The Moving Image Research Center has Russian and Soviet feature films, documentaries, television broadcasts and other recordings available for viewing on a variety of formats (reels, videocassettes, discs, etc.).
One of the most significant collections with Russian content is the U. S. Naval Academy Collection of Soviet & Russian TV. The collection features videocassettes of Soviet & Russian television programs from the late 1980s and 90s, primarily news broadcasts or documentaries with a heavy focus on military and political topics. Contact the staff of the Moving Image Research Center for more information about the collection's holdings, especially since many of the items are not fully represented in the online catalog.
Two significant collections of Russian and Soviet films in Moving Image were donations from Russian institutions: Gosfilmofund, a film archive, and the State Central Theatrical Library of Moscow. Films in these collections can be browsed at the following links:
Beyond these collections, Moving Image has many other Russian and Soviet films. You can search for specific titles in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Examples of more Soviet and Russian films are found below.
The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content are included when available.
The Library of Congress began collecting motion pictures in 1893 when Thomas Edison and his brilliant assistant W.K.L. Dickson deposited the Edison Kinetoscopic Records for copyright. However, because of the difficulty of safely storing the flammable nitrate film used at the time, the Library retained only the descriptive material relating to motion pictures. In 1942, recognizing the importance of motion pictures and the need to preserve them as a historical record, the Library began the collection of the films themselves; from 1949 on these included films made for television. Today the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (MBRS) is responsible for the acquisition, cataloging and preservation of the Library's motion picture and television collections.
