Whisperers: private life in Stalin's Russia
The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia is a website which
relates to Orlando Figes' book by the same name, offering teachers and
researchers access to selected materials collected during a three-year
project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board and the
Leverhulme Trust. Focusing on family history and private life during
Stalin's Terror, the website offers around a hundred short histories of
families who suffered during this period, plus PDF files (in Russian)
of lengthy extracts from interviews given by family members to Memorial
Society. The archive section contains: digitised letters; documents and
photographs; typed autobiographies, diaries and memoirs; even poetry.
These items can be browsed by family name only (rather than searched by
place, date or keyword), but the wealth of fascinating material
(including letters from camp prisoners and a diary maintained during
the blockade of Leningrad) will be of interest to historians of the
Soviet period and those working on memory, oral history and life
history. Four interview extracts are available in English, and details
of how to gain permission from Professor Figes to cite from interviews
or use them for teaching purposes are given. Two related BBC Radio 4
programmes are also available in MP3 format and a page of useful links
to sites on oral history and the Gulag is provided. The primary source
material is excellent and the site clear and easy to use, but
requesting much material in a short space of time seems to cause server
errors.
http://www.orlandofiges.com/
Oxford Russian life history archive : remembering the past in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia
The Oxford Life History Archive offers an overview of material on
memory in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia collected during two
substantial research projects: "Childhood in Russia, 1890-1991: A
Social and Cultural History" (2003-2006, funded by the Leverhulme
Trust) and "Russian National Identity from 1961: Traditions and
Deterritorialisation (2007-2010, funded by the Arts and Humanities
Research Council). Hosted by the European Humanities Research Centre at
the University of Oxford, the resource is clear and easy to use, but
offers only limited online access to the over 200 life history
interviews recorded and transcribed by project researchers. These
interviews focus primarily on: childhood; cultural memory; family
traditions; food; Russian and Soviet passports; emigre experience and
youth culture. Lists of informants, questionnaires used, six sample
transcripts (in Russian only) and two fifteen minute extracts from
interview recordings are made available online, with contact details
for further access and citation rights. There is also a small selection
of images related to Soviet childhood. An introductory page provides
concise overviews of memory and autobiography in Soviet culture, and of
oral history in the post-Soviet period, with a useful list of
references. The archive page explains the rationale behind the archive,
themes addressed and methodology used. This resource is primarily aimed
at researchers working on memory, culture and national identity in
Russia, but will be of use to some teachers of Soviet history, life
history and oral history.
http://www.ehrc.ox.ac.uk/lifehistory/