[q]
Âîò òåêñò îòêðûòîãî ïèñüìà (÷åðíîâèê) ê ðóêîâîäñòâó ðîññèéñêîãî îòäåëåíèÿ ìîðìîíîâ[/q]
English text:
We ask you to aid in resolving the following problem which is very important to us
In 1996 the Genealogical Society of Utah and Russian Society of Archiver Historians (and hereby the latter legally representing all Russian archives) have signed an agreement about cultural collaboration in finding and investigating genealogical documents (pre-1917) stored in Russian State archives and making backup copies (microfilms). Later, this agreement was prolonged at August 3, 2010.
According to this Agreement, the Genealogical Society of Utah was microfilming documents of genealogical nature (church books, confession lists and census records) in Russian archives, making two microfilm copies. One such copy they kept for storage in Granite Mountain and the second one was presented to Russian archives as a backup copy.
The Genealogical Society of Utah began to upload digital copies of Russian archive documents church books, confession lists and census records etc.) obtained according to this Agreement at its international website familysearch.org for free access. Back then these were Lutheran church records from Russian State Historical Archive (were uploaded in early 2010) and Tver Governorate documents from Tver Region State Archive (in August 2011). The Genealogical Society of Utah was doing the same with respect to archive documents obtained in other countries.
However, in late 2011 Russian Society of Archiver Historians (ROIA) and Tver Region State Archive (GATO) demanded that Genealogical Society of Utah should cease providing free access to copies of genealogy documents from Tver Archive, which was done by Genealogical Society of Utah in November 2011.
The reason for blocking the documents has been viewed by Russian archivers as a violation of Section 6 of the aforementioned Agreement by the American side; this Section is as follows:
“The Parties have agreed that Genealogical Society of Utah would not use the copies of these microfilms for commercial purposes and would not provide them to organizations or individuals which are not members of Society without written permission of ROIA and GATO (Tver Region State Archive)”.
“Having uploaded part of Tver Governorate genealogical documents encompassing the period from 1722 to 1918 for free access without written permission of Tver Region State Archive, the Genealogical Society of Utah has severely violated the conditions of the said Agreement” – thus says the response received by me from Russian Federal Archive Agency from April 17th, 2013, No. P/M 3044.
Currently, all documents from Russian archives at the familysearch.org website are available for free browsing only to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Unfortunately, multiple requests to Russian archive officials to permit a request to Genealogical Society of Utah and to provide for an official permit for publishing the documents from Russian archives at the familysearch.org international website have given no result.
In particular, such requests were filed to:
Russian Federal Archive Agency
Russian State Historical archive
Tver Region State Archive
Ulyanovsk Region State Archive
Pskov Region State Archive
Samara Region State Archive
Niznhy Novgorod Region State Archive
Tatarstan Republic National Archive
Moreover, there were requests filed to Russian Ministry of Culture and to the Administration of the President of Russia through the “Democrator” website for collecting petitions.
We ask you and the senior officials of the Family Search organization, for the sake of Christian Brotherhood to do everything possible from your side to publish Russian documents at the familysearch.org international website in order for these documents to be generally available not only to the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but to all citizens as well, irrespective of their religious denomination, including Russian citizens.
Access to archive documents should be equal to all citizens irrespective of their religious denomination. Literally, most of the Russian church books can now be viewed only at your website (could have been, if not the restriction for browsing these documents issued by ROIA and GATO). These are, for example, church books of Tver and Simbirsk governorates, documents from Nizhni Novgorod and Tatarstan. Publication of Pskov church books at this website is expected. These documents are not present at the websites of Russian regional archives and their digitization and publication in the Web for free and open access is not currently planned, if ever.
For the sake of Christian mercy to people with limited physical or financial abilities which are unable to personally visit Russian regional archives to view microfilms with church books using local equipment or to view digital copies of documents (if and where they are present) on computers in archive reading room, we ask the officials of Family Search organization (Genealogical Society of Utah): please, send official requests for permission to publish the documents to Russian regional archives (where microfilming of documents has been carried out), to Russian State Historical Archive and to Russian Federal Archive Agency. And if they deny giving such permission we ask to publish this information and copies of the obtained responses, because Russian people must know – why they cannot view their church books at the international genealogical portal like citizens of United States of America, United Kingdom, Germany and many other countries can.
Negotiations about conditions for access to Russian documents at the familysearch.org website can take aeons. But people need information today! It is no secret that mostly elderly people are interested in their family roots. Already due to Tver Region State Archive and Russian Society of Archiver Historians three years were lost: Russian documents have been closed for open access at the said website since November 2011.
Russian citizens are grateful to the Family Search organization (Genealogical Society of Utah) for aid in microfilming the documents in Russian archives, for providing backup copies of documents. We were grateful to you for starting publishing these documents for open access in mid-2011. Unfortunately, such a fruitful collaboration between your Society and Russian archives has been stopped, owing to demands of some our short-sighted citizens as well. It would be marvelous for such a collaboration to resume, but, unfortunately, the current political situation and Russian-US relations still prevent this.
We ask the officials of Family Search to continue the work of digitizing microfilms with Russian genealogical documents they already have and further publishing of all remaining Russian document collections for free access at the familysearch.org website.
We hope for a response and further collaboration,
