Державний архів Полтавської області

The history of the development of archival work is closely connected with the activity of the Poltava Scientific Archival Committee, founded in 1903. Today the legislatively assigned system of regional archival institutions contains: State Archive of Poltava Oblast, 25 archival departments of Oblast State Administration, 5 archival departments of the urban councils, and more than 2000 subdivisions of enterprises, institutions, and organizations. The State Archive is the largest repository for documents concerning the history of Poltava. The storehouses total 19,417 square meters, with 120 822 meters of shelves. According to information of January 1, 2007 the State Archive of Poltava Oblast contained 6865 collections, 1 292 847 cases, with the oldest documents dating from 1693.  

The collections from the period of the Russian empire are containing documents of the Poltava guberniya and volost rules, Poltava public chamber, Kremenchug boundary commission, world mediators. The manuscripts of Panas Myrny are saved in the fund of public chamber. Among materials of the Poltava civil governor, police offices, and separate courts, there are documents concerning activities of the Kremenchug Social Democratic group (1897), Poltava group of RSDRP (1901), Poltava, Kostyantynohrad and Romny committees of RSDRP (1905-1906); activities of underground printing houses and disseminators of illegal literature; information about strikes, mass meetings, and demonstrations directed against autocracy. Boundary books are saved in the collection of the Poltava boundary chamber, including plans with economic and statistical descriptions of landownership. There are metrical books among the documents of religious establishments; information about churches of the Poltava diocese with information about the number of courts and number and composition of the population of the inhabited localities. The period of the Ukrainian revolution 1917-1920 is presented in the documents of collection of the Poltava Council of Worker and Peasant Deputies; there are protocols, resolutions, lectures, correspondence. The collection of the Public Prosecutor of the Poltava circuit court includes documents about activities of Simon Petlyura and of revolutionary parties in the Poltava region in the years 1890-1919. Documents of the Poltava and Kremenchug province revolutionary committees and province executive committees, local executive committees of Kremenchug, Lubny and Poltava, executive committees of districts concerning organization and work of local authorities in the Poltava region, nationalization of industrial enterprises and nobility estates, forced collectivization. These collections include protocols of province and district councils, and conferences of non-party workers and peasants. The documents of local executive committees, commissions, and committees of poor peasants include information about the anti-peasant policy of Soviet power which caused peasant revolts in the Poltava region during 1920-1922. An archive keeps documents about losses, inflicted by the Nazi occupation to the region, to the districts and localities, enterprises, collective farms and separate citizens, and about restoring the region’s economy, which had been ruined by war. In the collections of regional executive committee, and of the departments this committee, the economic development of Poltava region is represented (processing of oil and gas, motor industry, production of artificial diamonds). There are collections of industrial enterprises of the Poltava oblast. The state of agriculture of the Poltava oblast in the post-war years is represented in the collections of regional management of the Soviet economy, oblast and rayon management of agriculture, MTS, DTS, state farms and collective farms. The collections of health protection, public welfare, and trade union organizations reflect medical and sanitary services, expansion of network of medical establishments, campaign against epidemics and other diseases, providing of medical aid, and care for war invalids, mothers, and children. The documents concerning establishments of general and professional education, cultural, and other educational organizations tell about cultural activity in the region. There are documents about activities of juvenile labour commune in the Tribi village near Poltava which was headed by prominent teacher A.S. Makarenko. Collections of personal origin are saved in an archive. These include the archives of surgeon M.V. Sklifosovsky; archives of Z.M. Aksent'eva, a correspondent of the Academy of Sciences and director of the Poltava gravimetrical observatory; and a collection of documents of veterans of Poltava tractor school and others. Documentary photographs reflect public, political, economic, scientific, and cultural life of Poltava region from the late XIX century till today. The collection of departments of public associations include documents of the party and Komsomol organs, primary organizations of Communist Party of Ukraine, collections of personal origin, of supervisory bodies of party, political departments, party committees, documents of party colleges and party commissions, collection of documents of partisan movement which operated in the years of war in Poltava region. A department keeps the documents of prisoners of war and persons deported to Germany. Total Volume of Collections 6900 collections, 1307414 collection items (1693-2009), 817 collection items of scientific and technical documentation, 26181 collection items of photo documents, 9 collection items of film documents, 422 collection items of sound recordings  

The Archive holds document collections from Poltava province dating from the end of the XVII century until the present.