The Institute of Modern Russian Culture (IMRC) was incorporated in May 1979. Its primary aim is to preserve and propagate the historical and esthetic values of Russian culture, especially of the 18th through 20th c. Archival storage and systematization play a key role in its activities.
The IMRC concerns itself with Russian culture as a whole, depending on 8 particular sections: 1) Visual Arts; 2) Cultural History; 3) Literary Science; 4) Literary Practice; 5) Architecture; 6) Music; 7) Ballet; 8) Archives. The Library and the Archive of the IMRC concentrate (at this time) on art and literature of the 20th c.
Because of the recent establishment of the IMRC and because it is now moving into new premises, systematization of the archive is in a state of transition. What is outlined below, therefore, represents the general direction of the archival holdings, but is only a small part. Inasmuch as the IMRC receives constantly new materials, the focus and strength of the archive also changes. For example, within the next 12 months, the IMRC expects to receive the personal archives of 3 outstanding representatives of the artistic and literary avant-gardes from the first decades of this century, and these donations alone will shift the current focus of the archive.
Manuscripts of published articles by Olga Rozanova (1886–1918), Kazimir Malevich (1878–1935), Nadezhda Udaltsova (1885–1961), Pavel Filonov, Aleksandr Rodchenko (1891–1956), and other members of the Russian avant-garde, 5 boxes.
Long unpublished article by the critic Nikolai Punin (1888–1953) on Russian Futurism; letters from Punin to Larionov; miscellanea concerning Punin the critic, 1 box, and Nikolai Akimov (1901–1968), stage designer.
Letters from contemporary Russian/Soviet artists living in the USSR and in the West; articles about them; questionnaires filled in by them for the IMRC; manuscripts of essays by them; descriptions of Soviet cultural life during the period 1950–79 by them (unpublished). Artists include Henry Ellinson (b. 1935), Francisco Infante (b. 1943), Mikhail Kulakov (b. 1933), Lev Nusberg (b. 1937), Alek Rapoport (b. 1933), Oleg Prokof'ev (b. 1928), Mikhail Shemiakin (b. 1943). The archive also includes many visual works by them in oil, gouache, watercolor, indian ink, lithograph, 10 boxes.
The archives has about 10 unpublished catalogues of informal or "semi-official" exhibitions of art in Leningrad and Moscow from the 1960s and 1970s, 1 box.
The archive also has 78 records from the 1920s and 1930s of opera and also of popular music, including jazz (e.g., Utesov) and transcriptions of American fox-trots, etc. There are some declamatory recordings by luminaries such as Leo Tolstoi and Iosif Stalin, i.e., first editions on 78s, ca. 200 records.
Among the musical holdings of the archive are items of sheet music, especially from the 1920s-1930s—jazz, dance music, popular songs —often carrying Constructivist and Art Deco covers, 1 box.
Original recordings (unpublished) include readings, vocal presentations and declamations by Aleksei Khvostenko (b. 1940), Oleg Okhapkin (b. 1944), Igor' Bakhterev (b. 1908), Viktor Krivulin (b. 1944), Viktor Shirali (b. 1945), Dmitrii Bobyshev (b. 1936), Vladislav Len (b. 1940), Vladimir Aleinikov (b. 1945). There are about 33 persons on 50 tapes.
Also a large photographic record of churches, classical buildings, landscapes in various parts of Russia. Photographs date from 1950s onwards. Also ca. 100 photographs pertaining to art and design of the 1920s in Soviet Union (unpublished), especially in the field of stage and costume decoration (for productions by Tairov and Meierkhol'd). Artists represented include Aleksandra Ekster (1884–1949), Liubov' Popova (1889–1924), Isaak Rabinovich (1894–1961), Varvara Stepanova (1894–1958). Unpublished photographs of paintings and drawings and sculptures of the 1920s-1930s by Russian artists include works by Aleksandr Deineka (1899–1969), Iosif Chaikov (b. 1888), Natan Al'tman (1889–1970), Popova, Ekster, 3 boxes.
