Journals & Newspapers

*Za rulem*. 1933 Library of Congress General Collections.

One of the strengths of the Russian collections at the Library of Congress is the vast number and array of periodical publications such as newspapers, yearbooks, scholarly journals, and magazines. No firm number of titles is available, but the collection contains tens of thousands of titles in Russian from Russia, the countries of the former Soviet Union, and the Russian diaspora.

Serials may be held in a number of formats ranging from loose issues and bound volumes in print to microformats such as film and fiche as well as full-text digital titles. See the section in this guide on Digital Resources for databases containing hundreds of electronic Russian newspapers and journal titles, including Stacks, the Library of Congress onsite-only database of rights restricted content, which includes Russian periodicals that have been digitized in-house.

Genres of serials include official government information such as the Russian legal gazette Sobranie zakonodatel'stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii held in the Law Library of Congress and the newspaper of the Russian government Rossiiskaia gazeta. Annuals and yearbooks cover topics as various as statistics (Demograficheskiĭ ezhegodnik Rossii), economic history (Ėkonomicheskai︠a︡ istorii︠a︡), and bibliography (Ezhegodnyĭ bibliograficheskiĭ ukazatelʹ knig Rossii).

Particularly noteworthy are the complete (or virtually complete) runs of serials from the early 19th century through the present day, including all the major scholarly society and university "transactions" series, source publications, and literary series. Because the Library has maintained publications exchanges with all the major Russian and Soviet academies of sciences and universities, academic and scholarly publications are well represented in the collections. Examples include Izvestii︠a︡ Akademii nauk. Serii︠a︡ literatury i i︠a︡zyka, Trudy Instituta rossiĭskoĭ istorii RAN, and the various series of Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. The collection contains many long runs of pre-revolutionary and Soviet era "tolstye zhurnaly" or thick journals such as Otechestvennyi︠a︡ zapiski and Vi︠e︡stnikʺ Evropy.

The Library of Congress strives to maintain a universal collection representing many viewpoints and genres. For this reason, besides specialized and scholarly periodicals, the Russian collection also contains periodicals of a more popular nature such as the post-Soviet tabloid Komsomol'skaia pravda and the magazine for young people Rovesnik.

Below are links to relevant online guides for Russian journals, followed by a brief description of the Russian newspaper collection, and a section for published bibliographies that identify titles and/or provide holdings information for the Russian journals and newspapers in the Library of Congress collections.

Russian 18th-century Periodicals: a resource guide
This guide provides information about 18th-century Russian periodicals at the Library of Congress. It contains holdings information and descriptions for each periodical. Details about 18th-century Russian almanacs and calendars are also included.
Soviet independent press 1985-1992
During the glasnost'/perestroika era, publishing restrictions were lessened and thousands of new periodical and newspaper titles appeared, the so-called independent press. The Library of Congress collected these materials from all over the former Soviet Union. For long-term preservation the collection was microfilmed in 2011. The contents of this collection are described in this online guide. For Russian titles the online guide replaces the printed guide from 1991.

Russian Newspapers

From 1702 to the present day, Russians have published thousands of newspapers, both at home and abroad. With over 2,800 individual titles in print, microfilm, and digital formats, plus additional titles in special sets, the Library of Congress has one of the largest collections of Russian newspapers in the United States. The Library of Congress began collecting foreign newspapers in 1901, but the first Russian newspapers in the collection arrived in 1906 via the purchase of the Yudin Collection. With the Yudin Collection the Library acquired many pre-revolutionary newspapers from across the Russian Empire, but also a significant number from Siberia, an area of special interest for the bibliophile Gennadii Yudin, who lived in Krasnoiarsk. An issue from 1715 of Viedomosti [o voennykh i innykh dielakh] is the earliest Russian newspaper in any format held by the Library of Congress and is kept in the Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room.

