Overview of the collection holdings at the Museum of Russian-German Cultural History

The museum essentially has a folklore collection with around 10,000 objects. The largest part of the collection consists of the household effects of Russian-German colonists and their descendants, such as clothing, lighting, crockery, vessels, household linen, toys and a few pieces of furniture. Unfortunately, larger objects are often a desideratum, as many of the items are limited in size to the suitcase size of the (late) repatriates.
However, household and handicraft items such as sewing machines, spinning wheels, washboards, irons, brooms and clocks are well represented.  Another area is classic farming and craft tools and their work products. These include, for example, hammers, pliers, planes, hatchets, scissors or specific tools and products such as shoes, nails, fittings or roof tiles.
However, the collection also includes non-domestic areas such as school, further vocational training, the military and the church. These areas include, for example, school utensils and military decorations. The collection of religious objects such as Bibles, hymn books, devotional objects and church inventory is very noteworthy. Some of these objects can be traced back to the 18th century and gained additional significance during the period of church persecution in the Soviet Union between 1918 and 1988. For this collection, the individual documentation of objects is once again particularly important. This is because church inventory from underground churches and from the period of religious persecution in general is difficult to distinguish from simple household items. Candlesticks, serving vessels or bowls can often only be recognized as liturgical objects through a documented object history. In some cases, however, only the provenance of an object gives an indication of its use.
Works of art also play a role, with a collection of around 700 objects. These include paintings, drawings, prints, but also sculptures and reliefs. In this area, the main focus is on the visualization and processing of the fate of German repression under the Soviet dictatorship. In general, the material documentation of the experience of dictatorship is a unique feature of the collection. These can be everyday objects such as crockery, work tools or clothing that were used during the time of the Great Terror, deportation or in labor camps.
Working with objects or archive material must always be agreed before visiting the museum. It may take several days to make objects and archive material available. Viewing takes place in the reading room of the library. It is also possible to work beyond the regular opening hours of the museum by prior arrangement. A digital catalog can be found on the museum's website under the menu item Collections, which provides an initial insight into the object collection according to a simplified subject classification system.

There are around 120 shelf meters of archive records, the majority of which are in German, a smaller proportion in Russian, and less frequently in English, Ukrainian, Romanian, Georgian, Polish or Spanish.
The majority of the archive records were created in the 20th century. Some documents date back to the 18th or 19th century. Around a third are copies from private or public archives in the Federal Republic of Germany, the Soviet Union and its successor states or North and South America.
A significant part of the archive holdings are photographs, of which around 1200 have been digitized to date. The photos depict almost every aspect of everyday life such as work, leisure, religious life, school, the military or everyday life in the exile areas. There are gaps in the photo collection, especially from the periods of particularly strong state repression. These are, for example, the dekulakization, the state violence during the Great Terror or the deportation from 1941, but also life under the Wehrmacht in the Black Sea region between 1941 and 1944. These gaps can only be partially filled by a large number of autograph reports, pictorial works such as paintings or sculptures or private documents such as diaries or letters.
Through numerous campaigns and projects, interviews with contemporary witnesses from the second half of the 20th century were recorded on tape, VHS or digitally. The archive also contains a small amount of music and recordings in historical languages or dialects.
The archive also contains professional, civil, military, official and religious documents as well as maps of the German colonies in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. In addition, there are floor plans of houses and plots of land as well as village plans.
There is also correspondence between people and authorities in the Federal Republic of Germany and the Soviet Union or Russia, mainly from the 20th century. There are also a few church records, mainly copies or very rarely originals. These include around 150 Bibles, hymnbooks and other religious literature from the 18th century up to the period of religious persecution (1918-1988).
Thanks to targeted inquiries, many private estates of well-known Russian-Germans can be found in the museum archive. These include the writers Eleonora Hummel and Dominik Hollmann, the artists Andreas Prediger and Jakob Wedel, the journalist Josef Schleicher and the founder of the missionary organization Tabea Nikolaus Klassen. Less frequently represented in the archive are the archives of associations such as local groups of the Landsmannschaft or associations with political or social aims such as the federal working group Re Patria.
The archive also houses a collection of newspapers and magazines with around 1,000 different titles. Among them are ethnic German magazines that originated in Germany, but also German-language newspapers from the Soviet Union and its successor states, such as Neues Leben, Rote Fahne, Zeitung für Dich, Deutsche Allgemeine, Moskauer Deutsche Zeitung, (Novye) Semljaki, Novyj Mir or Novaja Gazeta. Some are denominational magazines. Mennonite communities are particularly well represented among these. The newspaper holdings are not always complete over the years.
The entire archive holdings are in various stages of digital inventory. Over 90% of the holdings have been digitally recorded, at least in terms of titles and access by persons or bodies related to the museum. However, only around 20% of the archive holdings have been provided with a detailed description, dating and keywords, among other things.
Like the object collection, the archive consists mainly of donations from private individuals. There are some holdings from the early days of the museum that have been re-sorted according to a geographically oriented system, but as a result knowledge of provenance has been lost. However, the vast majority of the holdings are sorted according to provenance. Since the start of digital recording, a subject classification system has been used in addition to the provenance principle, which is roughly based on the museum's object inventory and facilitates cross-collection research.
Interested researchers are requested to notify the museum in advance of their wish to use the archive and to communicate their research questions. The museum staff will then search for relevant holdings and make them available after consultation.

