Subject guides: Primary sources for humanities: Europe

Sources

Online sources
Online Government sources

Central Asia, Persia and Afghanistan, 1834-1922 : from Silk Road to Soviet rule This link opens in a new window
This collection of Foreign Office files explores the history of Persia (Iran), Central Asia and Afghanistan from the decline of the Silk Road in the first half of the nineteenth century to the establishment of Soviet rule over parts of the region in the early 1920s. It encompasses the era of “The Great Game” - a political and diplomatic confrontation between the Russian and British Empires for influence, territory and trade across a vast region, from the Black Sea in the west to the Pamir Mountains in the east. It is comprised of correspondence, intelligence reports, agents’ diaries, minutes, maps, newspaper excerpts and other materials. This resource offers insights not only into the impact of Great Power politics on the region, but also the region’s peoples, cultures and societies.
Cold War : voices of confrontation and conciliation This link opens in a new window
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World - primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies - and the powers of the Western world, primarily the U.S. and its NATO allies. This collection, which includes transcripts of oral recollections, provides an opportunity to understand the motivations for conflict and conciliation of many of the players in the Cold War.
Correspondence from German concentration camps and prisons This link opens in a new window
This collection consists of items originating from prisoners held in German concentration camps, internment and transit camps, Gestapo prisons, and POW camps, during and just prior to World War II. Most of the collection consists of letters written or received by prisoners, but also includes receipts for parcels, money orders and personal effects; paper currency; and realia, including Star of David badges that Jews were forced to wear.
Diaries of Joseph Goebbels This link opens in a new window
Database contains transcriptions of all handwritten documents from 1923 to July 1941, as well as subsequent writings that were dictated up to 1945. This edition is based on the reproduction of the entire diaries on glass microfiches commissioned by Goebbels himself that was discovered by Elke Frhlich in the former special archive in Moscow.
Eighteenth century journals : a portal to newspapers and periodicals, c1685-1815. This link opens in a new window
Portal brings together newspapers and rare journals printed between c1685 and 1835, illuminating all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. Topics include: the writings of Sir Isaac Newton; the French Revolution; reviews of literature, the theater, and fashion throughout Europe; the origins and rise of Romanticism; political debates; gender, religion, influence of the press, and coffee house gossip and discussion.
Emilio Segre visual archives This link opens in a new window
A collection of more than 30,000 digital images, historical photographs, slides, lithographs, engravings, drawings and other visual materials. The collection is richest in portraits and snapshots of modern American physicists, astronomers and geophysicists but includes many other scientists as well as photos and illustrations of laboratories, telescopes, accelerators and other instruments, objects and places. The archive focuses on American physicists and astronomers of the twentieth century, but includes many scientists in Europe and elsewhere, in other fields related to physics, and in earlier times.
Europa.eu : official website of the European Union. This link opens in a new window
EUROPA is the portal site of the European Union. It provides up-to-date coverage of European Union affairs and essential information on European integration. Users can also consult all legislation currently in force or under discussion, access the websites of each of the EU institutions and find out about the policies administered by the European Union under the powers devolved to it by the Treaties. Provides information on EU initiatives, policies, institutions and services, access to selected documents of the EU including the Maastricht Treaty.
Europeana This link opens in a new window
Europeana.eu is a digital library containing over 30 million items, including images, texts, audio and video, from European museums, galleries, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections.
Gale primary sources This link opens in a new window
A full-text database, formerly Artemis Primary Sources, that cross-searches Gale's extensive digital archive collections, including Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO), The Making of the Modern World : the Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature, The Making of Modern Law : Legal Treatises, 1800-1926, and The Making of Modern Law : Foreign, Comparative and International Law, 1600-1926. The platform features Subject Indexing to aid content discovery across collections, Term Frequency which can suggest the importance of particular concepts during given periods, and Term Clusters which displays terms that commonly occur in relation to a search term.
Global commodities : trade, exploration & cultural exchange This link opens in a new window
This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of global commodities in world history. The commodities featured in this resource have been transported, exchanged and consumed around the world for hundreds of years. They helped transform societies, global trading operations, habits of consumption and social practices.

Handrit.is
This is a database of digital images of manuscripts and books covering the entire range of Icelandic sagas. The manuscripts are nearly all in Old Norse or Icelandic. Books can be in any European language, as a number of saga translations are included. Germanic/Nordic mythology (the Eddas), the history of the Norwegian kings, contemporary sagas and tales from the European age of chivalry, Icelandic ballads, poetry and epigrams are also included. ...

