The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online IX

More documents

Recommendations

Info

The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online 16/2003 6 The INCOMKA project The International Committee for the Computerization of the Comintern Archive (INCOMKA) undertook a project to facilitate research into the Comintern archive. Begun by the International Council on Archives, its partners are the Russian State Archive of Social-Political History, Federal Archival Service of Russia, Archives of France, Federal Archives of Germany, State Archives of Italy, National Archives of Sweden, Federal Archives of Switzerland, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport of Spain, Library of Congress of the USA, and the Open Society Archives of Hungary. The INCOMKA project has two parts: first, to digitize as images 5% (one million pages) of the most used and the most significant documents chosen by the project partners of the Comintern and, second, to digitize the finding aids of the Comintern collections at RGASPI into an electronically text-searchable database. The scanning of the documents was undertaken by RGASPI archivists who also prepared the Russian-language database. The database is essentially an edited electronic version of the printed finding aids allowing computer searches using file descriptors, key words, and personal or organizational names. The database allows rapid location of file descriptions of the entire twenty-million pages of the Communist International archive at RGASPI, not just the one-million pages electronically scanned for the INCOMKA project. The INCOMKA database of personal names and cadre files However, to facilitate international use, INCOMKA determined that the database was to be electronically searchable in both Cyrillic-alphabet Russian and Latin-alphabet English. The U.S. Library of Congress agreed to be the lead agency for translation of the database with Dr. Ronald D. Bachman, the Library’s Polish and East European area specialist serving as the supervising linguist. Library of Congress linguists found that translating most of the descriptors from Russian to English to be an uncomplicated translation task although
The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online 16/2003 7 accurate translation of some Comintern organizational titles and operational »jargon» required consultation with historians familiar with Comintern history. However, Library of Congress linguists quickly found that translation of more than 170,000 personal names that occurred in the database was a more difficult task. These personal names occurred in descriptions of files of various Comintern secretariats and agencies. The greatest number, however, came with more than 100,000 personal files maintained by the Comintern, the so called cadre files. These files are background files for persons for whom for one reason or another the Comintern at some point set up a biographical file. Many are for Comintern personnel, students at Comintern schools, and senior members of foreign parties. However, many files were also established for persons who were prominent opponents of the Communist movement. For example, the Comintern maintained a biographical file on J. Edgar Hoover, a strong anti-communist who headed the USA’s Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Comintern established files on thousands of persons who were simply of political importance such as major political or governmental figures, journalists, diplomats, trade union officials or others who were of interest to the Communist International for whatever. Methodological problems of translation While the Library of Congress made the initial translation of most national personal file lists, the Archives of France, the Federal Archives of Germany, and the Federal Archives of Switzerland undertook the initial translation of their respective national lists. In those cases, the Library of Congress provided only a computer transliteration from Russian to the Library of Congress phonetic Cyrillic to Latin alphabet transliteration system. Here is the translation problem. The Comintern labeled its personal files in Russian: all English, French, Spanish, Japanese, German, Finnish and other language names were transliterated into Russian by Comintern files clerks with varying linguistic ability and with differing transliterating habits. Linguists now faced the task of translating these Cyrillic-
Page 1 and 2: The International Newsletter of Com
Page 5: The International Newsletter of Com
Page 57 and 58:
The International Newsletter of Com
Page 59 and 60:
Page 61 and 62:
Page 63 and 64:
Page 65 and 66:
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Page 77 and 78:
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Page 107 and 108:
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125 and 126:
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132:
Page 133 and 134:
Page 135:
show all

The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online IX

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?