The Global Press Archive Charter Alliance is an initiative by East View Information Services and the Center for Research Libraries to develop a special series of thematically designed collections to meet the priorities of the CRL members, including the New York Public Library. Launched in 2018 as a sub-component of the broader Global Press Archive, the Charter Alliance will culminate in the creation of nine collections (six of which will be Open Access collections), encompassing hundreds of newspaper titles, totaling over 4.5 million pages. 

Thus far, the Alliance has published four open-access collections, including: 

• Late Qing and Republican-Era Chinese Newspapers
• Middle Eastern and North African Newspapers
• Independent and Revolutionary Mexican Newspapers
• Imperial Russian Newspapers

The Imperial Russian Newspapers collection comprises out-of-copyright newspapers spanning the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, up to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. With no less than 500,000 pages from 19 newspapers, the collection’s core titles are from Moscow and St. Petersburg, complemented by regional newspapers across the vast Russian Empire.

Among the titles digitized one should point at a long run of the first newspaper published in Russia Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti / Санкт-Петербургские ведомости, Saint Petersburg (years digitized: 1793-1867). Various supplements to the latter title were also digitized. There is also a complete run of Zemledelʹcheskaia gazeta / Земледельческая газета, Saint Petersburg (1834-1916) which was intended for residents of rural areas (primarily landowners and wealthy peasants). There is also a significant run of another 19th-century title Kommercheskaia gazeta / Коммерческая газета, Saint Petersburg (1825-1860) which was published by the Department of Foreign Trade as well as two tiles from the twilight years of the Romanov dynasty: Den' / День, Saint Petersburg (1912-1918) and Moskovskie vedomosti / Московские ведомости, Moscow (1913-1916). For the list of all included Russian Imperial newspapers please see here.

The Imperial Russian Newspapers collection was made possible thanks to the active support of the National Library of Russia. Open Access to this collection is made possible through the generous support of the Center for Research Libraries and its member institutions, including the New York Public Library.