Library Guides: Russian Studies and Language: Introduction

Introduction

This subject guide highlights some key discipline resources to get you started with study and research.

Refer to the New Students Library Guide for everything you need to know about Library services and resources.
Build your researching, reading and writing skills with the Research Essentials Library Guide.
Streamline your access to online resources with the Library's quick access tools.

Language resources

Oxford Russian Dictionary

Oxford Russian Dictionary by Oxford Oxford Languages
ISBN: 9780198614203
Publication Date: 2007-05-28
This dictionary is an invaluable text for any serious student of Russian, or any Russian native speaker learning English.
Extensive treatment of Russian declensions and conjugations

For further resources, also check the following subject headings in the Library catalogue:

English language -- Dictionaries -- Russian

Russian language -- Dictionaries -- English.

Russian language -- Grammar.

Russian language -- Grammar -- Problems, exercises, etc.

Website Dictionary (click on image below)

Reference sources

Encyclopedia of Russian History / by James R. Millar
ISBN: 9780028659077
Publication Date: 2003
This four-volume set features nearly 1,500 entries by experts on all aspects of Russian history, including important biographical figures, geographical areas, ethnographic groups, cultural landmarks, military campaigns, and social issues.
The New Russia / by Ian Jeffries
ISBN: 9780700716210
Publication Date: 2002
The rapid changes in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union are often bewildering, with many frequent, highly significant changes in the different sectors of the economy and the political system, and frequent changes of personnel in government and economic management. This book provides full details of many changes.
The Palgrave Handbook of Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century Russia and the Soviet Union / by Melanie Ilic
ISBN: 1137549041
Publication Date: 2018
This handbook brings together recent and emerging research in the broad areas of women and gender studies focusing on pre-revolutionary Russia, the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet Russian Federation.
Russia Society and Culture Complete Report / by World Trade Press
ISBN: 9781607804192
Publication Date: 2010
Need to know it all? Our all-inclusive culture report for Russia will get up to speed on all aspects of culture in Russia, including lifecycle, religion, women, superstitions & folklore, sports, holidays & festivals, and etiquette.
A Concise History of Russia / by Paul Bushkovitch
ISBN: 0521543231
Publication Date: 2011
A broad accessible overview of Russian history since the 9th century, emphasizing the enormous changes in the understanding of Russian history resulting from the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. Since then, new material has come to light on the history of the Soviet era, providing new conceptions of Russia's pre-revolutionary past.
Everyday Life in Russia / by Choi Chatterjee; David L. Ransel; Mary Cavender; Karen Petrone; Sheila Fitzpatrick
ISBN: 9780253012609
Publication Date: 2015
A panoramic, interdisciplinary survey of Russian lives and a must-read for any scholar engaging with Russian culture. In this interdisciplinary collection of essays, distinguished scholars survey the cultural practices, power relations, and behaviors that characterized Russian daily life from pre-revolutionary times through the post-Soviet present.
The Oxford handbook of modern Russian history / by Simon Dixon
ISBN: 9780191749964
Publication Date: 2013-
This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. The table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. The online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online.

Series

New Russian History

Cambridge History of Russia

Databases and journals

Use databases to search across many academic resources (including peer-reviewed journals) at the same time.

Refer to the A-Z Ejournals and Databases page for a comprehensive list of available resources.

Core Arts and Humanities databases:

The selection of multidisciplinary databases below will retrieve results from different subject areas.

Discovery (EBSCO)
Use Discovery to look for books, ebooks, journal articles and more. It's a great place to start your search but does not give you everything the Library has.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is one of the most popular ways to find academic sources for study and research. Did you know you can use it to search for journal articles that the University of Melbourne has access to? You can do this through the link above or set up your Google Scholar preferences to include Library content.
JSTOR
JSTOR is one of the largest databases the Library has access to. It is a multidisciplinary database so it looks in thousands of journals in over a hundred subjects - many of them related to arts and humanities. Highly recommended as your first or second place to search.
ProQuest Central
Covering more than 160 subjects areas, ProQuest Central is the largest aggregated database of periodical content. This award-winning online reference resource features a highly-respected, diversified mix of content including scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, books, newspapers, reports and videos.
Scopus (Elsevier)
Scopus is another large, multidisciplinary database. It looks through journals, books, and conference papers. It has some advanced tools that can help you discover new research quickly - the 'times cited' and 'related articles' links are great time-savers. While it doesn't always have full-text PDFs it is still an excellent place to look for your research.
Web of Science
Web of Science is a massive, multidisciplinary database which includes a large amount of humanities and social sciences material from as far back as 1900. Like Scopus it has some advanced features that allows you to quickly link to related research.

Russian studies-specific databases

Try searching in one of these subject-specific databases.

