Slavic Cataloging Table of Contents | Index
Russia/Soviet Union/Former Soviet republics:
a short course in name and title headings
By James L. Weinheimer
Feb. 2000
Go to: Preface to the Short Courses
Subject Analysis
n contrast to subject treatment, we are fortunate that all practices for the descriptive cataloging of items from the Former Soviet republics follow the same rules as those for other materials. Still, this makes the task of descriptive cataloging no less complex than subject analysis. In this course, we shall summarize the changes in name and title headings and include several examples.


Geographic Headings for Russian Corporate Names

For Russia (Federation), always change the qualifier from R.S.F.S.R. to Russia, except when the name of the city has changed also (such as Leningrad to Saint Petersburg), e.g.

Follow this pattern for all other cities.

Corporate Bodies: Main Headings

The old names are still valid for the period before 1991: Russia (through 1917)
Soviet Union (1917-1991) and
Russian S.F.S.R. (1917-1991)
are valid headings for corporate bodies.

  • Former Soviet republics is used only as a subject.
  • The heading Commonwealth of Independent States is used only as a corporate body and comprises 11 of the Former Soviet republics. All CIS bodies are set up in English whenever possible, because it is considered to be an international organization (24.3B1). It is not the successor to the Soviet Union.

    It is important to keep in mind that these headings are used as jurisdictions (with the exception of Commonwealth of Independent States). For example, a work created by the Russian Empire cannot have been authored by the Soviet Union, and vice-versa.
    In this way, we see how the catalog is structured.
    Subject analysis should ideally ignore time differences. For example, all works with the subject of a single geographic area should be found together regardless of time period. That single gathering point is the latest name of the geographic area. As a result, users of the catalog who are interested in the history of schools of Saint Petersburg have only to look under:
    Schools--Russia (Federation)--Saint Petersburg--History.
    And they do not have to look up the additional headings:
    Schools--Russia (Federation)--Leningrad--History.
    Schools--Russia (Federation)--Petrograd--History.
    or even something resembling:
    Schools--Russian S.F.S.R.--Leningrad--History.
    Schools--Russian S.F.S.R.--Petrograd--History.
    [The headings Russia/Soviet Union/Former Soviet republics are anomalies and differ from this practice. This creates separate problems, which are discussed in: Russia/Soviet Union/Former Soviet republics: a short course in subject analysis]

    Descriptive cataloging on the other hand, deals with all the details concerning changes in jurisdictions. The laws enacted by the Russian Empire are not the same as the laws enacted by the Soviet Union. We shall examine examples of each.

      Examples:

      Author: Russia.
      Uniform
      Title:             		[Sobornoe ulozhenie 1649. English & Russian]
      Title: The Muscovite Law Code (Ulozhenie) of 1649 / translated and edited by Richard Hellie.
      Publication: Irvine, Calif. (P.O. Box 5001, Irvine, 92716-5001) : C. Schlacks Jr., 1988-
      Subjects: Law--Russia--Sources.
      Other
      Authors:      		 Hellie, Richard.
      Russia. Sovereign (1645-1676 : Aleksei Mikhailovich)
      These are laws of the Russian Empire and thus receive the heading Russia.

      Author: Soviet Union.
      Title: Individualnaia trudovaia deiatelnost : sbornik normativnykh aktov / [sostavitel i avtor predisloviia V.V. Trynkov ; otvetstvennyi redaktor P.I.Sedugin].
      Edition:Ofitsialnoe izd.
      Publication: Moskva : "IUrid. lit-ra", 1989.
      Subjects: Self-employed--Legal status, laws, etc.--Soviet Union.
      These are laws of the Soviet Union, and thus receive the heading Soviet Union.

      Title: CIS energy and minerals development : prospects, problems, and opportunities forinternational cooperation / edited by James P. Dorian, Pavel A. Minakir, and Vitaly T. Borisovich.
      Publication: Dordrecht ; Boston : Kluwer Academic Publishers, c1993.
      Subjects: Mines and mineral resources--Former Soviet republics.
      Mineral industries--Former Soviet republics.
      Energy industries--Former Soviet republics.
      Other
      Authors:             		Dorian, James P.
      Minakir, P. A.
      Borisovich, V. T.
      Commonwealth of Independent States.
      East-West Center.
      This work deals with the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and was authored by the Commonwealth of Independent States.

