Before 1917, Russian physics and chemistry publications would typically appear in Zhurnal Russkogo Fiziko-Khimicheskogo Obshchestva <Журнал русского физико-химического общества>, commonly abbreviated as ZhRFKhO <ЖРФХО>. It was published by the Russian Physico-Chemical Society. During his stay in Russia in 1907-1912, Paul Erenfest made a lot of editorial work for ZRFKhO and published two dozens of original articles and reviews in this journal. Many other foreign names appeared in this journal as well, e.g., Paul Walden. ZhRFKhO was at some point split into physics and chemistry parts. Before WWI, the articles were translated selectively into German for various Zeitschriften. ZhRFKhO was continued after the Russian revolution all the way until 1930, but no translations appeared any more. When it was finally closed, several more specialized academic journals were launched instead, published only in Russian.
One journal most relevant to our project is Zhurnal Fizicheskoi Khimii <Журнал Физической химии> launched in 1930 for publications related to physical chemistry in a broad sense, including molecular structures and crystal chemistry. Early volumes included abstracts or short summaries translated into German, but this practice was discontinued in mid-1930’s. Since no digital archives of this journal exist, except for its very recent volumes, we collect table of contents for some of the early years and add links to full texts of electrochemical articles.
19…. 1946 1947….
Volumes 15-19 published during 1941-1945 are available (full texts and contents) at http://e-heritage.ru/Catalog/PubsSearch (insert Журнал Физической химии in search field).
As the submission of articles to international journals required special permission from the authorities, Soviet scientists tried to establish domestic journals published in foreign languages. Several early works of the Frumkin school have been published in Physikalische Zeitschrift der Sowjetunion initiated by a team of young physicists in Kharkov, Ukraine. This journal appeared between 1932-1938 only. It was suspended when the nascent Kharkov physics school was purged, and its leading scientists (L. Landau, L. Shubnikov, and many others, including foreign visitors) arrested.
One closely related initiative was Acta Physicochimica URSS launched in 1934 “with the purpose of acquainting foreign scientists with the works and achievements of soviet physico-chemists” (follow the link for the complete Introductory text). Acta Physicochimica URSS was suspended in 1947 per the decision of the top state authorities as part of the campaign against foreign influence, together with the prosecution of the editorial board members accused in being “cosmopolitants”. This journal published selective translations from Zhurnal Fizicheskoi Khimii into English, German and occasionally French, but it should not be deemed a comprehensive translated version, as the submissions in Russian and foreign languages were done independently. The translation could appear either earlier or later than the Russian version, sometimes even in a different year.
Volumes 14-20 published during 1941-1945 are available (full texts and contents) at http://e-heritage.ru/Catalog/PubsSearch (insert journal name in search field).
Since no digital version of Acta Physicochimica URSS exists, we collected table of contents for all volumes, along with selected full texts:
1934 · 1935 · 1936 · 1937 · 1938 · 1939 · 1940 · 1941 · 1942 · 1943 · 1944 · 1945 · 1946 · 1947
Three multidisciplinary journals of the Academy of Sciences, USSR, were its Doklady, Vestnik, and Izvestiya, which can be roughly translated as the Proceedings, Herald, and Bulletin, respectively. The former journal, Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR, published short (up to 4 pages) articles that were either written by the Academy members or recommended by them. During a certain period this journal was considered as a place for prioritized works. Translated version named Comptes Rendus (Doklady) de l’Académie des Sciences de l’URSS was suspended in 1947 (see above).
When the internal political situation became slightly more relaxed in mid-1950s, new translated versions appeared. They were now more specialized. In particular, physical chemistry articles from Doklady are available in English starting from 1957, in Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Physical Chemistry Section (Consultante Bureau Publ.).
The contents and indices for 1958…1976 are available at archive.org (use full title for search). For 1957…1961 (volumes 112-141), full texts are also available at archive.org.
As for Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, it is considered as the official journal of the chemical division of Academy. This specific status allowed translations starting from 1952. Moreover, all these translations are available at Springer web, see Russian Chemical Bulletin. All translated articles have DOI and are typically presented in the databases. However, this journal is always overloaded by synthetic chemists, when physical chemistry is minor.
Starting from 1965, a specialized journal Elektrokhimiya appeared. Its rarely available translated version Soviet Electrochemistry was published by Consultants Bureau between 1965 and 1993. Dr Klaus Müller from Geneva was a principal translator.
The contents and indices for 1965…1976 are available at archive.org (search for Soviet Electrochemistry).
After 1993, translated version was transformed into Russian Journal of Electrochemistry (Springer).
