ARHIVSKI VJESNIK 42. (ZAGREB, 1999.)

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M. Kehrig, The position of military archives in the frame of archival service Independence or integration?, Arh. vjesn., god. 42 (1999), str. 113-128 der a 30-year closure rule (unless otherwise regulated). Only informal contacts are maintained with the National Archives. The French model of the integration of the military archives into the national archive system as a whole is to be found in nearly all European countries with a Roman heritage, and I would like to include in this the countries of Spanish and Portuguese tongue. All these military archives are subject to the military authorities, nearly all military archives are subject to a greater or lesser degree to the national archive laws, they all regard themselves as administrators of the national heritage, have professionally trained staff and allow unhindered access to their holdings. I would now like to cast a glance at the organisation of the Russian military archival system. The fundamentals have not changed since the days of the Soviet Union and we see there the general situation that in conformity with the law on the unity of the socialist archival holdings the military archives fall within the competence of the state archive administration. The 'Archive of Old Military Records' in Moscow, which is housed in the former Governor's Palace, a magnificent but now dilapidated Baroque building where the papers dating from the time of Ivan the Severe until the outbreak of the October Revolution are held, and also the 'Archive of Old Naval Records' in St Petersburg, which holds the papers of the Russian naval forces from the time of Peter the Great to the outbreak of the October Revolution, both belong professionally and organisationally to the state archival administration. The same applies to the holdings of the Military Archives, whose remit encompasses the period October 1917 - 21 June 1941 (i.e. up to the date of the German invasion of the Soviet Union). The records of the higher military commands, in particular those of the Stavka (the Russian General Staff from 1917 to the present time), are held in the Administrative Archives of the General Staff in Moscow. This archive has recently been brought under the administration of the Central Russian Army and Air Force Archive in Podolsk, which houses the army and air force records from 22 June 1941 to the present and which is subordinate to the Deputy Russian Chief of the General Staff- in the same way as the Naval Archive in Gatchina near St Petersburg, which holds the records of the Soviet/Russian naval forces for the same period, is subordinate to the Admiralty Staff of the Russian naval forces. For the sake of completeness, I should add that the three armed services have their research arm in the Military Historical Institute in Moscow, which is organisationally separate from the military archives. The Russian military archivists basically view the archives in Gatchina and Podolsk as large intermediary archives or places of deposit for old files, but they no longer have this character but have become a mixture of intermediary and historical archive. In recent times the Podolsk and Gatchina archives primarily see themselves once more as administrative archives, evidently so that they can better regulate research access. The Russian military archives up to June 1941 fall within 119