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• ORA: Oxford University Research Archive by Jason Partridge Last Updated Apr 5, 2024 1331 views this year

Tips for Finding Theses at Oxford

SOLO now allows you to search for theses in the Oxford collections very easily.

1. Navigate to the SOLO homepage.

2. Type details of the Thesis you would like to search for into the main search box.

3. Under the search box is a series of drop-down menus marked 'Refine your search'. In the first box select the the ' Theses ' option.

4. Now press the ' Search ' button to run your search.

Oxford Theses

• SOLO Search for print and electronic Oxford DPhil theses in the library catalogue. Electronic versions will link directly to the record in ORA. Limit your search to "Theses".
• Oxford Research Archive (ORA) Search for and download recent (2006+) Oxford DPhil theses.

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• EThOS Access to UK theses from the British Library. [*Note: You will need to register to access theses through EThOS.] more... less... To use this service you will be required to set up an individual account.
• Index to Theses Search UK theses. Accessed through the Databases A-Z list, search for 'Index to Theses'.
• DART-Europe Search European E-theses.
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• NDLTD Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. Search and access e-theses and dissertations from around the world.

The  Oxford University Research Archive (ORA)  contains research publications and other research output produced by members of the University of Oxford. Content includes copies of journal articles, conference papers and theses.

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Step inside 'Leninka,' Russia's largest and oldest library (PHOTOS)

The Russian State Library, and the monument to Fyodor Dostoyevsky in front of it

The camera clicks cause all eyes in the hall to switch disapprovingly from the reading material in front of them to the photographer – the source of unwelcome noise. “Keep silence” here is as common a sign as “No smoking” on board a plane.

The moment we show up with our photographic gear, the library supervisors, like hawks, swoop on us from all sides, demanding to see our permission to take photos (thankfully, we have it on us). With custodians such as these, the largest book collection in Russia need never fear for its security .

Some history

Initially, the library collection was formed from the personal collection of manuscripts and rare books of Count Nikolai Rumyantsev, a Russian statesman. By personal order of Nicholas I, the Rumyantsev Museum was founded in St Petersburg in 1828. Over time, however, it could not withstand the competition from other institutions in Russia’s then capital, so the decision was taken to relocate the institution to Moscow. It was assigned one of the most beautiful buildings right outside the Kremlin walls, Pashkov House .

After the 1917 Revolution, the library flourished. The capital followed the library to Moscow, and the Rumyantsev Museum essentially became the country’s main depository of books; a new building and indeed a new book depository were subsequently built for it. Today, the library buildings occupy an entire block. And Pashkov House is also home to a music section, as well as a manuscripts and cartography department .

In Soviet times, the Rumyantsev Museum was renamed the Lenin State Library of the USSR, in whose honor the nearby subway station, opened in 1935, was christened Biblioteka imeni Lenina (Lenin Library). In more recent times, the library shed its Lenin prefix, but by then the name had stuck, and it is still referred to today as the Leninka.

In 2013, a special library department and reading room opened at Moscow’s Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center. It houses the Schneerson Library – a collection of religious and secular literature by Hasidic Jews. Since then, however, the materials in the collection have been completely digitized .

Some modernity

Visiting the library of, say, Oxford University in Britain, one feels the hand of ancient history resting on the shoulder. Likewise, the Leninka plunges the curious visitor into the past, nearer in time, yet still gone. Green halls, cloth-covered tables, lamps – it is embalmed socialism with a human face, and perhaps the best that remains of the lost Soviet empire .

The Leninka is never empty, its cloakroom always buzzing with people. Every second, young women in short skirts and bespectacled professors ascend the main staircase of exquisite beauty. An eccentric fire-red haired lady of indeterminate age, humming something to herself, strides confidently into the music section, clearly a frequenter .

Inside the library are several reading rooms kitted out with computers, as well as endless corridors and recesses with reading desks. The conveyor belt continuously churns out all kinds of volumes and folios from the book depository. Yours truly has time to catch sight of an Italian teach-yourself guide, a book on the basics of accounting, and a rare edition of Boris Pasternak .

For some pilgrims, the library is a near religious experience – a ritual replete with antique books and tables with the old-world scent of wooden cabinets, parquet floors, and history itself hanging in the air. Switched on, the legendary green lamps plunge the room into an atmosphere of wonder .

A smartly dressed elderly gentleman examines a manuscript through a magnifying glass, nearby sits a stern-looking middle-aged woman in glasses, clearly a teacher. Their neighbor is a bearded professor, and one table away a group of students are taking selfies. Other students, Chinese, are diligently studying Russian (making up for time lost on less academic activities).

