Trans-regional historical news sources

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Homeland Newspapers

• ANNO - Austrian Newspapers Online (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek)
  Newspaper collection from the historic territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire includes 41 (often bilingual) 19th-20th-century titles in Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Croatian, Slovenian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, and Ukrainian.

• Bibliothek des Digitalen Forums Mittel- und Osteuropa (Digitalen Forums Mittel- und Osteuropa)
  Collection of primarily German-language publications (18th century-World War II) from east-central Europe and the Baltic includes 20 (often bilingual) newspapers titles in Yiddish, Hungarian, Romanian, Hebrew, Croatian, and Russian.

• digiPress (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek)
  Collection of mostly 19th-century German newspapers that also includes a few titles in Russian, Polish, Slovak, Czech, Estonian, and Serbian.

• Endangered Archives Program (British Library)
  “Newspapers” section includes scattered issues of 19th- and 20th-century newspapers in Armenian, Russian, and Bulgarian.

• Europeana / Newspapers (Europeana Foundation / EU-organized)
  Includes a selection of 19th- and 20th-century newspapers from Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Poland, and Serbia.

• HathiTrust Digital Library (collaborative project coordinated by HathiTrust)
  A small number of 19th-20th century newspapers from Russia and Eastern Europe (in Bulgarian, Czech, etc.).

• Lucian Blaga Digital Library (“Lucian Blaga” Central University Library Cluj)
  Includes several 18th-20th century Romanian and Hungarian periodicals.

• The Newspaper Collection of the National Library of Israel
  200+ Jewish newspapers in various languages published in Central and Eastern Europe (19th to 20th centuries).

• Press Corner (European Commission)
  A searchable database of press releases (1974-) from the EU and the European Commission.

Diaspora Newspapers

• Chronicling America (Library of Congress)
  Collection of America's historic newspapers (1777-1963), including many published by immigrants from Eastern Europe, most notably by Poles, Czechs, Lithuanians, Slovenians, and Russians as well as Croatians, Hungarians, Romanians, and Slovaks.

• Connecting Canadians: Canada’s Multicultural Newspapers (Athabasca University)
  Includes 15 newspapers in Ukrainian, Finnish, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, Latvian, Hungarian, and Estonian.

• Global Resource Network (Center for Research Libraries)
  Substantial runs of émigré newspapers, including Ameryka, Dziennik Chicagowski, Dziennik Związkowy, Goniec polski, Novyi mir, and Ujedinjeno srpstvo; as well as selected newspapers of the 1917 October Revolution.

• Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections (University of Illinois Library)
  Includes early 20th-century newspapers in Croatian, Czech, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, and Slovenian. Go to advanced search and limit by language or individual title (e.g. Amerikos Lietuva, Głos polek, Svobodnaia Rossiia)

• SFU Digitized Newspapers (Simon Fraser University)
  Nine titles published in Canada from the 1930s to the 1990s (coverage varies), including in Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian.

• ZEFYS (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin)
  Several newspapers in Russian and one in Polish published in Germany during the first half of the 20th century. Also included are German newspapers published in the eastern part of the German Empire which had a significant Polish population.

Audio

• Andrew Nagorski interview recordings (Hoover Institution Archives)
  Contains 129 unique audio files of the interviews conducted (1976-2008) by the editor of Newsweek International with prominent Russian and East/Central European political and cultural figures (listed by country).

• Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Sound Recordings (Hoover Institution Archives)
  This digital collections of over 7,000 audio recordings (1950-2005) produced by/about RFE/RL between includes:

  • Broadcast Records
    Nearly 7,000 sound recordings of radio broadcasts (1950-2005) to audiences in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union by RFE/RL’s various country bureaus.

  • Corporate Records
    Contains 161 sound recordings (1951-2005), including a few interviews in various languages, Bulgarian (7), Czech (5), Hungarian (4), etc. For a description of the programming, consult the guide to the collection.

Visual

• AP Archive (Associated Press)
  1.7 million global news and entertainment video stories dating back to 1895.

• British Pathé
  Worldwide footage from British Pathé and Reuters (1896-1984).

• European Film Gateway (a project of 22 partner institutions)
  Photos, posters, newsreels, etc. as preserved in European film archives and cinémathèques.