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Works are from the collections of the National and University Library of Iceland, the Fiske Icelandic Collection at Cornell University, and the Árni Magnússon Institute.

History of international law (HeinOnline) This link opens in a new window
This database includes information dating back to 1690 on the history of international law subjects such as war and peace, the Nuremberg trials, Law of the sea, International arbitration, Hague conferences and conventions and more. Included also are classic books from famous authors such as Hans Kelsen, Samuel Pufendorf and James Brown Scott. Also key journals such as the International Law Studies Series [U.S. Naval War College], International Conciliation, Studies in Transnational Legal Policy, and many others, links to scholarly articles discussing the history of international law, and a bibliography of works on international law.
International historical statistics This link opens in a new window
International Historical Statistics is a collection of statistical data from around the world, covering a wide range of socio-economic topics. The collection includes data on the Americas and Europe, but also hard-to-find data on Africa, Asia and Oceania. This 2013 release updates the last print edition of International Historical Statistics, which was published in 2007 in 3 volumes. It now includes 260 years of rich data, collected between 1750-2010 and available online for the first time. Users will find the ability to conduct statistical analysis across both time and geopolitical boundaries particularly valuable. Data tables can be downloaded as Excel files.
Internet archive This link opens in a new window
The Internet Archive is a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artefacts in digital form, began in 1996. Includes the WayBackMachine for searching billions of web pages and archived web sites saved over time. Digitised books, videos, audio, software and images are also searchable.
Jewish question : records from the Berlin Document Center. This link opens in a new window
This collection comprises documents from a wide variety of sources, including the Gestapo, local police and government offices, Reich ministries, businesses, etc., pertaining to Jewish communities. These records are organized into various sub-collections... and include newspaper clippings, letters, manuscripts, pamphlets, reports and other documents originating with the Sturmabteilung (SA), Schutzstaffel (SS), Gestapo, Reich Ministry of Justice, and Reichskulturkammer (RKK, Reich Chamber of Culture) from 1920- 1945.
Jewish underground resistance : the David Diamant collection. This link opens in a new window
David Diamant is the pseudonym of David Erlich, a Jewish communist and committed member of the underground resistance during World War II. This collection consists of original documents collected by Diamant over a period of approximately 30 years dealing primarily with the Jewish segment of the French underground resistance; many of the documents originate with communist groups, and some deal with Polish groups. Documents are in Yiddish and French.
Journaux de la Révolution de 1848 = Newspapers of the French Revolution 1848 This link opens in a new window
The revolution of 1848 caused the final collapse of monarchy in France, and in the power vacuum that followed a range of competing voices sought to control the future direction of the country. The social and political upheavals of this period are comprehensively detailed in this unique collection of newspapers and periodicals, making it a useful resource for understanding modern European history. (In French)

Making of modern law
Includes databases: 'Legal treatises 1800-1926', 'Foreign, comparative and international law, 1600-1926', 'Trials 1600-1926', 'U.S. Supreme Court records and briefs 1832-1978', 'Primary sources', 'Foreign primary sources 1600-1970'. To search across all of them search 'Gale Artemis'.
Melvin C Shaffer World War II Photographs
These photos depict the local conditions of North Africa, Italy/Southern France, and Germany from the years 1943 to 1945. Included are 19 images of Mt. Vesuvius that depict the volcano before, during and after its eruption in 1944.
Musée du Louvre - The Louvre
The Collections database consists of entries for more than 480,000 works in the Musée du Louvre and Musée National Eugène-Delacroix. Updated on a daily basis, it is the result of the continuous research and documentation efforts carried out by teams of experts from both museums.

Nineteenth century collections online. Europe and Africa : commerce, Christianity, civilization, and conquest This link opens in a new window
So many research topics emerged from the colonial conquest and the legacy of slavery in modern South African society - the Anglo-Boer War, imperial policy, and race classification among them - that this volatile corner of nineteenth-century history draws enduring interest from scholars and students. To support their research, this archive delivers monographs, manuscripts, and newspaper accounts covering key issues of economics, world politics, and international strategy.

The Nuremberg Trials
Examine trial transcripts, briefs, document books, evidence files, and other papers from the trials of military and political leaders of Nazi Germany.

