Центр документации новейшей истории Волгоградской области

History of the Center of Documentation of Contemporary History of Volgograd Oblast started in 1935 when the Lower Volga Land Committee of the Communist party decided to establish Regional Party Archive in Stalingrad (today Volgograd). First archive collection consisted of various documents concerning history of the region in the years 1917-1931, mainly produced by the local branches of the Communist party from Stalingrad, Astrakhan and Saratov. In July 1938 Archive had 477 record groups containing 95500 document folders.

In July 1941, after the German invasion on the Soviet Union, instutution received regional Communist party documents from the Odessa archive. Simultaneously, on the order coming from the Central Committee of the Communist Party, archive administration had to destroy part of the secret documents of the regional committee. In the 1942 archive was evacuated to the east of the country, the secret documents were ordered to be destroyed prior to the evacuation. It had returned to Stalingrad in December 1943 and resumed its work. At the end of the war in 1945 archive had 125 record groups with 58524 document folders. With recovering and further indexing of the additional documents in 1946 it had already 69872 document folders organized in 475 record groups.

During the fall of the Communist regime in Russia in 1991, under the order of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, archive had received order to destroy all the documents referring to the party cadres, state, industrial and social institutions. Archive workers refused to follow this order.

In October 1991, following the decision of the Volgograd Oblast administration and decree of the president of the Russian Federation from 24 August 1991 "On Party Archives", existing party archive was restructured into Volgograd Oblast Center for the Documentation of the Contemporary History, which in 1993 became "Center of Documentation of Contemporary History of Volgograd Oblast".

Center of Documentation of Contemporary History of Volgograd Oblast collects documents concerning the social and political history of the Volgograd Oblast, produced by the various branches of the Communist party and the Soviet State between the years 1917-1991, from 1993 of other social and political organizations, and from 1997 of the private people.

Archive is divided into 4 departments:

• Securing and State Registration of the Documents
• Work of the sources, Acquisition and Planning of the Organizational-Methodological Work.
• Usage of the Documents, Scientific Apparatus and Social-Legal Information.
• Information, Archival Technologies and Scholarly Apparatus

Most important archival fonds are:

• Fond 55 - Kamyshyn local Committee of the Communist Party, 1919-1928
• Fond 1 - Stalingrad Gubernial Committee of the Communist Party, 1919-1928
• Fond 2 - Stalingrad local Committee of the Communist Party, 1919-1928
• Fond 171 - Stalingrad City Defence Committee, 1941-1945.

In the Archive researcher can find 10070 descriptions of 4289 record groups being stored in the archive.

Besides them researchers can consult: "Путеводитель ГУ ЦДНИВО", Ред.коллегия: Насонова Н.А., Носова О.А., Полухина О.В., Студеникина Е.В., Ускова Н.М., Составители: Носова Н.А., Студеникина Е.В., Волгоград 2007. ["Guide to the State Archive Center of Documentation of Contemporary History of Volgograd Oblast", ed. committeee.: N.A. Nasonova, O.A. Nosova, O.W. Poluzhina, E.W. Studenikina, N.M. Uskov, eds: O.A. Nosova, E.W. Studenikina, Volgograd 2007.]