Excerpts on the National History of Criminalistics and Forensic Institutions: the 1945–1948 Initiative to Establish the Institute of Criminalistics of the USSR Academy of Sciences

The article presents the documents compiled by the outstanding national criminalist Sergei Mikhailovich Potapov in 1945 and 1948 where he justifies the need to organize an independent Institute of Forensics on the basis of the forensic laboratory which functioned under his head as part of the Institute of Law of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The author of the article points to the importance of publication of these materials and also proves the need to conduct research in the context of the national history of forensiс activities.