Although the Library added a few newspapers after 1906, the next important acquisition of Russian newspapers came in 1927, when the Library acquired 298 titles from the Russian revolutionary and Civil War period of 1917-1920. A number of those issues are still considered rarities even today. However, the real expansion of Russian newspaper collecting took place in the 1940s, when the Library's interest in Eastern European collecting in general rose in tandem with the development of the field of Slavic studies and the United States government's rivalry with the Soviet Union. Not only did the Library of Congress acquire as many newspaper titles or even single issues from the Soviet Union as it could, it also microfilmed its collection of papers to make them more accessible to researchers across the United States.

By 1953 the collection of Russian newspapers from the Soviet period alone numbered almost 400 titles. Newspaper collecting continued heavily throughout the subsequent decades. Today the Russian newspaper collection is well-rounded, covering all periods of Russian history, but the Soviet period, in particular titles from the central Russian press, is a true collection strength. Besides political and government newspapers, the collection also contains industry and financial titles, literary newspapers, popular tabloids, and military newspapers. Other areas of strength are newspapers from the 1917 revolution, independent press from the Gorbachev era, and post-Soviet titles in digital and microfilm formats. The Library of Congress currently subscribes to over 30 titles on microfilm and hundreds of titles via subscription databases, and collects Russian special interest press in print. Also acquired in print and then reformatted are titles from the diaspora such as a Russian newspaper from Israel and several from the United States. With the growth of Russian Internet media, newspapers are expected to decrease in importance, following the global pattern, but as long as Russians continue to publish newspapers, the Library of Congress will continue to collect them in whatever format they appear.

For more information on Russian newspapers in the Library of Congress collection, see the guides and bibliographies linked below.

Russian Newspapers in the Library of Congress
This guide to the Russian newspapers in the Library of Congress collections provides information on holdings, formats, and locations of titles from Russia or in the Russian language regardless of country of publication. Databases of full-text newspapers are described, as well print and online bibliographies to identify titles not in the Library's collection.
Russian Newspapers Published in the United States
This guide provides information, holdings, and locations for titles in the Library of Congress collections of Russian-language newspapers that have been published in the United States. Also included are print and online bibliographies of Russian diaspora newspapers to help identify titles not held by the Library of Congress.
Selected Russian Newspapers from Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk
The European Reading Room has compiled a collection of primary source materials from Eastern Ukraine to assist researchers who study this problematic region. This collection of Russian-language materials contains mostly newspapers, but some ephemera as well.
Soviet independent press 1985-1992
During the glasnost'/perestroika era, publishing restrictions were lessened and thousands of new periodical and newspaper titles appeared, the so-called independent press. The Library of Congress collected these materials from all over the former Soviet Union. For long-term preservation the collection was microfilmed in 2011. The contents of this collection are described in this online guide. For Russian titles the online guide replaces the printed guide from 1991.

Bibliographies of Russian Journals and Newspapers in the Library of Congress Collections

Eighteenth century Russian publications in the Library of Congress: a catalog by Tatiana Fessenko
Call Number: Z2502 .U5
Published/Created: 1961
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.
Russian Imperial Government Serials on Microfilm in the Library of Congress: a Guide to the Uncataloged Collection by Harold M. Leich
Call Number: Z6956.S65 L52 1985
Published/Created: 1985
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.
Half a Century of Soviet Serials 1917-1968. A Bibliography and Union List of Serials Published in the USSR by Rudolf Smits
Call Number: Z6956.R9 S58
Published/Created: 1968 (2 volumes)
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.
Newspapers of the Soviet Union in the Library of Congress by Paul L. Horecky (ed.)
Call Number: Z6956.R9 U55
Published/Created: 1962
(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.
Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian Newspapers 1917-1953: A Union List by Paul L. Horecky (ed.)
Call Number: Z663.47 R85
Published/Created: 1953
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.
Newspapers of East Central and Southeastern Europe by Robert G. Carlton (ed.)
Call Number: Z6955 .U52
Published/Created: 1965
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.

Russian Collections at the Library of Congress: An Overview

Journals & Newspapers

Russian Newspapers

Bibliographies of Russian Journals and Newspapers in the Library of Congress Collections