IA Historical Investigation Topic

[magmar]

I know there have been a lot of these posts on the history forum, but I have a couple of questions about my topic. The area of history I am interested in writing about is the Russo - German/Soviet - German relationship after the Versailles treaty up until Rapallo. The RQ I have been sort of picturing is how the Polish Soviet war and its outcome caused the treaty of Rapallo. The reason I'm having doubts about this is that I do not have any primary sources. To compensate for this I tried to change my plan to include areas were primary sources in English could easier be found. For instance using Genoa and the attitudes of the western nations towards communism as a topic, but it makes everything to broad.

Should I drop the whole idea since I don't have primary sources, or should I go ahead with it? If any of you have any feedback it would be greatly appreciated!

[Emmi]

Could you potentially come up with a research question that still allows you to investigate German-Soviet relations between Versailles and Rapallo that's just a BIT broader (but not by much) that would give you more primary sources? You might have to expand your IA to be a little broader than the Polish-Soviet War, but I think that if you had a topic that was slightly different to give you access to primary sources on that topic, and was still able to use the Polish-Soviet War as like an example proving or disproving your RQ, your IA overall would score higher than if you just stuck to the Polish-Soviet War and had no primary sources. Provided you do everything else correct, that is.