HISTORY OF RESTORATION OF THE ORIGINAL ASSEMBLING OF THE SKOBELEV COMMITTEE NEWSREEL "THE RUSSIAN MILITARY CHRONICLE: 1914-1915"

The article reviews the study of the Russian State Archive of Film and Photo Documents materials and the restoration of the original assembling of the Skobelev committee newsreels from 1914-1915 "The Russian Military Chronicle". The film document have been inspected visually; subtitles, which were printed in some cinematographic magazines of the World War I period, helped identify and assemble disjointed fragments of 16 newsreel series. Shootings were identified, operators of some series established. The newsreels feature Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief visited by Emperor Nicholas II, review by Nicholas II of the Leib Guard cavalry and hussar regiments, of infirmaries of the Baranovichy regiment and the 3rd Alexandrov Red Cross community; towns Lviv, Tarnow, Rava-Ruska and Halych taken by Russian troops; the movement of Russian troops on positions; infantry and artillery preparing to battle; installation of the field light and telephone; field engineers launching floating and leg bridges; German prisoners-of-war; salvage items and trophies of war; medical treatment of the wounded; troop reviews; religious rites in the lines, soldiers resting. The following persons have been identified: war correspondent V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, arch-presbyter fr. Shevelsky, generals Y.N. Danilov, P.C. Kondzerovsky, D.R. Radko-Dmitriev, S.A. Ronzhin, N.A. Ruzsky, V.A. Sukhomlinov, D.G. Shcherbachev, N.N. Yanushkevich. The article details methods and labours of the archivist restoring the original assembling of the newsreels of World War I, which is of great significance both for methodology and for source studies, as the archive staff has succeeded in restoring the newsreels as they were projected and seen by the contemporaries. The work, which resulted in establishing directors, cameramen and film editors, is of great importance for studying the history of nonfiction films. Arranging items according on their place in the assemblage, writing new series descriptions and entering the information in paper and digital catalogue facilitate using film documents.