The private archive of Yosef Yitzhak Schneerson, the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, counting more than 10,000 folios consists of various documents dated from 1890s till the late 1930s. It is preserved in the Russian State Military Archive.
The archive is a unique source shedding light on the history of the Chabad movement in the first half of the 20th century as well as on the history of Judaism on the territory of the Russian Empire and then the USSR, Latvia and Poland.
Currently the archive is underresearched and poorly introduced into the academic discourse: a few articles mention its existence; however, the archival materials themselves remain unused in the academic literature.
The project's aim is a detailed description of the archive (fund № 706 of the Russian State Military Archive). As a result, an electronic database will be constructed, which will make the archive available to the researchers and provide them with a useful tool for conducting academic research on the archive. After that an academic index will be prepared, which will include both the descriptions made and academic articles about the archive.
Head of the project team:
Svetlana Khvostova, head of Russian State Library department at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center (Moscow).
The main participants:
Ekaterina Karaseva, IAAS MSU graduate (Moscow), master's degree at the European University (Saint Petersburg).
Image: Russian State Military Archive, fund № 706, file 57, folio 26.