2/02/2009

Russian memoir sources digitized

I would like to recomment a website titled Universitas Personarum, which is maintained by the Moscow State University. The URL is: http://www.srcc.msu.su/uni-persona/ The site is dedicated to Russian memoir literature. Under the heading of Dnevniki i zapisnye knizhki, we find a series of full-text memoirs of several prominent Russian figures, mostly literary and cultural luminaries. More importantly, though, the heading Issledovaniia dnevnikovoi prozy leads to the digitized and searchable version of P.A. Zaionchkovskii's Istoriia dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii v dnevnikakh i vospominaniiakh. Unfortunately only the first three volumes have been scanned so far. (The website does not provide a reason for this, nor is it clear whether the remainder of the work will be put in digital format) The same link leads also to works by Mikhail Mikheev on the Soviet memoir literature of the 1930s and, Russian memoirists of the turn of the century, and others. The cite appears to be under construction and not all of the material is of equal weight and interest, but the digitized version of Zaionchkovskii, albeit incomplete, makes it worthwhile to visit.