WelcomeIntroductionThis website is designed to give students speedy access to the rich array of sources on Russian history translated into English and available electronically. Since the collapse of the USSR a host of different organizations, academic and non-academic, have posted on the web a mass of valuable documents as well as maps, posters, photographs and other visual images. The scale of this activity is a measure of the scholarly interest, ideological passion, and political/diplomatic concern that modern Russian history generates. That it does so is no mystery: the stakes have been so high, the culture so rich, the abuse of power so monstrous, the resistance so articulate, the grandeur and the tragedy of the Russian story of such epic proportions. At UEA there is a strong tradition of teaching and research in the field, currently headed by Professor Edward Acton and Dr Roger Munting in the School of History. Dr Mike Bowker and Dr Tony Kemp-Welch in the School of Social and Economic Studies provide additional expertise in Russian politics and international relations. This website project builds on that tradition. It is funded by a HEFCE Teaching Fellowship awarded to Professor Acton and is being carried out by Dr King, who took his doctorate at UEA and is a specialist in Soviet history. What the site does is to integrate the Internet material directly into our key Russian history units: the year-long 'Russian Revolution Special Subject' (Level III) and, in Semester II, 'The History of the Soviet Union, 1917-1991' (Level II) and 'Gorbachev and the Break-Up of the USSR' (MA). Key features include:
Two points need emphasis. First, the material to which the site gives access ranges widely but unevenly. Overrepresented are aspects of the revolution dear to the heart of some of the more outlandish website creators, while topics already lavishly covered in printed collections such as the Kerensky & Browder volumes on 1917 are underrepresented. We have pinpointed electronic material which complements printed sources. Second, our central purpose is to provide access to sound translations of primary documents and we have vetted the translations hyperlinked here. The commentary that surrounds them, however, must be handled with even more than the usual caution with which historians treat published secondary material. Website commentaries have not even been through the uneven quality control of publishers: they can be posted without any specialist knowledge or scholarly authority whatsoever. And while some sites - such as 'Marx2Mao' - are so obviously partisan that they cry out for such caution, others - such as the Library of Congress - look entirely objective but in fact provide highly tendentious commentary. Make it an unfailing rule, whether drawing on primary or secondary web material,
to footnote the full web address. Professor Edward Acton, School of History, University of East AngliaTechnical noteThis website is still under construction, and will be developed throughout the 2001-2002 academic year. Please revisit it a regular intervals to see what new links and documents have been added. We hope that it will prove to be a co-operative effort, and welcome all contributions from students and other users. In particular, we would like to hear about
Please inform us of any problems or suggestions you may have. The structure of the site is very simple - this is a deliberate policy to try to make it as easy as possible to use. The buttons at the top of every page on our site provide links to the UEA homepage, the School of History homepage, this page, syllabuses of our Russian and Soviet history courses with hyperlinks, our own translations of original documents, and lists of other links sorted by category. If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer, why not add us to your favorites? Dr Francis King, School of History, University of East Anglia
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