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Partial Register of the Boris N. Volkov Papers, 1915-1963
36008
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Title: Boris N. Volkov Papers,
Date (inclusive): 1915-1963
Collection number: 36008
Creator:
Volkov, Boris N., 1894-1954
Collection Size:
1 manuscript box, 23 microfilm reels
3.86 linear feet)
Repository:
Hoover Institution Archives
Stanford, California 94305-6010
Abstract: Speeches and writings, correspondence, clippings, other printed matter, and photographs, relating to Russian literature, the
Russian Civil War in Siberia and Mongolia, the career of the White Russian commander Baron Ungern-Shternberg, Russian émigré
affairs, and anti-communist movements in the United States. Includes a translation by Elena Varneck and a fictionalized autobiographical
account of the Russian Civil War.
Language:
Russian and
English.
Collection open for research.
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copies of audiovisual items. To listen to sound recordings or to view videos or films during your visit, please contact the Archives
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the Hoover Institution Archives.
[Identification of item], Boris N. Volkov Papers, [Box no.], Hoover Institution
Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Archives in 1936.
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. To determine if this has occurred, find
the collection in Stanford University's online catalog at
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/ . Materials have been added to the collection if the number of boxes listed in the online catalog is larger than the number
of boxes listed in this finding aid.
Mongolia--History.
Siberia (Russia)--History--Revolution, 1917-1921.
Soviet Union.
Russia (Federation)
Soviet Union--History--Revolution, 1917-1921.
Ungern-Shternberg, Roman Fedorovich, baron, 1887-1921.
Russian literature.
Russians--United States.
Anti-communist movements--United States.
Communism.
United States--Politics and government.
Russia (Territory under White armies, 1918-1920) Armiia.
Mongolia.
Russian poet and novelist; White Russian agent in Mongolia, 1918- 1920; subsequently émigré in the United States.
| 1894 May 30 [N.S.] | Born, Ekaterinoslav, Russia |
| 1915 | Medic, Russian army |
| 1917 | Completed university course, Legal Faculty, Moscow University |
| 1918-1920 | Agent of Provisional Siberian and All-Russian governments (Omsk) in Mongolia |
| 1923 | Emigrated to United States |
| 1933 | Author, V pyli chuzhikh dorog |
| 1945 | Translator, United Nations |
| 1954 June 9 | Died, San Francisco |
This collection consists mainly of the writings of the émigré poet and writer Boris Volkov. During the First World War, Volkov
was a medic with the Russian army on its Western and Caucasian fronts. During the Civil War, he was active in the counterrevolutionary
uprising in Irkutsk in 1918, and thereafter was an agent of the Omsk government in Mongolia, where he reported on the political
and military situation, particularly with regard to the activities of Ataman G. M. Semenov and General Baron R. F. Ungern-Shternberg.
Among his writings, the most significant piece is the unpublished novel "Conscript to Paradise." The novel itself is based
in part on his own experiences and in part on the diary of his wife, nee Elena Petrovna Witte, the daughter of the Russian
Councilor to the Mongolian government, but the completed draft is significantly abridged from the original version. The original
draft is in the form of a large volume of fragments, which may include typescript fragments of Witte's diary (or Volkov's
reworked versions of it). The fragments indicate that the author had in mind a much larger autobiographical novel that would
have encompassed his adventures in Siberia, the Transbaikal region of the Far East, and Mongolia during the 1917-1921 period.
This material has been left largely in the order received.
Other elements of the collection include Volkov's poetry and smaller prose works, some also of an autobiographical nature,
as well as evidence reflecting his anti-Communist views and work in America in the 1930s-1950s. The subject file and printed
matter series contains brochures and clippings on this and other subjects.
Left unfilmed due to the general accessibility of materials are a large number of boxes containing clippings and printed matter
(in Russian and English, from periodicals such as the
San Francisco Chronicle and
Examiner,
Reader's Digest,
American Mercury,
Look, etc.) relating to diverse subjects, the most significant of which are Communism and anti-Communism in the United States
(including large amounts of materials on McCarthy, espionage trials and Communist propaganda and subversion, as well as dossiers
on various public figures representing these movements), international affairs (especially the spread of Communism), and domestic
affairs in the USSR and its satellites and in the United States. This material covers the period from the 1930s to 1953.
Detailed processing and preservation microfilming for these materials were made possible by a generous grant from the National
Endowment for the Humanities and by matching funds from the Hoover Institution and Museum of Russian Culture. The grant also
provides depositing a microfilm copy in the Hoover Institution Archives. The original materials and copyright to them (with
some exceptions) are the property of the Museum of Russian Culture, San Francisco. A transfer table indicating corresponding
box and reel numbers is available at the Hoover Institution Archives.
The Hoover Institution assumes all responsibility for notifying users that they must comply with the copyright law of the
United States (Title 17 United States Code) and Hoover Rules for the Use and Reproduction of Archival Materials.