Birthday of Bruno Pontecorvo and a new phase in archiving his documents
Irina Grigoryevna Pokrovskaya, a permanent secretary of Bruno Pontecorvo, organized the majority of the documents in the study by following a thematic principle: the folders she compiled contain drafts of articles, some of the incoming and outgoing correspondence, business trip reports, invitations, congratulations, reviews, etc.
In July 2026, E. Suslova, M. Fateeva, G. Zabrodin, E. Smirnova (HSE University), participants of the school “Archival Impulse – 2026”, worked with documents that were not sorted out by Irina Pokrovskaya. Researchers managed to compile an initial inventory of those folders of the museum-study that may be attributed to the Bruno Potecorvo collection of the JINR Historical Archive (about 60 folders in total). They also scanned eight valuable documents with a total volume of 345 folios and suggested a possible principle of systematizing the archive of the scientist’s study on the basis of communication radii. Three radii were found: “Office Desk” (document collection is expected to contain laboratory journals and notes, personal correspondence, correspondence with institutions, biographical materials), “Institute” (this radius may include documents related to Pontecorvo’s scientific, organizational, and teaching activities), and “International Level” (International conference preparation materials and documents of business trips abroad).
Such systematization of the document archive of the museum-study in electronic form provides an insight into the immense work carried out by Bruno Maksimovich Pontecorvo as a scientist, head of a laboratory department, CPSU member, and MSU professor. Yet there were also family, friends and colleagues, and hobbies and travel: some evidence of these aspects of the scientist's life can also be found in the archive of his study. Undoubtedly, the complete systematization and inventory of this archive still await further work by professional researchers.
In 2023, the memorial website of Bruno Maksimovich Pontecorvo (1913-1993) was created. It contains reminiscences of contemporaries about him, complete list of his scientific works, video that conveys the general impression and the atmosphere of the museum-study, films and books about him.
Materials prepared by the Group of Scientific Communications for the 110th birthday of Bruno Pontecorvo can be found via the link: https://dlnp.jinr.ru/pontecorvo/
