The editors of Ab Imperio and Cahiers du monde russe: Russie, Empire russe, Union soviétique et États independents invite experts on history of archives to take part in an intellectual experiment of looking at imperial (as well as local and ministerial) archives through a cultural-anthropological prism, to view them both as loci of production and codification of knowledge about empire and as a product of the multifaceted process of yielding power-knowledge in imperial societies.
We propose the following questions for discussion:

1. To what extent were the construction and architecture of archival residence-buildings, and their geographic positioning determined by the imperial character of the polities in question? What role did such archives play in the ideology of empire-building, and which branches of government were primarily responsible? What pedagogies were included in the training of archival specialists, and to what extent did archivists reflect the heterogeneity of the imperial space?

2. Is it a historically valid assertion that the dominant (social or national) group in a given empire determined the character and content of archival collections? If so, then how has the concomitant selectivity of archival materials shaped the parameters of imperial studies? Does that imply that the history of an empire as viewed from the perspective of archival collections appear reduced to the single voice of a dominant group? Given the centrality of this issue for historiography, it is necessary to pose a question about how and when the archival collections that represented the view of these dominant groups within an empire were gathered, and which aspects of this group’s history are or are not represented in these archival documents. It is also important to ponder how the structure of political, scientific, and cultural communication in an empire shaped the structure of its archives and the range of values ascribed to the archive’s historical documents. Was either the structure or the concept of ascribing value subject to historical change? What is their relationship to ministerial archives whose history they helped construct, and how did the process of selection and classification of documents reflect the diversity of that empire? Given the prominent presence of pluralism of legal norms and frameworks in each empire, it would be illuminating to question how the processes of rationalization contributed to archival selection and the classification of legal documents, and if this legal pluralism retained its residual grip on the landscape of archival collections.

3. Looking at center-periphery relations, it is importnat to inquire into the influence of the periphery on the archival policy. For example, a case from the history of the British empire with reference to which historians documented an influence of legal precedents in labor conflict resolutions in nineteenth century India over the reforms of labor legislation in Great Britain. It was the process of building a special Indian archive for legal and legislative acts that provided the basis for this subsequent historical reconstruction. A comparatively inclined historian would naturally be tempted to ask the question of whether there are cases of this type to be found in the history of the Russian Empire, USSR, or other empires? With respect to the history of the Russian Empire and USSR, it is pertinent to look at the archive-building that was associated with the treatment of the “Eastern question,” “Jewish question,” and other such “questions” by the imperial government. What were the documents requested by government officials (or collected and used as the foundation of archival collections) for the purpose of elaborating a reform policy?

4. Pursuant to the question of the historically constituted notion of archival value, it is important to explore why certain types of documents were destroyed or lost, and why their historic value was seen as insignificant from the viewpoint of government or society? Does this history of lost collections reveal a policy of silencing that pertains to the underpinning principles of viewing the past through the prism of certain hierarchies of importance and relevance? Consequently, what is the contribution of this policy of silencing to the invisibility of certain aspects or spaces of imperial history in the modern interpretative frameworks of historiography?

5. Finally, there is a question of historical claims, legitimacy, and cultural values. The history of the post Soviet space (and one can claim that it is the history of all world empires) is the one of reallocation of, and dispute about the displaced or improperly placed cultural values. Archival collections are among them. It is therefore illuminating to pose a question of how the disputes about the restitution of cultural values, and archival collections in particular, shed light on the constructed historic legitimacy of new states and the perception of interconnectedness to, or fragmentation from the past imperial spaces. Note, for example, the case of “returning” some of the archives of the Russian emigration to the contemporary Russian Federation, or the reallocation of archival collections in the Soviet period from the central archives to the archives of the Soviet republics. What stands behind the rhetoric of “returning” or “historic entitlement” for these cultural values in the form of archival documents, and what are the influences on legal disputes in a historicist argument?
We encourage potential contributors to write to the editors of both journals at the email addresses below indicating interest and suggesting an article topic or formulations of the proposed questions. The deadline for submissions is December 10, 2007. We look forward to a stimulating discussion.

Ab Imperio
office@abimperio.net

Cahiers du monde russe:
Russie, Empire russe, Union soviétique et États indépendants
stanzian@idhe.ens-cachan.fr