William G. Rosenberg

Francis Xavier Blouin

As sites of documentary preservation rooted in various national and social contexts, artifacts of culture, and places of uncovering, archives provide tangible evidence of memory for individuals, communities, and states, as well as defining memory institutionally within prevailing political systems and cultural norms. By assigning the prerogatives of record keeper to the archivist, whose acquisition policies, finding aids, and various institutionalized predilections mediate between scholarship and information, archives produce knowledge, legitimize political systems, and construct identities. Far from being mere repositories of data, archives actually embody the fragments of culture that endure as signifiers of who we are, and why. The essays in Archives, Documentation, and Institutions of Social Memory conceive of archives not simply as historical repositories but as a complex of structures, processes, and epistemologies situated at a critical point of the intersection between scholarship, cultural practices, politics, and technologies.

Essays from the Sawyer Seminar

Archives, Documentation, and Institutions of Social Memory

Francis X. Blouin Jr.

Processing the Past explores the dramatic changes taking place in historical understanding and archival management, and hence the relations between historians and archivists. Written by an archivist and a historian, it shows how these changes have been brought on by new historical thinking, new conceptions of archives, changing notions of historical authority, modifications in archival practices, and new information technologies. The book takes an "archival turn" by situating archives as subjects rather than places of study, and examining the increasingly problematic relationships between historical and archival work. By showing how nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians and archivists in Europe and North America came to occupy the same conceptual and methodological space, the book sets the background to these changes. In the past, authoritative history was based on authoritative archives and mutual understandings of scientific research. These connections changed as historians began to ask questions not easily answered by traditional documentation, and archivists began to confront an unmanageable increase in the amount of material they processed and the challenges of new electronic technologies. The authors contend that historians and archivists have divided into two entirely separate professions with distinct conceptual frameworks, training, and purposes, as well as different understandings of the authorities that govern their work. Processing the Past moves toward bridging this divide by speaking in one voice to these very different audiences. Blouin and Rosenberg conclude by raising the worrisome question of what future historical archives might be like if historical scholars and archivists no longer understand each other, and indeed, whether their now different notions of what is archival and historical will ever again be joined.

Contesting Authority in History and the Archives

Processing the Past

Edward Acton

Professor of Modern European History Edward Acton

V. EIìu Chernëiìaev

V. I︠U︡ Cherni︠a︡ev

V. I͡U. Cherni͡aev

Vladimir Iu Cherniaev

Vladimir Iourievitch Tcherniaev

Vladimir Ju Černjaev

Alfred G Meyer Collegiate Professor of History William G Rosenberg

Essays by 46 historians reflect the impact of the fall of the Soviet Union on the study of the revolution that birthed it, including better access to archives and new opportunities for collaborations between Russian and other specialists. They cover the revolution as event; actors and the question of agency; parties, movements, and ideologies; institutions and institutional cultures; social groups, identities, cultures, and the question of consciousness; economic issues and problems of everyday life; and nationality and regional questions. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914-1921

Marilyn Blatt Young

In the best tradition of historical writing, this fascinating study concentrates on the distinguishing characteristics of the Russian and Chinese experiences of revolution during the same time period. Using quotations, anecdotes, and colorful descriptive material, the authors unravel thetangle of people, places, and events central to understanding the nature of revolutionary change.

Revolutionary Struggle in the Twentieth Century

Transforming Russia and China

The first volume of a collection of writings by early Soviet critics and theorists

First Phase of the Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia

Bolshevik Visions

William G. Rosenberg

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