The museum's second type of collection is the reference library. This includes around 12,000 titles, the majority of which are in German, but some of which are also in Russian and English. Here, too, the focus is on the culture and history of the Russian-Germans, but this is flanked more broadly by literature on exclusively German, Russian and Eastern European history in general. A smaller part is fiction literature from different periods of Russian-German history, which provides insights into the popular cultural memory of very different social groups. There is also prose and poetry by well-known Russian-Germans, but with the proviso that the content is related to the themes of the museum.
The library also has a collection of over 1,000 titles from the field of gray literature. These are autobiographical works such as diaries, memoirs, family histories or village or regional chronicles, which mainly deal with the 20th century. In addition, almost all regions of origin and major migration movements are represented with at least one account of their experiences. Some of the memoir literature is aimed at very different audiences. Some of the authors address the general public, others exclusively their private family circles. Overall, these books are very rare due to their small print run and lack of commercial marketing.
The library also includes around 400 video and audio media in a wide variety of formats. The spectrum ranges from moving image recordings of private celebrations, social events or autobiographical family stories to professional productions from the genres of feature film, documentary or docudrama.
A special feature of the library is its classification system. It is not organized according to the principle of pertinence, but geographically. When the library was founded, the main focus was on genealogical research, which is greatly facilitated by the systematization by region of origin. Even today, family research is still the most common reason for visiting the library, which is why the geographical classification principle continues to apply. However, the library's holdings are digitally recorded and indexed. Visitors therefore have the opportunity to search according to their usual criteria on site or by prior request.
The library is accessible during the museum's opening hours with an admission ticket. Copying and scanning facilities are available. Scanning orders are possible by arrangement. The books can be consulted in the reading room. Internet access for your own digital device is available on request. The digital library catalog can only be used on site. If you are looking for books on specific topics, we recommend that you contact us by e-mail or telephone before your visit.

In addition to multilingualism, researching the collections can pose special challenges for interested researchers. Answering a research question may require dealing with very different types of sources or forms of material culture. After thorough research, a conglomerate of photos, video recordings, everyday objects, art objects, private letters and autobiographical self-published books can often be found. Taken together, there is often extensive material available for a corresponding research question, but the multitude of different source genres can be methodologically challenging.
The spectrum of possible research questions is extremely broad and can only be named as examples. For example, questions about cultural transformation through the various stages of migration in Russian-German history would be promising. These questions could relate to specific subject areas such as visual arts or literature, to specific actors or groups, but also to social spaces, whether private or public. It would also be possible to research cultural memory in the field of tension between repeatedly used narratives and the heterogeneous experience of dictatorship. Specific desiderata would be, for example, the role of women in the underground churches of the Soviet Union or the analysis of narrative narratives that are inscribed in the large collection of privately built and crafted models of (residential) houses, churches, farms, workshops or work tools, for example.
The museum collections have already been used in many ways to research the deportation, forced labor and repression of Russian-Germans in the 20th century. However, there are also numerous interviews with contemporary witnesses, autobiographical books and diary reports that have not yet been analyzed.