Biographical Files

Series

364 archival containers

Samizdat Archives of Radio Free Europe

The records of the Research Institute are deposited under a 1994 agreement between Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Open Media Research Institute and the Open Society Institute.

The biographical files were created at the Samizdat Archives (SA) of the RFL/RL Research Institute in order to support the research work of its staff. The selection of personalities included into these biographical files reflects SA interest in special topics such as criticism and opposition to the Soviet regime, dissidents and persecution of dissidents, prison conditions and labor camps, ethnic minorities, religious movements, anti-Western and anti-RL propaganda.

The biographical files include clippings from Russian and Western press, news agency releases, RFE/RL research papers, transcripts of radio broadcasts, and other information that aided SA staff in ascertaining the authenticity of Samizdat documents and restoring the picture of dissident movement in the USSR. Copies of Samizdat documents were also placed in the biographical files. There are substantial biographical files on personalities such as Andrei Sakharov, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Elena Bonner, Boris Yeltsin.

Not Expected

The series is organized based on the original order. The documents are arranged alphabetically by surname according to the Cyrillic alphabet and thereunder chronologically.

Not Restricted

Reproduction is allowed for non commercial purposes.

Arranged by Jennie Levine, Irida Tase and Olga Zaslavskaya, 1997; described by Jennie Levine, 1997; revised by Natasha Zanegina, 2002; revised by Anna Mazanik and Alexandra Medzibrodszky, 2017; revised by Anastasia Felcher, 2020; revised by Marco Gabbas in December 2021-February 2022; revised by Evgeny Beliakov in April 2022.