Search

Most of the collection dates from 1918-1940, and concerns the Civil War in Siberia and the emigration in China. There is a long manuscript by Golovachev on the Civil War. Other manuscripts include memoirs by F. Porotikov on Admiral Kolchak, and one by V. Russii︠a︡n, a former tsarist police official, attempting to prove that Stalin was a police agent. Photographs include an inscribed portrait of Lev Tolstoĭ. Subject files concern various Siberian and Far Eastern institutions and organizations, and deal with both the Civil War and the emigration. Printed materials include books, pamphlets, newspapers, and clippings, again mostly on Siberian or Far Eastern affairs, or on the law.

Correspondence, manuscripts, photographs and subject files of Witte. The correspondents include Ivan S. Aksakov, Tsar Aleksander III, Tsar Nicholas II, Konstantin P. Pobedonost︠s︡ev, I︠U︡riĭ Samarin, Lev N. Tolstoĭ and Kaiser Wilhelm II. The manuscripts, which constitute over half of the collection, consist of Witte's memoirs and of his work on the Russo-Japanese War, and include a signed typescript essay by Lev N. Tolstoĭ. The photographs depict the signing of the Portsmouth Treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War (Portsmouth, N.H.). The subject files, which are primarily typescript copies of documents, refer to such topics as the various assassination attempts on the tsars, questions of agrarian reform, relations with Germany, and the siege of Port Arthur. There is also a framed pen and ink drawing depicting an event in Witte's public career.

The collection consists of correspondence, manuscripts, documents, photographs, subject files and printed material. The correspondence is primarily from the 1920s and includes letters from G. E. Lv́ov and S. P. Mel'gunov and one or two items each from M. A. Aldanov, I. A. Bunin, N. V. Chaikovskii, A. L. Tolstaiia, V. F. Zeeler and others. The manuscripts are primarily in the form of notes in Polner's hand and include Polner's diary from the years 1919-1925. The documents belong to Tikhon Polner's brother, Sergei, and deal with the latter's expulsion from the USSR in 1921. There is extensive material in the subject files on the writings of Lev Tolstoĭ, including typescript copies of several Tolstoi manuscripts and clippings of the reviews of Polner's book on Tolstoi. Also included is a photograph of A. I. Herzen from the 1850s.