National Air and Space Museum Archives

The Russian Aeronautical Collection Finding Aid

Summary

Collection ID:
NASM.2006.0034
Creators:
Hardesty, Von, 1939-
Dates:
1876-2006
Languages:
Collection materials predominatly in
English
and
Russian
, some elements in
German
,
French
,
Finnish
,
Spanish
,
Italian
,
Japanese
,
Polish
,
Croatian
and
Czech
.
Physical Description:
26 Linear feet
30.81 Cubic feet
53 legal-size document boxes, 1 slim legal-size document box, 1 flat box
Repository:
The Russian Aeronautical Collection is a mix of technical, historical, and cultural reference materials, including originals or copies of articles, documents and other historical materials relating to Russian and Soviet aviation from the Tsarist period through the Soviet era. The collection focuses on key events, personalities and aircraft designs, and certain subject areas are covered in depth, including the life and career of Igor Sikorsky, the transpolar flights of the 1930s, Soviet aviation in the Spanish Civil War, and the operational history of the Soviet Air Force in World War II.

Scope and Contents

Scope and Contents
This collection contains newspaper clippings, articles, pamphlets/booklets, magazines/journals, reports, monographs, manuscripts, bibliographies and a few photographs.
Note: The digital images in this finding aid were repurposed from scans made by an outside contractor for a commercial product and may show irregular cropping and orientation in addition to color variations resulting from damage to and deterioration of the original objects.

Arrangement

Arrangement
This collection was arranged by the creator first by what chronological era the subject matter dealt with, then alphabetically within each era by file unit title. Von Hardesty also created a grouping of materials that deals with aircraft design and designers and another grouping that contains reference material. Groupings and materials are in the order that the processing archivist received them which also correspondes to the guide that Von Hardesty created.
The processing archivist added the last 2 series which covers materials that were not listed in the original guide to the collection.
There are 8 series:
Series I: 1885-1917
Series II: 1918-1940
Series III: 1941-1945
Series IV: 1946-Onwards
Series V: Design
Series VI: Reference
Series VII: Loose Materials
Series VIII: Administrative Material

Biographical / Historical

Biographical / Historical
The Russian Aeronautical Collection (RAC) was assembled over the course of two decades by Von Hardesty, curator in the Aeronautics Division of the National Air and Space Museum. The RAC developed as a research project linked to the publication of Hardesty's book
Red Phoenix: The Rise of Soviet Air Power, 1941 -1945
(first published in 1982.)

Administration

Author
Tyler Love
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Aeronautics Division / Von Hardesty, Transfer, 2006
Processing Information
File unit titles are the creator's original folder titles; they are almost always the proper title of a book or article contained within, but sometimes serve as a subject heading. Anything in brackets was added by the processing archivist.
Materials are primarily photocopies.
Original guide by creator is included.
File unit descriptions were copied directly from the original guide; when appropriate, archivist added to it (if there was more content than what was listed, material was missing, description incorrect, etc.)
Cyrillic characters have been transliterated per ALA-LC standard (1997).
There were also folders that were missing from the collection at the time of processing. The archivist made a placeholder for these materials.

Using the Collection

Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access.
Preferred Citation
Russian Aeronautical Collection, ACC. 2006-0034, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Conditions Governing Use
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.

Keywords

Keywords table of terms and types.
Keyword Terms Keyword Types
Aeronautics -- Russia Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Endurance flights Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
World War, 1939-1945 -- Aerial operations Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Newspapers Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Reports Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Articles Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Soviet Union Geographic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Air pilots Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Sikorsky, Igor Ivan, 1889-1972 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid

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