Integrum Profi
Integrum Profi provides an electronic portrait of Russia. The database contains archives of mass-media from more than 4,700 magazines, newspapers, TV and radio transcripts, and tools for research in political science, defense and security, economics, humanities, and social sciences.
Russian Military Intelligence on Asia Online Archive, 1651-1917
Brill’s Russian Military Intelligence on Asia’s archive series gathers the holdings of the Russian State Military History Archive (RGVIA) in Moscow. It contains historical-geographical, statistical, topographical and ethnographical descriptions of countries and their individual regions; material on the domestic political and economic situation of states, their foreign policy and international relations, and the state of their armed forces and military skills.
Socialism on Film : The Cold War and International Propaganda
Sourced from the British Film Institute (BFI), Socialism on Film documents the communist world, from the Russian Revolution to the end of the Cold War. This unique collection of documentary films, features and newsreels reveals all aspects of life behind the Iron Curtain, as seen by filmmakers from the USSR, Vietnam, Cuba, China, East Germany, Eastern Europe and more. The footage was originally sourced from communist states, then versioned into English language for private distribution in Britain and the West. The films have been conserved, digitised from the original 16mm and 35mm reels, and are fully transcribed and searchable.
Stalin Digital Archive
The Stalin Digital Archive (SDA) is a result of collaboration between the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History and Yale University Press. This collection provides access to primary source materials from Stalin’s personal papers and insightful monographs on communism. In addition, it seeks to advance research and teaching through new ways for scholars and students to interact with this content and collaborate.
Zhurnal’nyj Zal
"Журнальный зал" (ЖЗ) is a nonprofit literary web-project, representing the activities of Russian literary and humanities journals published in Russia and abroad.

Books

You can access print and eBooks via the Library Catalogue. To find books on a particular subject, try a keyword search:

To improve your searching skills, see the Research Essentials Library Guide. Note that you can search the catalogue in non-Latin scripts (including Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese and Korean).

For information on access and loans, including material from other libraries, see the borrowing from the library page. The eBook Guide provides information on eBook access.

Theses

Visit the Finding Theses guide

Video resources

Alexander Street Video
Alexander Street Press offers video, audio and text-based resources covering an extensive range of subjects. This site allows users to cross-search the content purchased by the University of Melbourne Library. It features a single, fully integrated platform, offering access to thousands of full-length streaming video titles and audio recordings. Almost every video in the collection is fully transcribed in addition to being indexed for subjects, people, places, release date, language, publisher, and video type. Users can also select to view a single subject collection by using the dropdown menu at the top of the homepage.
EduTV
EduTV is a Video Streaming service of over 50,000+ broadcast programs from free-to-air and pay TV channels in Australia. Coverage commences with 2006 and includes content across a wide range of learning areas. Free to air content is recorded from the ABC, SBS, NITV, 9, 7, 10, etc. channels. EduTV also includes several programs broadcast on Pay TV such as The History Channel, National Geographic, BBC Knowledge and Discovery channels.
Kanopy (Kanopy)
The Kanopy Streaming Service is the leading supplier of streamed videos to global academic institutions. The service utilises sophisticated platform and delivery technology to offer a new world of online engagement that empowers University of Melbourne Library to stream on demand video at optimal quality to their registered staff and students.

Explore the catalogue of over 20,000 videos from the world’s most prominent filmmakers and production houses. Specially curated collections cover a wide range educational disciplines including literacy, mathematics, history and issues in society. Kanopy also offers a hosting service allowing for DVDs to be uploaded and streamed online provided digital rights is obtained. Kanopy offers a large range of Australian content and videos can be searched using the library catalogue.
Socialism on Film : The Cold War and International Propaganda
Sourced from the British Film Institute (BFI), Socialism on Film documents the communist world, from the Russian Revolution to the end of the Cold War. This unique collection of documentary films, features and newsreels reveals all aspects of life behind the Iron Curtain, as seen by filmmakers from the USSR, Vietnam, Cuba, China, East Germany, Eastern Europe and more. The footage was originally sourced from communist states, then versioned into English language for private distribution in Britain and the West. The films have been conserved, digitised from the original 16mm and 35mm reels, and are fully transcribed and searchable.
TVNews (Informit)
TVNews indexes Australian television news, current affairs and selected documentaries from the free-to-air networks with links to the digitised video content in a compressed format. All individual stories from a particular broadcast are indexed with a detailed synopsis. TVNews is updated daily, with stories appearing on an evening news broadcast generally being available for access the next morning. Key titles include: Australian Story, Catalyst, Current Affair, Dateline, Foreign Correspondent, Four Corners, Insiders, Insight, Landline, Lateline, Meet the Press, Q and A, Today Tonight, World News Australia, and many more. Coverage commences with September 2007 and is updated daily.

Statistics / Yearbooks

Russian statistics and yearbook databases

Russia & CIS statistics weekly

Interfax: Russia & CIS Statistics Weekly

Russian Economic statistics

Europa World Plus

Political Risk Yearbook: Russia Country Forecast

Visit the Statistics and Data guide

Newspapers

Visit the News and Newspapers guide

Pravda Digital Archive
The most widely read and referenced news source from the Soviet era is available online in full-text and full-image back to its inception in 1912. Researchers will be able to research the chief chronicle of Russian and Soviet history, from the beginnings of the Russian Revolution through World War II, the Cold War, the fall of the Soviet Union, and everything in between.
Izvestiia Digital Archive
Among the longest-running Russian newspapers, Izvestiia was founded in March 1917 and during the Soviet period was the official organ of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Remarkable for its serious and balanced treatment of subject matter, Izvestiia has traditionally been a popular news source within intellectual and academic circles.

Referencing and citation

Visit the Re:cite guide to referencing

Learn to reference in styles commonly used at the university.
Download reference management software or find a citation generator.
Access training, guides and webinars.

Contact us

Ask a question on Library Chat

You can chat to a librarian via the Library's website.

Visit a Library Service Desk

We're here to help! Visit our libraries to talk to a library staff member for the help that you need.

Research Consultations

University of Melbourne academic staff and postgraduate students can book an individual research consultation or email the Arts liaison librarians.