Language: Old Russian

Well-known pre-revolutionary historical and literary journal.

Russkii arkhiv (Русскiй Архивъ, Russian Archive) is a well-known monthly historical and literary journal published in Moscow from 1863 to 1917 (published bi-monthly from 1880–1884). Founded by Pyotr I. Bartenev, a longtime editor of the journal, Russkii arkhiv presented a comprehensive picture of Russian cultural and political history during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Russkii arkhiv published mostly unreleased memoirs, epistolary, literary and institutional documentary materials that highlighted the cultural and political history of the Russian nobility in the 18th and 19th centuries. Documents included in the journal celebrated Russia’s renowned literary and artistic culture, including those devoted to the life and work of Alexander Pushkin, letters and diaries by numerous Decembrists, notes from ambassadors to the Court of Peter the Great, accounts of Peter the Great reforms, and diaries and memoirs by members of the ruling, military, and aristocratic classes of Russia.

The Russkii Arkhiv Digital Archive contains all obtainable published issues of the journal (650 issues and nearly 100,000 pages), as well as several supplemental publications (see list below). The archive offers scholars the most comprehensive collection available for this title, and features full page-level digitization, complete original graphics, and searchable text, and is cross-searchable with numerous other Infoteka digital resources.

Note: Russkii arkhiv was written in the Old Russian orthography used at the time, which included the letters І, Ѣ, Ѳ and Ѵ. These letters were later eliminated from the Russian alphabet during the orthographic reform of 1918. To facilitate full-text searching of this journal, the database includes a special keyboard containing the old Russian characters. This virtual keyboard allows users to enter words containing pre-reform Russian letters (e.g. “сѵнодъ,” “дѣтство”). In addition, article-level keywords, bibliographic references, and other metadata has been added to improve the database’s search functionality. Where needed, the scanned files have been retouched to ensure a fully text searchable database.

The most popular journal of late 19th-century Russia.

Niva (Нива, Grainfield), an illustrated weekly journal of literature, politics and modern life, was published from 1870 to 1918 in St. Petersburg, before being shut down by the Bolsheviks after the Russian revolution. The journal was widely read by an audience that extended from primary schoolteachers, rural parish priests, and the urban middle class to the gentry. It was especially popular among the middle class in the Russian provinces. Niva contained large colored prints of art by famous Russian artists, works of famous Russian authors, as well as articles on science, politics and culture. It also had a special children’s section as well as a section on Russian classical writers: Gogol, Lermontov, Goncharov, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and many others.

The Niva Digital Archive comprises the entire collection of the journal, with more than 2,500 issues and over 27,000 articles. Also included in the archive is the supplementary publication Dlia Detei (Для Дѣтей, For Children, pub. Jan.–Dec. 1917), a monthly illustrated magazine filled with children’s stories, poems and cartoons. The archive offers scholars the most comprehensive collection available for this title, and features full-text articles, with full page-level digitization and complete original graphics. The archive has searchable text, and is cross-searchable with numerous other Infoteka digital resources.

Note: Niva was published before the Russian Revolution and was written using the pre-reform Russian orthography. To enable searching functionality, the database includes a special keyboard containing the old Russian characters.