Sample Topics

• experiences of female prisoners in Stalinist labor camps
• Western perceptions of Gorbachev's wife, Raisa
• survivors' experiences of the siege of Leningrad
• commemoration of the battle of Stalingrad in the postwar USSR
• Molotov's relationship with Stalin
• the reception of Western rock music in the Soviet Union
• Soviet rock music and social protest
• debates about the 1991 Union Treaty
• religious symbolism in the cult of Lenin
• conditions for Soviet infantry during the battle of Stalingrad

Sample Keywords

• forced labor/labour camps and Soviet Union
• personal narratives and siege of Leningrad
• Soviet Union and occupation
• history and 1991 Union Treaty
• Lenin and cult and influence
• rock music and Russia culture

Primary sources of information present data that has not been analyzed or interpreted in any way; these are original research, eyewitness accounts, and creative works from the time period, usually presented in their original form and serve to help interpret an event. Examples: newspaper articles, speeches, photographs, interviews, internet communications or other forms of correspondence, sets of data, patents, conference proceedings, autobiographies, government records and congressional hearings.

What is a secondary source?

From the Library's home page, select RESEARCH then ARTICLE INDEXES & DATABASES to access the following select databases.
To access these databases from off campus, you must go through the proxy server.

• America: History and Life
• Historical Abstracts
• MLA International Bibliography

• Alternative Press Index
• Cambridge University Press Journals Online
• Expanded Academic
• JSTOR
• Project Muse
• Russian Academy of Science Bibliography

• Biography Resources Center (Electronic books)

• Cold War International History Project
  
• National Security Archive George Washington University
  

Primary and Archival Sources

• Newspapers
  • Ethnic Newswatch (date: varies)
  • Historical Newspapers OnlineS
  • Los Angeles Times (historical: 1881-1976)
  • New York Times (historical: 1857-1999)
  • Newsbank (date: varies)

• Use the " " to search a specific phrase as it appears on the document, (e.g. "siege of Leningrad", " battle of Stalingrad","Soviet labor camps".)
• Use OR to combine terms when either one will do: 1979 Geneva Conference OR Orderly Departure Program
• Use AND to force the results to have both terms: Union Treaty AND Soviet Union
• Most databases let you truncate by using a symbol to get other letters: cultur* gets you cultural , culture, culturalise...
  • The truncation symbol can be a *, ?, ! or other symbols depending on the database

To find articles, use an article index database (e.g. American: History and Life, Historical Abstracts) to search the terms related to your topic. In order to get the article you will need to write down some information about the article that you will use to find it in the catalog.

To find books, use the Keyword search type for searching topics with keywords.

Use Pegasus, to find the periodicals that you need. The Pegasus record will indicate in what formats these titles are available i.e. microfilm, print copy or electronic text. You will need to get the Call Number and location in order to find the particular periodical in the library.

• Search Type: "Journal Title Begins with ..." New York Times          Microfilm area: AN 34.N 6
• Search Type: "Journal Title Begins with..." Journal of the history of sexuality:     Andelson Collection HQ12 .J66

The following is a selection of some of the reference books from the UCSB Libraries that might help you further analyze your topic.

• Encyclopedia of Russian history / Reference DK14 .E53 2004 [Non-circulating]

• The Blackwell encyclopedia of the Russian revolution/ Reference DK265 .B54 1994 [Non-circulating]

• The Gulag handbook:an encyclopedia dictionary of Soviet penitentiary institutions and terms related to the forced labor camps / Main Library HV9712 .R6713 1989

• Encyclopedia of Russian history: from the Christianization of Kiev to the break-up of the U.S.S.R./ Reference DK36 .P39 1993 [Non-circulating]

• The Cambridge encyclopedia of Russia and the former Soviet Union/Reference DK14 .C35 1994 [Non-circulating]

• Historical Dictionary of the Cold War/Reference D843.S547 2000 [Non-circulating]

• The Cold War reference guide: a general history and annotated chronology with selected biographies/Reference D843.S3365 1997 [Non-circulating]

• Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States: documents, data, and analysis/ Reference DK1.5 .R876 1997 [Non-circulating]

• Russia/USSR - Reference DK 19 P586 1994 [Non-circulating]

• Cultural Atlas of Russia and the Soviet Union/Reference DK32 M62 1898 [Non-circulating]

• Who was who in the Soviet Union/Reference DK290 W49 1992 [Non-circulating]