First Archivists in the Russian Far East
| 09 April 2026
Posted in
Archival funds and collections
УДК 930.25 (571.6)
DOI 10.28995/2073-0101-2018-2-331-342
Natalia V. Khisamutdinova
Vladivostok State University of Economics and Services, Vladivostok, Russian Federation
First Archivists in the Russian Far East
Abstract
The article studies the creation of the first archival organization in Primorye, the Primorye Regional Archival Committee. It was due to the efforts of professors of the history and philology faculty (later, part of the Far Eastern State University), one of the first higher education institutions in the Russian Far East, established in Vladivostok in 1918 by the inteligentsia escaping the Civil War. The article attempts to identify and systematize the scattered papers of departmental archives in order to promote the development of the archiving and the study of the region. The research has revealed several factors that contributed to the emergence of archiving in the Far East, one of them large-scale migration during the Civil War with predominance of educated and enterprising people. After receiving the status of scientific institution, the Primorye Regional Archival Committee (later, the Primorye Province Archival Bureau) reviewed, collected, and described documents in major departmental archives of the region, thus laying the foundation of archiving in the Russian Far East, and, moreover, identified historical artifacts, thus providing a headstart for archaeologists and ethnographers. The first archivists laid down professional foundations for archival studies in the Far East. Their methodological recommendations published in the Bulletin of the Primorie Regional Archival Committee (Izvestiya Primorskoi oblastnoi arkhivnoi komissii) or separately haven’t yet lost their significance. Promulgation of archiving and public involvement in the search for valuable historical records and objects provide an example of skill and efficacy. These activities were all the more significant since they started on a voluntary basis, with no official support or funding. The article draws on publications and materials from the personal archive of A. P. Georgievsky (1888–1955), archivist and educator. New materials help to clarify the first archivists’ biographical data and to assess the significance of their activities in identifying and collecting data about the history of the Far East and for further development of its archives.
Keywords
Archiving, archives of the Far East, State Far Eastern University, Civil War in Russia, A. P. Georgievsky.
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About author
Khisamutdinova Natalia Vladimirovna, PhD in History, Vladivostok State University of Economics and Services, professor, Vladivostok, Russian Federation, +7-914-703-11-45, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it