The Reflection of Social and Political Life of the Twentieth Century: Folklore Archive Materials of the Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History of the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences

The article is about one of the largest folklore archives in Russia—the Archive of the Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History of the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, founded in the early 1930s. The systematic collecting activity among the peoples of Northwest Russia led to the establishment of the Archives, reflecting the whole historical epoch (from the beginning of the twentieth until the beginning of the twenty-first century) and gave a new view to classic folklore genres and the development of ideology-driven forms of folklore. The article reveals the significance of the archival collections for the development of languages and cultures of the minority peoples of the region.