In the hall with card files, the atmosphere is more relaxed. A pensioner reads freshly pressed magazines so as not to purchase them. At the next table, a man in a tracksuit is solving a crossword puzzle. Is he passing time before catching a train? Or just exercising the grey cells? On the topic of exercise, some even do the physical kind. One visitor, for instance, spreads out a rubber sheet in a remote corridor and does gymnastics, nourishing the mind and body in true Ancient Greek style .

Some numbers

Today, the library houses more than 47 million units of storage in 367 languages, including some rare Oriental ones. In addition to publications (the library receives an obligatory copy of all printed works), there are rare manuscripts, printed versions of visual arts, photo materials, maps, sheet music, periodicals, regulatory acts, military literature, and, of course, literature on the art of librarianship. Here, one can also find every dissertation written in the country since 1951 .

The library has 36 reading rooms open to visitors, and Wi-Fi is near ubiquitous. Around 100,000 new users register annually. Employees offer up an interesting statistic: Every minute the library doors are opened by five visitors.

The Leninka is currently in the process of digitizing its archives. Its electronic library already has 1.3 million documents, not to mention access to remote electronic databases, including those of Cambridge University Press and Springer Publishing, various online library databases, and the JSTOR archive of digitized journals. The full list is available on the Leninka website .

Citizens at least 14 years old of any country can register at the library. And it is absolutely free – all that’s required is a piece of ID (plus passport and visa for those without visa-free entry to Russia) .

The procedure takes no more than ten minutes. You will be photographed and issued a plastic library card. Students often joke that the mugshot on your Leninka card is bound to be the worst you’ve ever had (you can always blame the photographer). That said, these days it’s possible to sign up online .

After registration, you will need to offload your coat and any large bags or rucksacks to the cloakroom. One small bag and a laptop can be taken inside .

The library is open from 9 am to 8 pm every day except Sunday. Be prepared to have to wait for the book you want, perhaps even a few hours while it gets delivered from the book depository. If time is short, you can always order a book and pick it up the next day .

For many a long year, the Leninka had a reputation as a place for meeting one’s better half – a wife or husband from a respectable professorial family. Some visited the library with this specific purpose in mind. If the walls of the Leninka smoking room could talk, they would tell quite a story. For it was here that romantic hopefuls came to chat so as not to violate the hallowed silence of the reading rooms .

In the Oscar-winning movie Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears , the heroine, a provincial student, pines away in the Leninka reading hall, eyeing up any number of suitable matches, before heading into the smoking room, where two young academics simultaneously offer her a light. According to the library supervisors, visitors still ask about the famous smoking room, but alas, it is no longer there – smoking is now prohibited inside the building. But don’t despair, there’s a wonderful canteen instead. If that’s not a place for kindred souls to find each other, what is?

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Moscow

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Moscow by Adrienne M. Harris LAST MODIFIED: 28 July 2021 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190922481-0047

According to the 2010 census, Moscow’s 11.5 million inhabitants make it the largest city in Europe. The city has the distinction of having gained capital status in the 16th century, losing it in the early 18th century, and regaining it after the Bolshevik Revolution in the early 20th century. In the 10th century, Eastern Slavs colonized the area; Moscow first appeared in written chronicles in 1147, when Prince Iurii Dolgorukii established the city on a forested bluff overlooking the confluence of the Moscow and Neglinnaia rivers. Although Mongols destroyed Moscow in 1237, during the period of Mongol hegemony known as the “Tatar Yoke” (1237–1480), Moscow flourished and the city replaced Kiev as the capital of East Slavdom, the state of Muscovy born in 1547. The cluster of cupolas in the Kremlin attest to Moscow’s role as a seat of ecclesiastical power: after the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453, Moscow gained new cultural significance as the self-proclaimed center of “true Christianity.” In 1712, Peter the Great transferred power to St. Petersburg and Moscow was demoted to a regional capital. During the imperial period, Moscow became an important industrial center that attracted migrants who would continually overwhelm city resources. The destruction resulting from Napoleon’s invasion in 1812 led to reconstruction. After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the city emerged as the capital of the USSR and the global communist movement and, after the Second World War, as the capital of the socialist “second world.” One finds ample scholarship about Moscow during the Soviet period, as it served as an example for the rest of this “second world.” Publications have focused on attempts to alleviate housing shortages and sanitation problems; on the development of public transportation, most notably the Moscow metropolitan—the subway, which remains an architectural monument; on migration; and, considering the Soviet experience, on labor history and social movements—especially as Soviet planners aimed to create new and innovative solutions for the “new Soviet man and woman.” The scholarship reflects the fact that problems that challenged planners in the past continue into the present. One should be aware of the ideological nature of Soviet books, especially those published during the Stalin period when scholars were required to approach their work from a Marxist perspective in line with Soviet ideology. Additionally, sources about contemporary Moscow published two decades ago will be more out of date than a similarly-aged source on a city that did not experience a cataclysmic event such as the 1991 dissolution of the USSR.

