For the most part each folder contains one article; however, on occasion, there are duplicates. Articles are generally publishers' offprints, sometimes with Markstein's typescripts. Articles occasionally tie in to such thematic folders as "derevenskaia literatura" or "detskaia literatura." Besides literary topics, Markstein frequently explores translation issues.

Typescripts were for a show called "Russische Stunde" broadcast by Radio Österreich, covering such subjects as travel in the USSR to the agricultural exhibition in Moscow in 1954. Several of the manuscripts have marginal notations and line interpolations. Folder 1262 includes tear sheets of a short article on "Falsche Königskinder" developed from the typescript.

Contracts for the translation from Russian to German of the works of such authors and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Friedrich Gorenstein, and others.

Folders contain typescripts, offprints, photocopies, and carbon copies, some of which have marginal notations. Translations of Dmitri Dobrodeev and Friedrich Gorenstein predominate; however, there are translations of Vasilii Grossman, Zhores Medvedev, Vasilii Asksenov, and others.