Государственный архив Курской области

Beginnings of the State Archive in Kursk can be traced in 1903 when the Kursk Gubernya Scientific Archival Committee was established. It was a half-official institution aimed at organizing archival documents of the various institutions of the local administration.

State Archive in Kursk (State Archive of the Kursk Gubernya) was established already in Soviet times, in the years 1918-1919. In 1926 Archive was divided into two separate institutions: Kursk Gubernya Historical Archive and Kursk Gubernya Archive of the October Revolution and Building of Socialism. First one was in charge of the documents produced until the October Revolution, second one of the documents created in the Soviet period. Both archives had 95 record groups, 37 from pre-revolutionary times and 58 Soviet ones. In 1928 first resource rose to the number of 59 and second to the number of 413. Between the years 1928 and 1938 archive resource of the province rose ten times.

In 1934 following administration reform of the Soviet state both archives were unifed as the State Archive of the Kursk Oblast.

Following German invasion on Soviet Union, in July 1941 most valuable documents from the Kursk Oblast were transfered to Ufa (Bashkiria Autonomous Republic) and Uralsk (Kazakhstan). Many other documents, almost all from the period of 1930-1942 perished during the war.

Kursk Oblast Archive resumed its activity in 1943. Full reevacuation of the documents was finished in 1946. New documentation of the archival resources discovered loss of many valuable books, photographic material and 275 record groups referring to the years 1921-1938.

Due to the lack of space and facilities the archive resumed receiving new documents only in 1957. It continues its work until today.

The archive holds more than 1200 documents, mainly from the Kursk region, created during the time period from the XVII century until 2011.

State Archive of the Kursk Oblast is falling into the general jurisdiction of the Culture Ministry of the Russian Federation.

Archive is directed by Federal Archive Agency, on the basis of the Russian Federation goverenment decision from 08.08.2009 № 649.

Detailed information about all the legal basis of the mandate and sources of authority of the archive can be found at:

http://archive.rkursk.ru/normativnaya-baza?page=1

Archival holding refer to the political, social and cultural life of the Kursk region from the years 1684 up to the 2011.

Complere Research Guide to the collection of State Archive of the Kursk Oblast can be downloaded from internet page:

http://archive.rkursk.ru/articles/putevoditel-po-fondam-oku-gosarkhiv-kurskoi-oblasti

Archival indexes to many of the Research Groups containing documents from the pre-1917 period are accesible in the word format on the internet page of the archive:

• http://archive.rkursk.ru/articles/gako/nsa-k-fondam-dorevolyutsionnogo-perioda

For the soviet and post-1991 period see:

http://archive.rkursk.ru/articles/gako/nsa-k-fondam-sovetskogo-i-postsovetskogo-perioda