Although not solely about Moscow, Riasanovsky and Steinberg 2018 provides the best overview of Moscow history. Perhaps only the historians of the Russian Academy of Sciences have attempted to capture the entire history of Moscow from its founding in the 12th century in one endeavor, publishing a massive six-volume (1952–1959), seven-book edition covering Moscow until the invasion of Nazi Germany in 1941 in the form of Istoriia Moskvy v shesti tomakh . In addition to being out of date, historians commenced this project at one of the most-ideologically rigid Soviet periods—the postwar Stalin years. Nothing comparable exists in English. Colton 1995 remains the most comprehensive one-volume general overview dedicated to Moscow, although most of the book concerns the 20th century. While the title indicates that the book is largely concerned with governance and Colton is a political scientist, the book also covers Moscow history and urban planning, in addition to local governance in depth. For a comparative study covering late-19th to early-20th-century history, see Ruble 2001 . Murrell 2003 provides an accessible, one-volume illustrated history with a focus on architecture for students and travelers. The encyclopedia entry Harris 2019 serves as a short urban and cultural history of the city and concludes with a list of works (literature, cinema, and songs) that depict the city. Although outdated, Corona 2001 introduces the city to a juvenile audience. “Uznai Moskvu” (“ Discover Moscow ”) offers both searchable textual and visual, historical and contemporary information on the city. Leading American, Canadian, and British historians manage the Russian History Blog on which one can find multiple posts about Moscow. The English-language Moscow Times newspaper provides up-to-date information on Moscow events.

Akademiia nauk SSSR: Institut istorii. Istoriia Moskvy v shesti tomakh . 6 vols. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1952–1959.

This massive six-volume (seven book) set produced by historians at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Institute of History, covers the history of Moscow from the 12th century through June 1941 from a Marxist perspective: Vol. 1: 12th-17th centuries; Vol. 2. 18th century; Vol. 3. 1800–1856; Vol. 4: 1860s-1880s; Vol. 5. 1890s-1916; Vol. 6. 1917–1941. It includes map, illustrations, and colored plates.

Colton, Timothy J. Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis . Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1995.

DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674283725

After introducing Moscow’s history prior to the October 1917 revolution, this comprehensive volume details its urban development intertwined with its role as the capital of not just the Soviet Union, but the socialist second world in general. Colton discusses both the city’s development under Soviet general secretaries as well as housing, migration, and planning, and covers local governance in the city across different regimes. The final two chapters cover the capital and its institutions during perestroika and the post-Soviet period.

Corona, Laurel. Life in Moscow . The Way People Live series. San Diego, CA: Lucent Books, 2001.

Illustrated with black-and-white photographs of everyday life and Moscow landmarks, this book is an appropriate introduction to Moscow for a juvenile audience. It covers transportation, socioeconomic status, home life, education, careers, crime and law enforcement, and entertainment.

Discover Moscow .

“Uznai Moskvu” or “Discover Moscow,” a searchable online Russian and English-language guide to Moscow, provides information on houses, routes, museums, monuments, and other places. The site includes maps, photographs—both historical and contemporary, and historical information on notable sites.

Harris, Adrienne. “Moscow.” In The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies . Edited by Anthony M. Orum, 1264–1271. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019.

A concise introduction appropriate for undergraduates. Although the article is focused primarily on history, it concludes with a short list of literature and films set in Moscow.

The Moscow Times .

This English-language newspaper, having only recently moved to an all-digital format, began circulation in 1992 for an audience of primarily expats living in Moscow. It stopped publishing in print in 2017 and turned to an entirely digital format.

Murrell, Kathleen Berton. Moscow: An Illustrated History . New York: Hippocrene Books, 2003.

This accessible history covers the history of Moscow from its settlement by Slavic tribes through the first post-Soviet decade. It includes a map, chronology, and black-and-white illustrations.

Riasanovsky, Nicholas V., and Mark D Steinberg. A History of Russia . 9th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Although this authoritative history covers Russian history in general, there are several chapters dedicated solely to Moscow and the Muscovite state that provide the reader an excellent overview of Moscow history.

Ruble, Blair A. Second Metropolis: Pragmatic Pluralism in Gilded Age Chicago, Silver Age Moscow, and Meiji Osaka . Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2001.

In this excellent comparative study, the author compares Moscow, Chicago, and Osaka during a period (1870–1920) in which all three experienced robust industrial development, rapid population growth, and increases in both diversity and fragmentation. Three chapters cover Moscow’s development as an industrial center, the relatively successful education of Moscow workers, and the city’s housing ills. Ruble challenges Russian exceptionalism by highlighting similarities to other cities.

Russian History Blog .

Leading Western scholars manage the English-language Russian History Blog on which one finds multiple posts related to Moscow.

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