East View Research Collections

Coming Soon! Soviet Military Declassified Collection

The Soviet Military Declassified Collection features over 30 collections on a wide range of military topics covering nearly the entire 20th century, all available on East View’s E-book platform. The four sub-collections are listed below, along with select topics covered. Please inquire for more details.

Military Academy Dissertations

Military Academy Library

• Imperial Russian Military History
• Soviet Nuclear/Biological/Chemical weapons and policy
• Soviet military mapping
• Soviet Space Program

Military Academy Studies and Texts

• Military Academy of the General Staff:  Department of Strategy
• Military Academy of the General Staff:  Operations, Tactics, Weapons, History
• Naval Academy

MoD and General Staff Reports

• The Future War:  Views of the 1920s and 1930s
• WWII Combat Documents
• WWII Tactical Examples
• WWII Naval Aviation
• Soviet War at Sea:  Baltic, Black Sea, Northern, Pacific Theaters and River Flotillas
• Submarine Warfare
• Military Personnel in WWII
• Military Intelligence:  WWII and Postwar
• Military Bibliography and Archives
• Soviet-Finnish War

More Research Collections

Please inquire for pricing and availability.

Documentary Evidence of Underground and Guerrilla Activities During the Nazi Occupation of Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast In August-September 1941 the Battle of Kyiv was fought by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. At one point, the enemy pushed forward hundreds of kilometers. In reaction, the Council of People’s Commissars and the Central Committee recommended the creation of underground resistance movements in areas captured by the enemy. This collection brings together a wealth of documentary evidence from these underground and guerilla movements. Organized into six major parts, the collection contains holdings rich in a variety of areas of interest: reports dealing with the operation of underground Bolshevik organizations and guerrilla units; a complete list of the guerrilla units, their locations and members; lists of built-up areas destroyed by Nazi troops in retaliation for armed resistance by guerrilla units; information about concentration camps for prisoners of war or about the civilian population killed or deported as forced laborers to Germany; reports on armored train operations during the Soviet defense of Kyiv; minutes of secret meetings held by underground fighters; and documents of the commissions for the affairs of former guerrillas of the urban and rural executive committees of Kyiv Oblast.

Polish Legions, 1917-1918 The Polish Legions (“Pol’skie Legiony”) were formed in June 1917 by the Poles serving in the tsarist army. In the wake of the 1917 October coup, they resisted the Bolsheviks’ attempts to establish Soviet rule in Ukraine. Their aspirations for reviving the Polish state and incorporating considerable territories of land in western Ukraine were strongly opposed by the Ukrainian Central Rada. The German and Austrian military commanders also didn’t want to see the well-armed Polish units in Ukraine with their controversial political agenda. Eventually, some of the Polish Legions were defeated, others were disbanded, ending this unique episode of the Polish independence movement. Documents in this collection provide insights that are key to understanding Polish fervor for national self-determination, including: orders by the High Command of Polish Legions; personnel listings; local Polish military newspapers; documentation on the wages of Polish officers and soldiers; Romanian front correspondence regarding aid to Polish POWs; minutes of conferences held by Polish officers; and materials on the disbandment of Polish Legions in Ukraine.

German Occupation of Kyiv: Documents of the Commissariat-General, 1941-1943 Generalkommissariat was created in Ukraine when it was occupied by Nazi Germany in September 1941. The documents (orders, instructions, memos, correspondence, reports, summary reports, etc.) shed light on the Generalkommissariat’s organizational, economic and political activities, including issues concerning health, labor, agriculture and foodstuffs, economic, politics, law, transport, and forestry.

German Occupation of Kyiv: Documents of the Nazi-Controlled City Administration, 1941-1943 On September 19, 1941, soon after the Nazi Germany’s forces invaded the USSR, they occupied the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv. One of the first measures taken by the occupation forces was the establishment of the new Kyiv City Council, the municipal executive body run by local officials appointed by Germans. Previously unavailable, this collection consists of a vast number of unique historical records (over 90,000 pages), including: appeals to population by the City Mayor and the Nazi German command; the establishment of loyal police force; gathering information on political moods among population; conducting inventory of factories, plants and workshops; maintenance of rail and road transport; distribution of bread rations; reopening of schools, libraries and theaters; lists of City Council employees, their personal dossiers and ID papers; transporting local civilians to Germany for forced labor; registration of people of German descent and much more.

Military History Journal, 1939-1998

Long regarded in the West as one of the most respected and useful Soviet military periodicals, Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal commenced publication in August 1939, on the eve of the Second World War, at a time when Soviet military thinking was in turmoil. It represented a frantic attempt to bring the lessons of recent and distant past to bear on Soviet military art. Its publication was cut short in mid-1941 following Nazi Germany’s invasion of the USSR, as its editorial staff and mission were merged with those of the journal Voennaia mysl’. Publication of Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal resumed in January 1959. Taking advantage of the increasing permissiveness of the Khrushchev-era “thaw,” the journal immediately became the vanguard for serious and high-quality inquiry into the Soviet military and military-historical sciences. Many issues from 1959 through the early 1960s are included in this collection and are not easily found in major libraries in the West. This unique collection covers more than 40 years of the journal, starting from the very first issue, and includes over 70,000 pages.

Also Available:

• German Occupation of Ukraine: Documents of the Town of Belaia Tserkov
• Kyiv District Military Commander
• Limited Distribution Books from the Soviet Book Chamber