ARCHIVES, Imperial Russian. This term (aarchive0) appears in Russian legislation for the first time during the reign of Peter the Great, but the idea of conserving the important acts is very old in Russia, in fact it dates from the earliest period of Russian literacy. Be sides the earliest "doskaso (i.e., tablets) which were exchanged between the government of the old Novgorod and the German statesmen in their diplomatic negotiations, there are written acts from the 14th century preserved under the name, 'History of the Russian Civil Code) (I, § 45). Churches and monasteries had, at the time of Peter the Great, well-kept archives not only relating to ecclesiastical matters but also to state affairs: but the great reformer was not satisfied with them and he ordered all the ministries to use the official acts only for three years and after the expiration of that period to place them in the care of an archivist specially appointed by the Emperor. During the reign of Empress Katharine II her archives were left in the custody of a special institu tion which passed over to the Ministry of Justice. Later, however, that Empress, in the pursuit of her reforms, abolished many institu tions and for the custody of documents and acts she ordered two historic archives to be established: one in St. Petersburg and the other in Moscow. The most important archives in the Russian empire are the following: (1) The Archives of the Imperial Council which were kept, until 1886, together with the archives of the Senate in the building of the Senate but since that time they have been moved to a magnificent palace in the “Millionaya° street in Petrograd. (2) The State Archives which are kept in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs at Petrograd. Those archives contain, among other important diplomatic documents, the secret papers of the Cabinet of Empress Katharine II, as also those relative to the death of Emperor Alexander I and the succession to the throne of Emperor Nikolas I and the docu ments of the Supreme Court. (3) The Central
Archives of Moscow, which is the richest store house of the most important historic docu ments in Russia. Established by Peter the Great those archives contain most of the docu ments of the Russian Embassies abroad and it was impossible for a long time to separate them and transfer them to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to which institution they rightly belong. (4) The Archives of the Holy Synod, kept in the palace of the Synod, con tain several documents previous to 1721 (i.e., two documents from the 16th century, 15 from the 17th century and 70 from the 18th century) relative to important historic events and to the archives of the Synod itself. (5) The Moscow Archives of the Ministry of Justice, containing documents relative to the affairs of the State Senate as also some of the oldest records of judicial proceedings from the 13th to the 18th century. (6) In the Ministry of Pub lic Education there are two important historic archives: (a) Archives of Kief, established by Imperial decree in 1852 in the building of the University of Saint Vladimir for the purpose of keeping the ancient documents of the gov ernments of Kievskaya, Podolskaya and Volyn skaya; (b) The Central Archives of Vilen skaya, established at the same time as the Archives of Kief, for the purpose of keeping the documents belonging until that time to the various institutions in the governments: Vilenskaya, Grodnenskaya, Kovenskaya and Minskaya. Besides those there are the fol lowing archives of minor importance: (1) The Central Archives of Vitebskaya; (2) The Military-Scientific Archives of the Imperial Russian General Staff; (3) The Archives of the Imperial Russian Admiralty; (4) Historic Archives of the various governments, etc.