Post-war Europe : refugees, exile and resettlement, 1945-1950. This link opens in a new window
This online archive delivers essential primary sources for the study and understanding of the challenges facing the European peoples in the aftermath of World War II. It covers the politics and administration of the post war refugee crisis in Europe well as the day-to-day survival of the refugees themselves, and contains newly-commissioned essays by leading scholars. These essays offer an insight into key themes and provide direct links to the documents mentioned and a means to access for students unfamiliar with the original materials. Five documentary British Pathe films provide visual evidence of key issues covered by the documents.
RAI archive (Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland) This link opens in a new window
This collection of digitized primary sources provides access to more than 150 years of the longest-established association dedicated to the furtherance of anthropology in its broadest sense, the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. This collection of association files, manuscripts, and photos documents the history of the association as well as the services it provided to contemporary anthropology and anthropologists. It is a collection of Wiley Digital Archives.
Refugees, relief and resettlement : forced migration and World War II This link opens in a new window
This database chronicles the plight of refugees and displaced persons across Europe, North Africa, and Asia from 1935 to 1950, bringing together over 590,000 pages of pamphlets, ephemera, government documents, relief organization publications, and refugee reports that recount the causes, effects and responses to refugee crises before, during and shortly after World War II. This rich collection makes it possible for researchers to unravel the complex history of forced migration in the twentieth century at every level.
Russian anarchist periodicals of the early 20th century online This link opens in a new window
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This collection of writings reveals the eventful history of Russia during the revolutionary era, from the perspective of metropolitan and provincial newspapers and journals published by the most radical political forces. Furthermore, these materials shed new light on the relationship of the anarchists with the Bolsheviks and the Soviet State, and also reveal the impact of anarchist ideas on the literature and art of the period. Note: In Russian.
Russian avant-garde online This link opens in a new window
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This collection represents works of all Russian literary avant-garde schools. It comprises almost 800 books, periodicals and almanacs most of them published between 1910-1940 and thus offers a varied and well-balanced overview of one of the most versatile movements in Russian literature. The books in this collection can be regarded as objects of art, illustrated by famous artists such as Malevich, Goncharova and Lisitskii.
Russian theater in the early 20th century online This link opens in a new window
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This collection of theatre periodicals provides a detailed picture of metropolitan and provincial Russian theatre, and reflects the cultural life in Russia at the turn of the 20th century. These periodicals contain, as well as articles, reviews, theatre repertoires, librettos, documentary materials, announcements and advertisements. The collection is a unique source for a wide range of scholars in the fields of history, cultural studies, theatre history and sociology.
Soviet cinema online : film periodicals, 1918-1942. This link opens in a new window
This Brill collection includes Soviet film magazines and newspapers, 1918-42, reflecting a most productive period in the history of Russian film. These publications shed light on the production side of Soviet cinematography, as well as on the theoretical and practical concepts developed by the period's leading directors and critics. They also highlight the role of film in Soviet cultural life. Film magazines and newspapers featured articles by leading Soviet directors (Lev Kuleshov, Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Aleksandr Dovzhenko, Abram Room), as well as members of the avant-garde LEF, leading authors and philologists.
Soviet cinema online : archival documents from RGALI, 1923-1935. This link opens in a new window
The documents in this Brill collection cover the period when state monopoly control over the Soviet cinema industry - production, distribution and exhibition - was being established between 1923 and 1935. The collection contains administrative, personnel and financial records, transcripts of meetings, statistical reports, documents related to film export, film import, and film production, reviews, film repertoire, etc. The list and contents of the documents in this collection is shaped by the fact that Soviet cinematography was the target of focused official policies.
Travel writing, spectacle and world history, 1818-1976 This link opens in a new window
This resource brings together hundreds of accounts by women of their travels across the globe from the early 19th century to the late 20th century. Sources cover many topics and a wide variety of forms of travel writing is represented, ranging from unique manuscripts, diaries and correspondence to drawings, guidebooks and photographs. The resource includes a slideshow with hundreds of items of visual material, including postcards, sketches and photographs. The sources can also be used to examine the variety of motivations for travel including tourism, work, exploration, missionary work and pilgrimages. They also show the diverse range of women who travelled.
Underground and independent comics This link opens in a new window
This primary source database focuses on North American and European adult comic books and graphic novels. The collection includes original material from the 1950s to today from the works of artists both celebrated and overlooked, along with interviews, commentary, theory, and criticism from journals, books, and magazines. It is the first ever scholarly, primary-source database concerned primarily with adult comic books and graphic novels. Included in this collection are the complete transcripts of the senate subcommittee hearings that birthed the Comics Code Authority and, inadvertently, the underground comix movement.
United Nations diplomatic conferences This link opens in a new window
This website provides access to the official records of a series of diplomatic conferences, convened by the United Nations in order to negotiate and adopt several treaties based on drafts worked out by the International Law Commission and considered by the Sixth (Legal) Committee of the General Assembly. The entire collection of proceedings is searchable in full-text format.
United Nations official documents : ODS This link opens in a new window
This is a full-text database of parliamentary documents and official records of the United Nations. It includes General Assembly, Security Council, and other Council resolutions from 1946, all UN parliamentary documents from 1992, and various UN daily journals and lists of documents. The database also includes scanned documents published between 1946 and 1993, including all resolutions of the principal organs, all documents of the Security Council and the General Assembly Official Records.
Wiley digital archives. Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) This link opens in a new window
The Wiley Digital Archives: Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) collection includes materials from the society’s library, as well as its extensive archival and map collection. Hundreds of thousands of manuscript maps are complemented by manuscript material, fieldnotes, correspondence, drawings, pamphlets, atlases, gazetteers, and a range of other published and unpublished material. The archive sheds light on the impact of geographical science on history, exploration, colonialism, and diplomatic policies, as well as natural resources, cultural studies, anthropology, and ethnography.
Witchcraft in Europe and America This link opens in a new window
Witchcraft in Europe and America is a comprehensive collection offering a wide range of writings on the subject of witchcraft. As such, it affords scholars an invaluable opportunity to explore this intriguing historical phenomenon from a variety of perspectives. Included are many rare and fragile manuscripts containing eyewitness accounts and court records of the trials of witches, including harrowing original manuscript depositions taken from the victims in the torture chamber ... Spanning the 15th to 20th centuries, the majority of texts are in Latin, English and German

