An Experience in Archival Study of Abamelek-Lazarevs Photograph Collection on the Materials from the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA) and the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA)
| 14 January 2025
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Publication of archival documents
Bolotina M.O., Moscow, Russian Federation
An Experience in Archival Study of Abamelek-Lazarevs Photograph Collection on the Materials from the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA) and the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA)
Abstract
The article addresses significant issues of comprehensive archival study of photo documents in a case-study of the Abamelek-Lazarevs fonds from the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA, fond 1252) and the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA, fond 880). After the October Revolution of 1917 the papers from the fond of the princely family of Abamelek-Lazarevs, as well as those from other personal provenance collections, were nationalized and scattered in various archives. As a result, now there are many personal provenance fonds containing various types of sources, including photo documents, stored in non-field-specific archives. RGADA and RGIA are quite a quite glaring example of this state of affairs, as in both there stored documents outside their chronological framework. Current procedure for describing photo documents stored in non-field-specific archives of audio-visual materials does not meet the researchers’ needs. Photo documents are included in the series along with written sources; in the technical processing of the fonds in the 1950s the photographs received ‘inarticulate’ headlines that do nothing to disclose the content. The Abamelek-Lazarevs photo collection in RGADA and RGIA is a huge complex of photo albums and stand-alone units (more than 1,500 photo prints): portraits of the family members and their friends, pets, family property, scenes of life and travels across Europe. Study of some issues of archival science via review of the Abamelek-Lazarevs photo collection stored in RGADA and RGIA allow make several conclusions concerning description and preservation of photo documents in non-field-specific archives of audio-visual materials.
Keywords
Abamelek-Lazarevs, photographs, personal provenance fond, RGADA, RGIA, archival science.
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About the authors
Bolotina Marina Olegovna, post-graduate student of the history of science, scientific, technical and audiovisual archives department of the Russian State University for the Humanities, leading specialist of the State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russian Federation, +7-916-703-71-65, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it