The resource provides online access to volumes 1929-2011 of "Literaturnaya Gazeta", one of the oldest Russian newspapers focusing on topics relating to literature studies. The newspaper became the official organ of the association of Soviet authors and underwent a change of content from a pure literature organ to a newspaper covering the broader fields of literature, arts, politics and social issues. It consequently represents an outstanding source work for literature scholars on the one hand, but also for artistic-aesthetic, social, political and historical issues from Soviet times in particular. Among the official state newspapers, it can be regarded as a kind of "alternative" newspaper to "Pravda" or "Izvestia" that were completely true to party principles.

The goal of this database is to provide researchers with an opportunity to cross-search the contents of major Russian periodicals on social sciences and humanities. It is comprised of journals of the Russian Academy of Sciences ranging from archeology to linguistics, as well as popular literary editions, and independent scholarly publications. New titles are added on a regular basis. This Universal Database grows retroactively. Full-text and full-image content of print editions is reproduced with original pagination.