World libraries: Russian Newspapers on the Library of Congress’s website

The Library of Congress website launched a bibliography list, which shows the Library's extensive collection of over 1500 Russian newspapers, beginning with the 1715 issues of Viedomosti o voennykh i innykh dielakh, and ending with current publications, whether received in paper, microfilm, or electronic format.

The bibliography includes all newspapers published in the current territory of Russia regardless of the language of publication, as well as all Russian-language newspapers published anywhere else in the world.

However, it does not contain non-Russian language titles from the former Soviet Union published in republics that became independent countries. For example, Russian language newspapers from Estonia are may be found, but not Estonian or German language newspapers published in Estonia.

The bibliography also contains a few Russian-related anomalies such as French-language newspapers published in France by the Soviet Embassy in Paris or by notable figures of the Russian emigration such as Aleksandr Kerenskii.

Entries are organized by country of publication and then by city of publication. City names are given in their current form with see references from older names. For instance, all newspapers from Leningrad and Petrograd are listed under Sankt-Petersburg.

In 1918 the Soviet Union switched calendars from the Julian to the Gregorian. The dates listed in the bibliography for pre-revolutionary Russian titles, including some from 1917, are given in Julian, whereas the dates for post-1917 are given in Gregorian (new style). For transitional times, the Julian (old style) is listed first with the new style dates (Gregorian) following in parentheses. For example, the range of dates Oct 25, 1906 - Oct 27 (Nov 9), 1918 should be interpreted as Oct 25, 1906 (Julian, old style) and Oct 27, 1918 (Julian, old style), but understood that Oct 27 (old style) is the same as Nov 9 (Gregorian, new style).

Russian newspapers are housed in several locations in the Library of Congress.

One of the most frequent questions about Russian newspapers is whether there exists an English translation of Pravda and Izvestiia. Except for 1985-1988 of Pravda, there is no English translation of these titles. However, some English language access is available via the Current Digest of the Soviet Press and its successor Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press. Beginning in 1949 and continuing to this day, these digests translated selectively important articles from major Russian news sources including Pravda and Izvestiia. LC has the complete run of both digests in print and electronic formats.