Reasons for consideration:
Imperial Russian Newspapers offers a rich collection of resources spanning the entirety of the Russian Empire (1700s to 1917). The collection content includes core titles from Moscow and St. Petersburg complemented by regional newspapers across the vast Russian Empire. The approved title list includes:
- Two of the oldest and most well-known titles—Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti and Moskovksie vedomosti—spanning the entire Imperial period, digitally assembled in complete runs.
- A selection of regional “gubernskie vedomosti” titles from Moscow and significant provincial cities, spanning 1838 to 1917
- A selection of private newspapers emerging after the Crimean War in 1855, a number of which grew to be quite successful and influential.
The list, based on holdings of Stanford University and CRL’s centrally-held collection along with digital page images contained in scattered runs throughout various regional libraries in Russia, represents a plan for broad geographic and chronological coverage of this important time period. East View also proposes to include two digital collections of pertinent reference books: an in-depth bibliographic record of all known newspapers published in Imperial Russia (over 10 key bibliographies); and a unique collection of dozens of contemporaneous (mostly 19th century) reference works offering detailed subject bibliographies of the articles appearing in the specific newspapers which will comprise the IRN collection.