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 by ISBN: 9780198614203Publication Date: 2007-05-28This 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
Website Dictionary (click on image below)
Encyclopedias and handbooks
Encyclopedia of Russian History by ISBN: 9780028659077Publication Date: 2003-12-01"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 Top 20 Reference Titles of the Year," American Libraries, May 2004.
The New Russia by ISBN: 9780700716210Publication Date: 2002-08-30The 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. There have been frequent changes of personnel in government and economic management and many changes have been reversed - and sometimes forgotten, or at other times reinstated. What happened when? Who was responsible for what? Did such a change in one sector precede or follow a particular change elsewhere? These are points not easily remembered. This book provides full details of the many changes, and enables sense to be made of what would otherwise be a confusing situation.
The Palgrave Handbook of Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century Russia and the Soviet Union by ISBN: 1137549041Publication Date: 2018-01-12This 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 ISBN: 9781607804192Publication Date: 2010-01-01Need 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 ISBN: 0521543231Publication Date: 2011-12-05Accessible to students, tourists, and general readers alike, this book provides a broad overview of Russian history since the ninth century. Paul Bushkovitch emphasizes 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. The book traces not only the political history of Russia, but also developments in its literature, art, and science. Bushkovitch describes well-known cultural figures, such as Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Mendeleev in their institutional and historical contexts. Though the 1917 revolution, the resulting Soviet system, and the Cold War were a crucial part of Russian and world history, Bushkovitch presents earlier developments as more than just a prelude to Bolshevik power.
Everyday Life in Russia by ISBN: 9780253012609Publication Date: 2015-01-29A panoramic, interdisciplinary survey of Russian lives and "a must-read for any scholar engaging with Russian culture" (The Russian Review). 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. Microanalyses and transnational perspectives shed new light on the formation and elaboration of gender, ethnicity, class, nationalism, and subjectivity. Changes in consumption and communication patterns, the restructuring of familial and social relations, systems of cultural meanings, and evolving practices in the home, at the workplace, and at sites of leisure are among the topics explored.
The Oxford Handbook of Modern Russian History
This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online.
Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on January 29, 2016).
Series
Books
To find books on a particular subject, do a keyword search in the Library Catalogue. Alternatively you can search by title, author, etc.
You can also find books on similar topics through the subject headings in item records. Click on these headings to find related subjects and titles.
Looking for a book we don't have or is not on our shelves?
Inter-Library Loans
University of Melbourne staff and students can request resources through the Library’s Inter-Library Loans service. For more information visit the ILL web page, or you can access the request forms.
A CAVAL card allows you to borrow from other universities and TAFEs. Visit the CAVAL website to find out how to sign up for a CAVAL card.
You can then use the Trove website to see which library has the book you want.
Databases and journals
Russian studies-specific databases:
First of all, try searching in one of these subject-specific databases.
- Integrum ProfiIntegrum 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, 1651-1917Brill’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 PropagandaSourced 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 ArchiveThe 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.
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 (try these first):
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. We highly recommend searching in at least one other database on this list as well as Discovery.
- Google ScholarGoogle 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.
- JSTORJSTOR 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.
- 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 ScienceWeb 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.
- ProQuest CentralCovering 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.
Statistics / Yearbooks
Russian statistics and yearbook databases
Click on the button below to view statistical resources that the Library holds/has access to (this will open in a new window).
Newspapers
- FactivaFactiva provides access to the latest business and industry news. It is a valuable research tool for many disciplines, including political science, media studies, business, technology studies, social science, journalism, the arts, and more. The database allows users to browse through a collection of global content sources from 200 countries, in 26 languages – including newspapers, continuously updated newswires from Dow Jones and Reuters, journals and magazines, websites, blogs, and multimedia.
- Pravda Digital ArchiveThe 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.
- For more information about finding news, click on the button below (this will open in a new window).
TV and streaming media
Television databases
- EduTV (Informit)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.
Streaming media
- 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. - Alexander Street VideoAlexander 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.
Referencing and citing
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