SovietRxiv Brings the Soviet Scientific Archive Into English
We’re delighted to share that SovietRxiv (sovietrxiv.org), an open-access archive that translates Soviet-era scientific literature into English, has launched. The platform opens with more than 15,000 full-text translations spanning physics, mathematics, engineering, and other fields: material that has been largely unreadable to English-speaking researchers since it was first published.
The launch corpus includes roughly 15,000 full-text translations retained alongside their translations. Every paper is paired with its original PDF, an English translation, an abstract, and similarity search built on document embeddings, so a researcher can move from a reference to its underlying source in a few steps. SovietRxiv is a sibling to ChinaRxiv, part of a broader effort to make neglected scientific literatures legible across languages.
SovietRxiv is supported by the Revival Fund, an initiative of Analogue dedicated to excavating, validating, and reviving neglected or forgotten research lineages. “Nestled in these archives are threads that have stayed unpulled in the Western scientific corpus, for all sorts of reasons,” says Seconds. “This work can reopen doors that had closed to time.”
Still, millions of pages of Soviet-era science remain available online but unread in English. SovietRxiv’s next phase focuses on expanding the corpus in response to what researchers most want translated, and raising support to fund that work. A “chat with the corpus” feature, which lets users query the archive in natural language, is currently in prototype.
About SovietRxiv SovietRxiv is an open-access archive that translates Soviet-era scientific preprints and journal articles into English, retaining the original-language PDFs alongside each translation. It is built by Seconds and supported by the Revival Fund at Analogue. Learn more at sovietrxiv.org.
About the Revival Fund The Revival Fund excavates, validates, and revives neglected or forgotten research lineages. It is an initiative of Analogue, a philanthropic R&D platform that helps new fields emerge before traditional institutions know how to fund or support them. Learn more at therevivalfund.com and analoguegroup.org.
Want to support this work? Let’s get in touch: wendi@analoguegroup.org and aish@analoguegroup.org