Socialism on film
"Socialism on Film is an impressive collection of documentaries, newsreels and features that reveals the world as seen by Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese, East European, British and Latin American filmmakers. It ranges from the early twentieth century to the 1980s and examines the themes of War & Revolution, News & Current Affairs plus Culture & Society. The whole spectrum of socialist life is here on film. Sourced from the British Film Institute (BFI) archives, this project makes available the superb ETV-Plato Films collection put together by the British communist Stanley Forman in the years after the Second World War. This is a collection of films produced almost exclusively in the communist world and then versioned into English for distribution in the West. All the films in this collection have been digitised from the original 16mm and 35mm film reels.

Medical services and warfare This link opens in a new window
The resource is provided in two modules, 1850-1927 and 1928-1949. It tells the story of medical advances during warfare from the mid-nineteenth century to the outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 1918, the discovery of penicillin in 1928, and up to post-war reforms such as the foundation of the British National Health Service. The wealth of documents cover multiple conflicts as well as interwar developments from a range of perspectives. Material has been sourced from across the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Europe to enable comparisons on key areas of systematic reform, improvements to sanitation and the treatment of disease, rehabilitation, nursing care, surgical techniques and wound treatment. The four conflicts robustly represented are the Crimean War, the American Civil War, the First World War and the Second World War.
Women and social movements, international : 1840 to present This link opens in a new window
This digital archive currently includes 150,000 pages of conference proceedings, reports of international women's organizations, publications and web pages of women's non-governmental organizations, and letters, diaries, and memoirs of women active internationally since the mid-nineteenth century. It also includes photographs and videos of major events and activists in the history of women's international social movements. There are also 25-30 essays exploring themes illuminated by the primary documents in the archive commissioned from leading contemporary scholars. The primary source material illuminates how women’s international organizations have focused on issues related to peace, poverty, child labor, literacy, disease prevention, and global inequality.

Nazi Propaganda: 1933-1945
A collection of Nazi propaganda with English translations.

Archives of sexuality and gender. L'enfer de la Bibliothèque nationale de France This link opens in a new window
Select collections, then filter options, then archives, then select "L'enfer de la Bibliothèque nationale de France"
Enfer("Hell") from the Bibliothèque nationale de France is one of the most storied and sought-after private case collections of forbidden books. Enfer is made up of more than 2,400 literary works, manuscripts, engravings, lithographs, and photographs. The books in Enfer span from the 1530s to the 2010s, providing a wide perspective throughout time and in different societies on what were considered to be erotic and/or pornographic works. Readers will find documents mainly in French.
Nineteenth century collections online. European literature, the Corvey collection, 1790-1840 This link opens in a new window
Archive includes the full-text of almost 10,000 English, French and German titles. The collection is sourced from the library of Victor Amadeus, whose Castle Corvey collection was discovered in the late 1970s. It comprises one of the most important archives of Romantic era writing in existence anywhere - including fiction, short prose, dramatic works, poetry and more - with a focus on especially difficult-to-find works by lesser-known, historically neglected writers. The collection provides a wealth of fully searchable content with digital research tools that enable scholars to uncover new relationships among authors and works.
Prosecuting the Holocaust : British investigations into Nazi War crimes, 1944-1949 This link opens in a new window
Drawn from The National Archives (UK) and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, this collection contains a wealth of information regarding the British government's efforts to investigate and prosecute Nazi crimes during the period 1944-1949. The evidence gathered sheds light on almost every aspect of the Holocaust, from the concentration camp system to the mass murder of the “incurably sick” in psychiatric hospitals. More importantly, it gives a voice to the victims of these atrocities, many of whom testified about their experiences immediately after the war.

