As a research center, the institute continues the traditions of the St. Petersburg historical school, established by K. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, S. Platonov, A. Lappo-Danilevsky, A. Presnyakov and others.

[3] Since 1936, the organization operated as the Leningrad branch of the Institute of History, Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union.

After the proclamation of independence of the Russian Federation, the organization began to exist as a branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and since 2000 has had its current name.

At different times, such historians as B. Grekov, S. Zhebelev, V. Struve, Y. Tarle, I. Shaskol'skii, S. Kovalev, A. Lublinskaya, I. Petrushevsky, M. Sergeyenko worked at the institute.

In total, the archive contains over 188 thousand storage units.