      Geographic headings as Qualifiers

      The previous examples are very simple and show no change from previous descriptive practices, but now we shall begin to analyse some of the changes resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union.

      Corporate bodies qualified by Soviet Union must change their headings if they still exist, but if they ceased to exist in 1991, they retain the qualifier Soviet Union.
      Again, Commonwealth of Independent States is not a jurisdiction and is not the successor to the Soviet Union. This means that when confronted with a name change, the larger body (Soviet Union) must be associated with a smaller jurisdiction (e.g. Russia (Federation), Ukraine, Belarus, etc.).
      The only other choice is that the older, Soviet corporate body had no successors at all.

      Example:

      Author: Assotsiatsiia sovmestnykh predpriiatii, mezhdunarodnykh obedinenii i organizatsii (Soviet Union)
      Title: Materialy sobraniia : [Moskva, Izmailovo, mai 1989 goda] / Assotsiatsiia sovmestnykh predpriiatii, mezhdunarodnykh obedinenii i organizatsii.
      Publication: Moskva : Obedinenie "Vsesoiuznyi molodezhnyi knizhnyitsentr", 1989.
      In this example, we must use the qualifier Soviet Union because the book was published in 1989 and there is no information on whether the body existed after 1991.
      When, and if, another item arrives by this body that was published after 1991, we will change the qualifier to (Russia) or perhaps (Moscow, Russia).

      Example:

        Glavnaia astronomicheskaia observatoriia (Soviet Union)
        changed to:
        Glavnaia astronomicheskaia observatoriia (Pulkovo, Russia)

      The following examples show how these headings are used.

      Title: Nekotorye problemy istorii antichnoi nauki : sbornik nauchnykh rabot / [otvetstvennye redaktory A.I. Zaitsev, B.I. Kozlov].
      Publication: Leningrad : Glav. astronomicheskaia observatoriia, 1989.
      Subjects: Science, Ancient--History.
      Science--Greece--History.
      Philosophy, Ancient--History.
      Other
      Author:      		 Zaitsev, A. I. (Aleksandr Iosifovich)
      Kozlov, B. I.
      Glavnaia astronomicheskaia observatoriia (Soviet Union)
      This book was published in 1989, before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

      Title: Glavnaia astronomicheskaia observatoriia v Pulkove, 1839-1917 : sbornik dokumentov / otvetstvennyi redaktor V.K. Abalakin.
      Publication: Sankt-Peterburg : "Nauka", 1994.
      Subjects: Glavnaia astronomicheskaia observatoriia (Pulkovo, Russia)--History--Sources.
      Astronomical observatories--Russia (Federation)--History--Sources.
      Other
      Author:      		 Abalakin, Viktor Kuzmich.
      Glavnaia astronomicheskaia observatoriia (Pulkovo, Russia)
      This book was published after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although the observatory itself never changed its name, the heading reflects the political changes in the qualifier.

      Corporate Bodies Qualified by Cities

      For corporate bodies that are qualified by cities, the former qualifier (R.S.F.S.R.) always changes to (Russia) [again, not Russia (Federation) RI23.4B!] except when the name of the city has also changed.

      • RI24.4C6 states that a corporate body is qualified by the latest name of a place during the lifetime of the body. In such cases, the name of the city remains unchanged during each time period. Obviously, this may require some research.
        See the following examples.

      Examples:

        Isaakievskii sobor (Leningrad, R.S.F.S.R.)
      changed its qualifier to
        Isaakievskii sobor (Saint Petersburg, Russia)
      because the corporate body still exists, but
        Arkticheskii nauchno-issledovatelskii institut (Leningrad, R.S.F.S.R.)
      will not change. The reason is, this institut was renamed in 1958. The new institut,
        Arkticheskii i antarkticheskii nauchno-issledovatelskii institut (Saint Petersburg, Russia)
      still exists and so retains the qualifier of (Saint Petersburg, Russia).

      Conferences

      For qualifiers of conferences, the rule is the same. Qualifiers in the ‡c of the additions will use the name in effect during the time of the conference. The following examples are both valid headings because of the dates.

        Vsesoiuznaia konferentsiia "Kniga v Rossii do serediny XIX v." (3rd : 1985 : Leningrad, R.S.F.S.R.)
        and
        International Conference LPAR '92 (1992 : Saint Petersburg, Russia)
      If this conference had been held a year earlier, the qualifier would be Leningrad, R.S.F.S.R.
      also note:
        Vserossiiskoe uchreditelnoe sobranie (1918 : Petrograd, R.S.F.S.R.)
      is valid because the meeting took place in 1918 (before the name of the city changed to Leningrad).

