back to authoritarianism under Yeltsin and Putin. Drawing on published and archival sources (including recently released papers) and interviews with current and retired Library of Congress staff members, John Van Oudenaren casts new light on this era. Billington's efforts led to a remarkable degree of cooperation between the Library of Congress and Russian cultural and political institutions. Yet these efforts ultimately failed as Putin turned back toward authoritarianism. The experience of the Library of Congress during this period nonetheless holds important lessons for today. Billington believed that a transition to democracy in Russia was essential if the United States was to head off the geopolitical nightmare of a Eurasia dominated by an alliance of hostile authoritarian powers. The "geopolitics of culture" thus remains a challenge for US foreign policy.

In the turbulent decade since the collapse of the Soviet Union, conditions have worsened considerably for many Russians, and a wide-ranging debate has raged over the nature and destiny of their country. In Russia in Search of Itself, James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress and a noted expert on Russia, examines the efforts of a proud but troubled nation to find a post-Soviet identity. The agenda has not been controlled from the top-down and center-out as in Russia's past. Nor has it been set by any intellectual giant such as Sakharov or Solzhenitsyn. Billington describes the contentious discussion occurring all over Russia and across the political spectrum. He finds conflicts raging among individuals as much as between organized groups and finds a deep underlying tension between the Russians' attempts to legitimize their new, nominally democratic identity, and their efforts to craft a new version of their old authoritarian tradition. After showing how the problem of Russian identity was framed in the past, Billington asks whether Russians will now look more to the West for a place in the common European home, or to the East for a new, Eurasian identity. Billington sees three elements shaping Russian culture: Orthodox Christianity; a special feeling for nature; and an intermittent, sometimes excessive passion for imported innovation. Out of this mix, he suggests, Russia must find its own moral anchor for its venture into democracy if it is to avoid falling back on a negative and authoritarian nationalism in order to recreate some sense of common purpose in society. The prospects for world peace in the twenty-first century depend in large measure on the way Russians decide to define themselves in the next few years. Drawing on his vast knowledge of Russian history, his frequent visits to Russia in the past decade, and his longstanding relationships with Russians from many different regions and segments of society, Billington provides an authoritative exploration of one of the world's most pressing issues.

Electronic copy from the Library of Congress: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/gdclccn.88600001
Robert V. Allen (1923-1991) was the Russian/Soviet Area Specialist in the European Division at the Library of Congress for thirty years, from 1955 until his retirement in 1985. He began his career at the Library after earning a PhD in history at Yale University. In his position at the Library, he was responsible for building the Russian and Soviet collections, and for assisting readers and researchers use the Russian collections of the Library. In addition, he participated in many special projects related to Russia such as exhibitions and symposia, and was active in professional activities such as scholarly conferences, research, and publication. His tenure as Area Specialist overlapped with much of the Cold War period, and his tenure saw huge increases in the size and quality of the Russian collections made available at the Library to the Congress, federal government agencies, individual scholars and researchers, and the general public.

Dr. Allen's Russia Looks at America, published by the Library of Congress in 1988, represents the culmination of his scholarly and bibliographic career. Based on exhaustive bibliographic research conducted over many decades using pre-revolutionary Russian publications, the work is in effect a narrative bibliography, holding up a Russian mirror to the United States and interpreting for American readers what the Russians saw in that mirror, by presenting a fascinating summary of how Russians viewed the upstart but technologically innovative new republic from the mid-18th century until the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. A second, companion volume was originally planned for publication but was canceled for lack of funding; the second volume would have contained all the bibliographic citations gathered during the course of his research, in essence a comprehensive bibliography of Russian works about America. The card files for the unpublished second volume are kept in the European Reading Room and are available for consultation upon request.

Electronic copy from HathiTrust: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003172175 External
Publication accompanying an exhibition on the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska.

Reprinted from the American review on the Soviet Union, 7: 4 (August 1946), pp. 51-66.

Article published in the journal Russian History, 29:1 (Spring 2002), pp. 79-98.
Article available in JSTOR.

Article published in Slavic and East European Information Resources 14:1 (2013), pp. 72-91.

Electronic copy from HathiTrust: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003172175 External
Description of the Yudin collection from the librarian who negotiated its acquisition for the Library of Congress.

Volume 9, Issue 2 of 2008 of Slavic and East European Information Resources contains an article by Barbara Dash called "A Visionary Acquisition: The Yudin Collection at the Library of Congress" on pp. 92-114. The article has two detailed sections on the various methods of how to identify Yudin collection items.

Harold M. Leich, the former Russian Area Specialist, wrote an overview of the acquisition of the Yudin Collection. It was published in Slavic and East European Information Resources 9:2 (2008), pp. 127–142.

Harold M. Leich, the former Russian Area Specialist, wrote an article about Yudin's second library, "Yudin's Second Library ," 1907-1912: Current Status of Research." The article appears in v. 15:3 (2014) of Slavic and East European Information Resources on pp. 161-166.