pineapplerain Posted November 1, 2018 Report Share Posted November 1, 2018 Hi there! I have already chosen my question for my history IA but I can't find any good sources at all!! My question is "To what extent did Berlin emigration lead to the construction of the Berlin Wall?" I was hoping to find original records of emigration statistics, Yuri Andropov's letter about the 50% decrease in Eastern Germans, and articles about the general border system of Eastern Berlin, but I can't find any! :(( All the potentially good sources are also college journals/essays that I don't have access to or not free. I really feel like this topic isn't for me at this point but at the same time, I don't want to let it go! Please, if anyone has any sources to offer, please please share them with me! Thanks in advance! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pineapplerain Posted November 1, 2018 Author Report Share Posted November 1, 2018 Just wondering, how did most of you guys find your sources? I personally think that databases aren't helpful in my case, and all the detailed sources are to be bought... Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IB_taking_over Posted November 2, 2018 Report Share Posted November 2, 2018 During IB, I mostly use ebsco since it was the database my school had access to. It has a good number of secondary sources. Emigration records from Germany may be hard to find in English. They might be cited in some secondary material. Unless you speak German, this is probably the easiest way to get them. You might try searching for some internet archives for Andropov's speech. A lot of old Soviet documents are on the internet but unfortunately, they are mostly untranslated. Although his speech might be translated since it's a major thing. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pineapplerain Posted November 2, 2018 Author Report Share Posted November 2, 2018 Hi IB_taking_over! Thanks for the advice! I can't read German but I can try to put the information through a translator. What are some good internet archives with primary documents from around the world (specfically Germany and Russia)? I tried looking for some but I haven't found any good sources for my topic... I also tried looking for Andropov's speech but the only thing that turned up as his letter to Samantha Smith. What types of sources did you use? I'm thinking about academic journals by professors, but these are only found in colleges and often have paywalls...Have you ever encountered this type of problem? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IB_taking_over Posted November 2, 2018 Report Share Posted November 2, 2018 In high school, my teacher strongly suggested again using an online translator for sources as there's no way to know it's correct. I honestly can't agree more with her. In particular with Russian, you can get some really weird stuff. (For example, Google translate has a hard time with soul and shower in certain grammatical cases.) The Marxist Internet Archive is pretty good for stuff relating to Marxism. I don't know how late their German and Russian documents go as I've never looked for anything more recent than 1924. The Wilson Center might have some stuff as well. A lot of the Russian ones can be hard to find, often not existing online. There's also the State Public History Library of Russia (link). Although, they are all in Russian and I would strongly suggest against using Google translate to read them. Unfortunately, I am not an expert in the time period of Soviet history, so I don't have a list of historians. For my IA i wrote about the success of the NEP (Russian economic policy). I mostly used secondary sources, primarily books from my local library. I used a few of Lenin's writing from the Marxist internet archive. I was told point blank don't use anything you can't personally read, so I limited in terms of primary documents, however, this did not affect my grade as I received a 25/25. Back in high school subscribed to a few databases so we could find some scholarship that way. As a college student with access to countless databases, generally, I don't have a problem finding journals. Except, one article was only available at Indiana University. A local library or a university library will probably have some relevant books. What's the title of the speech? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pineapplerain Posted November 2, 2018 Author Report Share Posted November 2, 2018 Well, the source that I'm using to refer to Yuri Andropov is about his letter to the Soviet Government about the increase of East German defectors. I found this information from Wikipedia: " Yuri Andropov, then the CPSU Director on Relations with Communist and Workers' Parties of Socialist Countries, wrote an urgent letter on 28 August 1958, to the Central Committee about the significant 50% increase in the number of East German intelligentsia among the refugees." However, Wikipedia is obviously not an option for the IA paper (or any paper in that matter), so I'm trying to find the primary source for that "letter" for my paper. It would be great if there was a secondary source regarding this information as well. I'll try to look for something in the sources you suggested Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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