Kennan Institute Russian History Audio Archive Now Available Online

The Kennan Institute and National Public Radio are pleased to announce the establishment of an online audio archive of Soviet and Russian history. Originally stored on a collection of audio tapes, the Institute recently had the collection digitized into mp3 format. 

The archive consists of recordings dating back to the earliest years of the Soviet state. Included are the voices and speeches of key political figures, including Lenin, Kerensky, Kirov, Beria, Stalin, Gorbachev, and others. Among the recorded interviews are Anna Larina (Bukharin's widow); Valentin Berezhkov, Stalin's wartime interpreter; Yelena Bonner, Sakharov's widow; and Lev Pevsner, a survivor of the Leningrad Blockade. There is also on-the-scene recorded sound of many events in Soviet history, including: the Russian and American armies meeting at the Elbe; Stalin's funeral; the August 1991 coup against Gorbachev.

The material comes from Soviet and Russian sources, the NPR archives, the archives of the BBC, and individual donors. Some of the material is in Russian, some in English. The archive is intended primarily as a teaching resource to enhance the classroom study of Russian and Soviet history. Let your students hear the voices of Stalin and Beria during your lectures. Bring your students to revolutionary Russia through the voices of eyewitnesses. Researchers may also find it useful to hear the actual voices of the people they are studying.

Browse through the archives here.>>>>