Slavic and Eastern European Studies  Tags: russian eastern_europe slavic_studies  

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Items marked are available only to UCSB students, faculty, and staff from off campus.

This guide is designed to help you find biographical information.

1.  Biography Resource Center 

This is a great starting place for any biographical research.  Sometimes it will give you the full text of the article on your person.  It often gives you citations to other resources on that person, as well.

If you already know who you are researching, just search their name in the box on the main database page.  You may need to try variant transliterations of their name.

If you are trying to pick a person to research, click on “Biographical Facts Search” in the main menu.  Pick “Russian” (or another nationality) from the nationality category and try searching on a profession like “spy”, “revolutionary”, “politician”, “scientist”, etc.  You can then read short entries on the people in your results and choose who you want to research.

Note:  You will need to be using a computer that is on-campus, or log into the proxy server to use this one.

2.  Wikipedia 

• English:  http://www.wikipedia.org/
• Russian: http://ru.wikipedia.org/

Wikipedia is a free, online encyclopedia.  An important thing to know about Wikipedia is that it is written by anyone who wants to contribute.  It can sometimes contain inaccurate information.  You should verify factual information from Wikipedia using another source.

The best thing about Wikipedia for doing research on Russian topics is that, if there is an article on the same topic in the Russian version of the encyclopedia, you can switch over to the Russian version.  This also works from the Russian version to the English version.  Look in the “in other languages” links at the bottom left-hand menu to see what other languages are available.  Note that the various versions are not direct translations of each other.  They are usually written by native speakers of the languages.  I often use the Russian version of the article to find the Russian equivalent of expressions and phrases.

If you are really lucky, the article will have links to other web sites about your person.  These will usually be near the end of the article.

At the beginning of the Russian-language Wikipedia article, they will usually have stress marks on the person’s name.  This is a great way to find out how to pronounce it.

3.  The Library Catalog (Pegasus)  

Use Pegasus to find books in our library with information about your person.  Do a keyword search on the person’s name.  Names in Pegasus are transliterated using the Library of Congress system.  Use the transliteration tab of this guide for transliteration tables.

4.  Historical Abstracts

This is the best database for world history.  Do a keyword search on your person.  You might need to try several transliterations of the name.  You will find a citation to an article, and will then need to use either UCe-Links or Pegasus to find either the full text or the call number of the journal that it is in.  Ask me or another librarian for help with this if you are not sure how it all works.

Note:  You will need to be using a computer that is on-campus, or connected to the proxy server or VPN to use this one.

5.  American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies (ABSEES)

This is an excellent database for any research on Slavic or East European topic.  Do a keyword search on your person.  You might need to try several transliterations of the name.  You will find a citation to an article, and will then need to use either UCe-Links or Pegasus to find either the full text or the call number of the journal that it is in.  Ask me or another librarian for help with this if you are not sure how it all works.

Note:  You will need to be using a computer that is on-campus, or connected to the proxy server.

6.  Russian Academy of Sciences Bibliography 

This database is good for finding articles written by Russian scholars.  Nearly all the citations will be for Russian-language materials.  You can click the “show non-Roman characters” link in a citation to view the Russian script in the record.  Once you find a citation to an article you will then need to use either UCe-Links or Pegasus to find either the full text or the call number of the journal that it is in.  Ask me or another librarian for help with this if you are not sure how it all works.

Note:  You will need to be using a computer that is on-campus, or connected to the proxy server or VPN to use this one.

7.  Google: 

Be sure to search for your person in Google.  Just remember that anyone can put anything on the web and there can be errors in information on the web.  You should use other sources besides just web pages and cross-check information you find with a printed source.

Google Image search is an excellent way to find pictures of your person.  Be sure to search in both Russian and English when you use Google.

8.  Print Reference Sources (all are in main reference area): 

• Большая советская энциклопедия:  Main Ref area, AE55.B6 1970   – unfortunately, there is not really a current encyclopedia available in Russian.  If your person was known before 1970, this might be a good source.  There will be a definite Soviet bias to the article, though.
• Various biographical sources on Russia, USSR, and former USSR:  Main Ref area, CT1195 .W46 – CT1215 .R87 L663 – these are worth a try.  Just be sure to check the date on the book.  If your person is more recent than the date of publication you will have to try something else.
• Dictionary of International Biography:  Main Ref area, CT100 .D5 – depending on how well known your person is, you might find something in here.
• Encyclopedia of World Biography:  Main Ref area, CT103 .E56 1998 – again, if the person is well-known internationally, they might be listed
• Dictionary of World Biography:  Main Ref area, CT 104 .D54 1998 – use the index volume for this one.  That is the easiest way to find out which volume to use.

There are other assorted biographical works in this same general section of the reference area, but these were the ones that I thought looked most useful.

NOTES:

Any time you are searching for a Russian name in English, remember that there are sometimes different transliterations of the name.  You may have to search on different forms of the name.  For example, I have found the name Дейнека spelled as Deineka and Deyneka in English sources.