Archival terminology in the USSR and in post-Soviet countries: continuity and change

ABSTRACT

The archival schools of the post-Soviet countries discussed in this article (Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine), despite having much in common, are quite different from one another. Their similarity is due to a comprehensive legal and methodological base inherited from the USSR, as well as to a well-established common practice. The principles of normative regulation of archiving were laid down in the USSR and built on the basic law on archiving and the normative acts of the central state body responsible for the archival affairs of the country. All the countries examined have retained the principles of forming the terminological system of the professional area through the development of a special national terminological standard which includes the terms given in the fundamental law on archiving. However, the extent to which the terminological systems are elaborated and are consistent both within themselves and with the terminological systems of related fields of activity in each country, is different. The article contains an analytical comparison of the definitions of fundamental archival terms standardised in national standards and laws on archival affairs in the abovementioned countries and in the USSR, and also shows the influence of ISO standards on the development of terminological systems in these countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Document
• national terminological system
• archival science
• USSR
• post-Soviet countries

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The collapse of the USSR did not lead to initiating a procedure for returning archival documents to the republics, since the policy of the Soviet state had not consisted of locating archives at the centre, but, on the contrary, of developing an archival network at the local level at the expense of the state budget, including free training of personnel in the area of archiving.

2. The issues of the organisation and functioning of the bodies governing the archival sphere at all-Union and republican levels, the legal support of archiving itself, the history of the archival school of the country, as well as its evolution in the post-Soviet space do not pertain to the objectives of this article as they would need a special study.

3. All–Russian Scientific and Research Institute for Records and Archives Management (VNIIDAD): <http://www.vniidad.ru/>; Belarusian Scientific and Research Centre of Electronic Records: <http://www.archives.gov.by/>; Belarusian Scientific and Research Institute for Recordkeeping and Archival Science: <http://www.belniidad.by/>; Committee of Information and Archives of the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan: <https://www.gov.kz/memleket/entities/mcs?lang=en>; Ukraine Scientific and Research Institute of Archiving and Document Science: <https://undiasd.archives.gov.ua>.

4. VD Banasyukevich, ‘Вопросы терминологии управленческой документации’ (‘Questions of terminology of management documentation’), Советские архивы (Soviet Archives), no. 4, 1974, pp. 17–30; E Chernay, ‘Фондирование архивных документов’ (‘Funding of archival documents’), The questions of Kazakhstan recordkeeping (Вопросы документооборта. Казахстана), vol. 8, no. 128, 2020, pp. 60–3; MP Ilyushenko, ‘К понятию термина “документ” (эволюция термина и предмета документоведения’) (‘On the concept of the term “document” (Evolution of the term and of the subject of recordkeeping))’, Советские архивы (Soviet Archives), no. 1, 1986, pp. 30–45; O Ya Garanin, ‘Використання терміну “архівна інформація”: запрошення до дискусії’ (‘Use of the term “archival information”: request for discussion’), Вісник Державного архіву Хмельницької області ‘Подільська Старовина’ (Journal of the State Archives of the Khmelnytsky region ‘Podolskaya starina’), vol. 1, no. 4, 2019, рp. 64–6; SV Litvinskaya, ‘Із ретроспективних нарацій про українську документознавчу термінографію’ (‘Use of retrospective definitions in the terminology of Ukrainian document science’), in VV Bezdrabko (ed.), Термінологія документознавства та суміжних галузей знань (Terminology of records management and related fields of knowledge: collection of scientific papers), Kiev, vol. 8, 2014, pp. 43–60; LN Varlamova, ‘Документационное обеспечение управления в России: терминологический аспект’ (‘Documentation support of management in Russia: terminological aspect’), Вестник РГГУ: Серия Документоведение и Архивоведение (Journal of the RSUH: Series of Documentation and Archival Science), vol. 2, no. 15, 2015, pp. 22–35.

5. C Roberto, K Anderson and M Crockett, ‘Translating the Universal Declaration on Archives: working with archival traditions and languages across the world’.

6. A Nuopponen, ‘Methods of concept analysis – a comparative study (part 1 of 3)’, LSP Journal – Language for special purposes, professional communication, knowledge management and cognition, vol. 1, no. 1, 2010; A Nuopponen, ‘Methods of concept analysis – towards systematic concept analysis (part 2 of 3)’, LSP Journal-Language for special purposes, professional communication, knowledge management and cognition, vol. 1, no. 2, 2010; A Nuopponen, ‘Methods of concept analysis – tools for systematic concept analysis (part 3 of 3)’, LSP Journal–Language for special purposes, professional communication, knowledge management and cognition, vol. 2, no. 1, 2011. The three articles are available from <http://lsp.cbs.dk>.

