Natalii︠a︡ Kamyshnikova-Pervukhina papers, 1964-2018

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Summary

Creators:
Pervukhina, Natalia, 1943-
Abstract:
Relates to social conditions in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. Includes extensive correspondence from the Russian social activist and political figure, I͡Ulii͡a Ginzburg, from the mid-1970s until the late 1990s. Many letters are addressed to Natalia Pervukhina, her husband Erik Pervukhin, Professor of Art at Missouri State University, and Pervukhina's mother. Includes letters from family and friends and letters, as well as a memoir, by Natalia Pervukhina with recollections about her life in the United States
Extent:
8 manuscript boxes, digital media (3.33 Linear Feet), 8 manuscript boxes, digital media (3.33 Linear Feet), and 37 digital files (.001 Gigabytes)
Language:
Russian
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], I͡Ulii͡a Ginzburg correspondence, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives

Background

Scope and content:

The Natalia Kamyshnikova-Pervukhina correspondence series consists primarily of correspondence with her family and friends, including distant family in France, co-workers and students. The most essential part of this series are letters she and her husband had received from Yulia Ginzburg, their longtime friend, translator, literary scholar, public figure, journalist, and editor.

The Lidiia Kamyshnikova correspondence series includes letters from family and friends depicting life in the Soviet Union/Russia.

The Eric Pervukhin file includes vast correspondence and writings. In addition to letters to and from Yuliia Ginzburg, the correspondence includes letters from Russian writer and translator Andrei Sergeev and Aleksandr Sumerkin, Russian-American translator, literary critic, and editor. The series also contains letters from family and friends in the Soviet Union/Russia, and in the United States, as well as job related correspondence. The Eric Pervukhin writings include poems, stories and a short novel.

The Digital materials series includes Natalia Kmyshnikova-Pervukhina recollections about her life in the United States, including her work at Middlebury Russian summer school where she met Russian and American famous figures in the area of Slavic Studies, Russian émigré of the three waves, and visitors from the Soviet Union. She vividly described her meetings with Joseph Brodsky and а lecture of G. Shmakov about Soviet Ballet.

Biographical / historical:

Natalia Kamyshnikova-Pervukhina (b. 1943) is a Professor emerita at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Natalia Kamyshnikova-Pervukhina was born and raised in Moscow in a family of Soviet intelligentsia. She had lived in the Soviet Union for more than thirty-five years. She graduated from the Moscow State University in 1967 with M.A. in English literature and upon graduation worked in various capacities. Relatively early in her life she became critical of the Soviet regime and its ideology. Her family emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1979.

After immigration to the United States, Natalia Kamyshnikova-Pervukhina received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Russian from Bryn Mawr College. Her dissertation grew into a book, Anton Chekhov: the Sense and the Nonsense (Legas, 1993).

She has taught at Bryn Mawr College (1980-1986), Middlebury summer school (1982-2000), and at the University of Illinois, Urbana (1987-1994). Finally, she became Professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and taught there from 1994 through 2019.

Natalia Kamyshnikova-Pervukhina authored a book of memoirs about her life in Moscow, and numerous articles on Chekhov, Pushkin, Solzhenitsyn, S. Zayaitsky, and M.Bulgakov in which she explored the connection between the author's narrative strategy and his world-view in English, Russian, and French.

Acquisition information:
Materials were acquired by the Hoover Institution Library Archives in 2018.
Processing information:

Title changed from I͡Ulii͡a Ginzburg correspondence to Natalii͡a Kamyshnikova-Pervukhina papers in 2021 with the addition of a significant increment of materials.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged into five major series: Natalia Kamyshnikova-Pervukhina correspondence series (1964-2014), Lidiia Kamyshnikova correspondence series (1980-1995), the Eric Pervukhin file (1964-2016), Printed matter (2000-2016), and Digital materials(1980-2018).

The bulk of the collection contains correspondence; the collection was divided into series based on the primary recipient and sender of letters. Natalia Kamyshnikova-Pervukhina, her Mother Lidiia Kamyshnikova, and Natalia's husband Eric Pervukhin.

Physical location:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.

Terms of access:

For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], I͡Ulii͡a Ginzburg correspondence, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives

Location of this collection:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6003, US
Contact:
(650) 723-3563
hooverarchives@stanford.edu
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