Authors
Liudmila Lyagushkina1; 1 University of Nottingham, UK Discussion
In the absence of access to Russian archives or specific collections, new digital sources gain particular significance for researchers. This paper proposes the analysis of online archive inventories (opisi) as such sources, using the former KGB collection as an example. Approximately 100,000 files of individuals arrested in the Moscow region from 1918 to 1990, originally held in the KGB archive, were subsequently transferred to the more accessible State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) in the 1990s. Nevertheless, researchers face limited access to these documents, particularly regarding files related to arrests made after Stalin's death. However, the archive has made the complete inventories of this archival collection available on its website. This paper demonstrates how these descriptions can be utilised to assess the scope of Soviet political repression in the Moscow region.
To conduct this study, Python scripts were initially employed to gather data from the online GARF inventory. Details such as names, dates of birth, and arrest records were extracted from textual fields. The resulting database reveals that the Moscow regional secret police detained approximately 116,000 individuals over the course of 70 years under Soviet rule, with major waves of arrests occurring in 1937-1938, at the beginning of the Second World War, in 1932, and unexpectedly in 1935.
The application of machine learning techniques enabled the prediction of the ethnicities of individuals mentioned in these inventories, according to their first, last, and patronymic names. The paper uncovers specific patterns in the dynamics of arrests of ethnic minorities, notably including Jews, Germans, and Poles, who were among the ethnic minorities most adversely affected by these events. The majority of victims were male (87%), although this percentage experienced fluctuations over time.
A comparison of this inventory with the secret police statistics of arrests for the Moscow region from 1918 to 1953 reveals that 4% of investigative files were not transferred to the state archive. This discrepancy is particularly visible during the periods of the Great Patriotic War and late Stalinism. Files for approximately 20% of those detained during these two periods might still reside in the FSB archive, the KGB's successor. One plausible explanation is that these individuals were not rehabilitated by Russian authorities; they were not declared victims of political repression due to accusations of collaboration with the Nazis or other war-related crimes. 