7. Nowadays, terminology issues are regulated by international standards: ISO 704:2009 ‘Terminology work. Principles and methods; ISO 860:2007 Terminology work – Harmonization of concepts and terms’; ISO 1087:2019 ‘Terminology work and terminology science – Vocabulary’, available at <http://www.iso.org>, accessed 25 December 2020.

8. The Main Archival Administration under the Counсil of Ministers of the USSR, VNIIDAD, Moscow State Historical and Archival Institute, ‘Краткий словарь архивной терминологии’ (‘Concise Dictionary of Archival Terminology’), Moscow, 1968.

9. ‘Делопроизводство и архивное дело. Термины и определения’ (‘Recordkeeping and archiving. Terms and definitions’), Moscow, 1970.

10. The Main Archival Administration under the Counсil of Ministers of the USSR, VNIIDAD, Archive of Ancient Manuscripts, ‘Краткий словарь видов и разновидностей документов’ (‘Concise Dictionary of Types and Varieties of Documents’), Moscow, 1974.

11. VNIIDAD, ‘Словарь современной архивной терминологии социалистических стран’ (‘Dictionary of Modern Archival Terminology of Socialist Countries’), Moscow, Part 1, 1982; Part 2, 1988.

12. GOST 16487–83 ‘Делопроизводство и архивное дело. Термины и определения’ (‘Recordkeeping and Archiving. Terms and Definitions’), Moscow, 1985.

13. ibid., entry 3.

14. GOST R 51141–98 ‘Делопроизводство и архивное дело. Термины и определения’ (‘Recordkeeping and Archiving. Terms and Definitions’), Moscow, 1998, entry 3.

15. GOST 16487–83, entry 49.

16. GOST R 51141–98, entry 80.

17. GOST 16487–83, entry 45.

18. GOST R 51141–98, entry 77.

19. On the basis of the example of the definitions of this term and of the next one, which seem different at first glance, but in fact remain the same, one can understand how important it is to interpret them in the context of the entire archival legislation of the country.

20. ISO 15489–1:2001 ‘Information and documentation – Records management – Part 1: General’, available at <http://www.iso.org>, accessed 11 November 2020.

21. ISO 30300:2011 ‘Information and documentation – Management systems for records – Fundamentals and vocabulary’, available at <http://www.iso.org>, accessed 11 November 2020.

22. ISO 9000:2001 ‘Quality management systems – Fundamentals and vocabulary’, available at <http://www.iso.org>, accessed 11 November 2020.

23. LN Varlamova, ‘International terminology standardised by ISO and IEC used in records and archives management’, Tabula, no. 22, 2019, pp. 53–70; LN Varlamova, ‘Development of the international records and archives management standardization system’, Atlanti+, vol. 1, no. 29, 2019, pp. 41–8; LN Varlamova, ‘Aspects of compatibility of Russian and international standardized terminology used in records management and archives’, in Proceeding book of the 6^th International Scientific Conference ‘Archives in the service of people – people in the service of archives’, vol. 1, Maribor, 2018, pp. 52–6.

24. LN Varlamova, LS Baiun, and KA Bastrikova, ‘Управление документами: Англо-русский аннотированный словарь стандартизированной терминологии’ (‘Records Management: English-Russian Annotated Dictionary of Standardized Terminology’), Moscow, 2017.

25. LN Varlamova, LS Baiun, and KA Bastrikova, ‘Управление документами и архивами. Англо-русский словарь стандартизированной терминологии’ (‘Records and Archives Management: English-Russian Dictionary of Standardized Terminology’), Moscow, 2019.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Liudmila Varlamova

Liudmila Varlamova holds a PhD in History, is Associate Professor at the Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH), and an ISO expert. She is the Head of the project (corresponding author, email: [email protected])

Elena Latysheva

Elena Latysheva holds a PhD in History and is Professor at Crimea State University named after V.I.Vernadsky.

Orazgul Mukhatova

Orazgul Mukhatova holds a PhD in History and is Professor at the Kazakhstan History and Ethnology Institute named after C. Valikhanov.

Dzmitry Varnashou

Dzmitry Varnashou is a Research Associate at the Belarusian Research Institute for Documentation and Archival Science (BelNIIDAD).