Archive of the Research Center Eastern Europe - Sources on Contemporary History and Culture

The Archive of the Research Center Eastern Europe at Bremen University has a stock of unique source materials on contemporary and cultural history of Eastern Europe from Stalin's death in 1953 until today. At its core, the archive contains a specific, yet diverse spectrum of material genres that make up itscharacteristic profile:

- testimonies and writings of the Samizdat culture from the 1950s to the late 1980s,
- informal prints and documents from the transition years 1986 - 1991 and the construction of a new order in the 1990s, and, finally
- literary remains of the Soviet union, primarily from Russia, that encompass the whole of the 20th century.

Focus of the Archive and of research are the countries of the former Soviet Union (now Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic States), Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia), Poland, Hungary, and the GDR (German Democratic Republic). The research center library currently receives over 700 papers and magazines from and about Eastern and Eastern Middle Europe, including print media and publicity prints of political parties, national minorites, and cultural institutions, in part with regional references.