• EUscreen (by a consortium of European audiovisual archives, public broadcasters, academic and technical partners)
  Thousands of audiovisual items from many European broadcasters and audiovisual archives (1900-).

• Open Central Asian Photo Archive (CNRS-Sorbonne University, University of Geneva, Ghent University, and the International Observatory Alerte Héritage)
  Among this collection on Turkestan and Soviet Central Asia (1868-1970s) are photo-postcards produced by the Moscow-based Creative Association "Orbit" of the Union of Journalists of the USSR (5); the Typography "Izvestiia" of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR (28), and the Typography "Rabochaia gazeta" (2).

• Public Affairs photographic file. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty corporate records (Hoover Institution Archives)
  Includes 21 prints and negatives depicting people and events associated with RFE/RL, Inc. and the history of Cold War radio broadcasting (1950-1980).

Online catalogs & bibliographies

• Cross-regional Guides to Newspapers (Library of Congress)

  • Newspapers of East Central and Southeastern Europe in the Library of Congress (edited by Robert G. Carlton)
    Digital version of the 1965 bibliography (page view; searchable pdf) of news­papers (1918 to date) issued within “the present territorial boundaries” of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, and Yugoslavia; as well as newspapers (1917-1940) issued in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Post-1965 holdings are described in LC’s online catalog and in updated online lists for individual countries.

  • New Soviet and Baltic Independent Serials at the Library of Congress: a Holdings List (compiled by Eric A. Johnson and Michael E. Neubert, with the assistance of Bohdan Yasinsky, and edited by Harold M. Leich)
    Digital version of 1991 catalog (page view; searchable pdf), describing LC’s holdings of the “Soviet independent serials (newspapers and journals)” collection (ca. 7,500 issues, representing more than 1,300 separate titles).

• Canadian Newspaper Directories Guide (University of Toronto)
  Digitized editions of McKim's directory of Canadian publications (Montreal, Canada: 1899, 1905, 1907, 1909, 1919) and N.W. Ayer & Son's directory, [American and Canadian] newspapers and periodicals (Philadelphia, PA: 1884) also include émigré publications.

• COBISS: Co-operative Online Bibliographic System and Services
  Union catalog for national libraries of Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia includes data records for motion pictures, sound, and video recordings, as well as serials.

• Emigrantika: Russian Émigré Periodicals (Alexander Solzhenitsyn House of Russia Abroad)
  Union catalog of Russian-language periodicals (including newspapers) published abroad (e.g. in foreign countries, occupied territories, displaced person camps, etc.), with links to digitized versions whenever available.

• filmarchives online: Finding Moving Images in European Collections
  Bibliographic database on non-fiction films, including newsreels, from European archives.

• Finding Aid to Late Soviet and post-Soviet transitional press (PraXess Associates / Center for Research Libraries)
  Digitized guide to microfilm collection of more than 1000 newspaper titles from the Russian Federation, Belarus, and Ukraine (1985-2000).

• Газеты в сети и вне её - Газетная библиография (Russian National Library)
  The Russian National Library’s guide to digitized newspapers (from Russia and abroad) includes several important auxiliary sections:

  • catalogs, directories, indexes and catalogs of newspapers

  • resources useful when working with newspapers

  • indexes of the contents of selected periodicals

  • books and other print publications about newspapers

  • personalia, such as bio-bibliographies of individuals involved in writing, publishing, and cataloging newspapers

• Печать стран СНГ (National Book Chamber of Belarus)
  Scanned (.pdf) versions of the statistical publications on the number of materials (including newspapers) produced by the book chambers of the countries comprising the Commonwealth of Independent States for the dates in question:

  • Печать Беларуси, России и Украины в цифрах за 2019 год

  • Печать стран СНГ в цифрах за 2015 год

• U.S. Newspaper Directory, 1690-Present (Library of Congress)
  A searchable database of newspapers published in various languages on the territory of the United States that includes newspapers published by immigrants from Russia, Eurasia, and Eastern Europe.

• Zetischriften Datebank
  Bibliographic database which among others includes bibliographic records for newspapers in printed or electronic form that are available in German and Austrian libraries.