The source complex on the history of the YASSR OSOAVIAKHIM: problems of representativeness and interpretation

this article provides a comprehensive source study analysis of the documentary base on the history of the Yakut Republican Organization of OSOAVIAKHIM for the period 1927-1948. The research is based on previously unpublished materials from the National Archive of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and municipal archives, introduced into scholarly discourse for the first time. Particular attention is paid to a critical analysis of the representativeness of various source groups, primarily official reporting documentation, which concealed the organization's actual state of affairs behind impressive statistics. The author details the methodology of source criticism, which makes it possible to identify, beyond the formal indicators, such characteristic phenomena as widespread formalism, systemic data falsification, and the fictitious nature of the activities of many primary organizations. The study argues for the necessity of a comprehensive use of diverse source types – reporting documents, internal correspondence, audit materials, local periodicals, and memoirs – to reconstruct an objective picture of OSOAVIAKHIM's activities in the specific conditions of Yakutia. The developed methodology allows for overcoming the limitations of official statistics and revealing the real mechanisms of the organization's functioning. The article makes a significant contribution to the development of source studies concerning the history of Soviet public organizations by proposing new approaches to working with documents from the totalitarian era. The obtained results are important for studying not only the history of the defense society but also the broader issues of the center-periphery interaction within the Soviet administrative system.

source studies, OSOAVIAKHIM, YASSR, archival documents, representativeness, historical interpretation, reporting, formalism, National Archive of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)