Cold War intelligence online This link opens in a new window
This collection of formerly classified U.S. government documents (most of them classified Top Secret or higher) provides readers with the documentary record of the successes and failures of the U.S. intelligence community in its efforts to spy on the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It covers the period from the end of World War II in 1945 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but also includes a number of formerly classified historical reports and articles written by U.S. intelligence historians since the end of the Cold War.
Conditions & politics in occupied Western Europe, 1940-1945 This link opens in a new window
This is a fully searchable database of British Government records including almost 180,000 images or pages from The National Archives at Kew. These historical documents capture the hidden history of war-torn Europe and offer researchers, teachers and students many new perspectives on politics, diplomacy and everyday life in the German-occupied countries. Here is the complete record of political life in Occupied Western Europe available to the British Government during World War II.
Confidential print, Middle East, 1839-1969 This link opens in a new window
The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government between c. 1820 and 1970, contains important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. This collection consists of the Confidential Print for the countries of the Levant and the Arabian peninsula, Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Sudan. Beginning with the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the 1830s, the documents trace the events of the following 150 years, including the Middle East Conference of 1921, the mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia, the partition of Palestine, the 1956 Suez Crisis and post-Suez Western foreign policy, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Country intelligence reports on USSR This link opens in a new window
This series consists of reports, studies, and surveys on various topics of interest to the Department of State. The reports vary from short memorandums to detailed, documented studies. The topics range from individual commodities or countries to the economic and political characteristics of whole regions. This collection consists of research and intelligence reports on the USSR for the period 1941 to 1961.
German anti-semitic propaganda, 1909-1941 This link opens in a new window
This collection comprises 170 German-language titles of books and pamphlets. The collection presents anti-Semitism as an issue in politics, economics, religion, and education. Most of the writings date from the 1920s and 1930s and many are directly connected with Nazi groups. The works are principally anti-Semitic, but include writings on other groups as well, including Jehovahs Witnesses, the Jesuits, and the Freemasons. Also included are history, pseudo-history, and fiction.
Holocaust and the concentration camp trials : prosecution of Nazi war crimes This link opens in a new window
This collection provides unique documents on the investigation and prosecution of war crimes committed by Nazi concentration camp commandants and camp personnel. Documents include: correspondence; trial records and transcripts; investigatory material, such as interrogation reports and trial exhibits; clemency petitions and reviews; photographs of atrocities; newspaper clippings; and pamphlets ...
Nazi bank and financial institutions : U.S. military government investigation reports and interrogations of Nazi financiers, 1945-1949 This link opens in a new window
This database comprises two collections related to Holocaust Era Assets. The collections consist of memorandums, letters, cables, balance sheets, reports, exhibits, newspaper clippings, and civil censorship intercepts on: the financing of the German war effort and German financial institutions; reports on Nazi gold, the use of Swiss banks, and links between German and Swiss banks.
Romania : records of the U.S. Department of State, 1945-1963 This link opens in a new window
Romania in the postwar Stalinist era is the subject of this Gale Primary Sources archive. The Red Army swept into Romania in 1944, and in the late 1940s and 1950s the Romanian Communist Party imposed a totalitarian regime. An elaborate security system manned by the secret police was set up and was supported by a repressive prison network which enforced obedience to the party. These topics and others are included, with documents sourced from the Central Files of the General Records of the U.S. Department of State.
U.S. intelligence on Europe, 1945-1995 This link opens in a new window
This Brill collection of over 4,000 formerly classified U.S. government documents provides a comprehensive survey of the U.S. intelligence community's activities in Europe, including Eastern Europe, Turkey and Cyprus, covering the time period from the end of World War II to the fall of the Iron Curtain and beyond.
World War I and revolution in Russia, 1914-1918 This link opens in a new window
This collection documents the Russian entrance into World War I and culminates in reporting on the Revolution in Russia in 1917 and 1918. The documents consist primarily of correspondence between the British Foreign Office, various British missions and consulates in the Russian Empire and the Tsarist government and later the Provisional Government. Includes 73,607 images from the National Archives (U.K.)