      Uniform Titles

      Uniform titles follow the same rules as corporate bodies. When a title is qualified, it uses the latest form of the name during the lifetime of the title.
      All titles qualified by e.g. Moscow (R.S.F.S.R.) will change to Moscow (Russia), but titles qualified by a city that has changed its name may, or may not change its uniform title.

      Examples:

        Stupeni (Leningrad, R.S.F.S.R.)
      A serial which continued to be issued after 1991, the title is changed to:
        Stupeni (Saint Petersburg, Russia)
        but
        Krasnaia letopis (Leningrad, R.S.F.S.R.)
      Which ceased publication in 1937, will not change.

      Series

      Series qualifiers will change according to the same rules for other uniform titles: (R.S.F.S.R.) will automatically change to (Russia), except when the city has also changed its name.

      Example:

        IUridicheskie nauki (Moscow, R.S.F.S.R.)
      changes to
        IUridicheskie nauki (Moscow, Russia)
        but
        Poeziia (Leningrad, R.S.F.S.R.)
      Which ceased publication in 1984, does not change.

      Other languages

      After the Soviet Union collapsed, one result was that the official language of each republic is no longer Russian. Consequently, in areas other than Russia (Federation), the headings of all cities must be in the language of the country (e.g. Armenian cities in Armenian, Uzbek names in Uzbek). This means that practically every heading changes.

      Aside from the tricky problem of determining the name of a city in an obscure language (e.g. Turkmen), the question arises: what constitutes a change of name? Should a change in the official language of the country result in an earlier/later change of name? In simpler terms, should the practice be similar to Moscow (Russia) or Saint Petersburg (Russia)?
      There is no hard and fast rule for this, and the NAF does not provide consistent examples.

      A clear example:

        151 0 Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan)
        551 0 ‡wa‡aFrunze (Kirghiz S.S.R.)
      This shows a clearly defined change of name. Not only did the Kyrgyz no longer use the Russian language as their official language, they completely changed the name of their city. As a result, descriptive practice should follow those for Saint Petersburg (Russia).

      In many cases, LC considered a change in language to be a change of name. Recently, this heading was changed by LC.

        Incorrect
          Chisinau (Moldova)
          See also under the earlier heading: Kishinev (Moldavian S.S.R.)
          MARC
            110:2 :‡aChisinau (Moldova)
            510:2 :‡wa‡aKishinev (Moldavian S.S.R.)
      This earlier/later form of heading reflects only the change in the Russian form of name to the Moldovan form.
      This record told catalogers to follow the practice for Saint Petersburg (Russia).

      Recently, this heading was changed.

        Correct
          Kishinev (Moldavian S.S.R.)
          See: Chisinau (Moldova)
          MARC
            110:2 :‡aChisinau (Moldova)
            410:2 :‡wnne‡aKishinev (Moldavian S.S.R.)
      which says that it is a simple change of name, and handled like Moscow (Russia). This change tends to imply that, in contrast to former practice, LC is now deciding that a change of the official language of a country does not equal a change of name. The name change must be more pronounced.
      A victory for simplicity!

      Problems with non-English language forms

      LC has shown a marked tendency for the vernacular forms over the English forms, even for well-known English language names.

        151 0 T'bilisi (Georgia)
        451 0 ‡wnne‡aTbilisi (Georgian S.S.R.)
      Of course, as a popular vacation spot, Tbilisi is the best known Georgian city in the US and has a well-established English form of the name.

      More consequent are two of the best known Ukrainian cities, aside from Kiev:

        151 0 Odesa (Ukraine)
        451 0 ‡wnne‡aOdessa (Ukraine)
      instead of the usual English form of the name, Odessa, and
        151 0 Chornobyl' (Ukraine)
        451 0 ‡wnne‡aChernobyl' (Ukraine)
      In fact, this later decision accounts for the strange subject heading:
        Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, Chornobyl', Ukraine, 1986.

      Conclusions

      Many of the changes to name and title headings have already been completed since 1991, but there are still many other records that reflect earlier practices. To complete the process of updating headings, it is important to know these earlier practices and how and why they have changed.

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