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Slavic and East European Archival Collections: Personal and Family Papers

Personal and Family Papers

Portrait of Elizaveta Zhukovskaya 1852The Belevskii-Zhukovskii Collection of manuscripts, photographs, drawings, books, and printed ephemera was owned by several generations of the descendants of Vasilii Andreevich Zhukovskii (1783-1852). Zhukovskii’s daughter Aleksandra Vasilevna Zhukovskaia (1844-1899) married Grand Duke Aleksei Aleksandrovich of Russia (1850-1908). Their son Aleksei Alekseevich (1871-1932) was created a Count of the Russian Empire with the name of Belevskii-Zhukovskii by Tsar Alexander III on March 21, 1884. More than half of the material belonged to Aleksei Alekseevich’s first wife Princess Maria Petrovna Trubetskaia (1872-1954) who became the first Countess Belevskaia-Zhukovskaia.

For a description of this collection see
  • Alexander Brailovsky was a well-known figure in Russian radicalism in New York, from the 1920s to the 1940s. His collection consists of personal papers, writings, and music sheets and includes correspondence, works, and poems by Brailovsky, as well as his biography.
  • Irene Dutikow collection includes greeting cards, postcards, pamphlets, and wall calendars.
  • Dmitry and Eugenie Lehovich Collection 1906-1995 consists of manuscripts and typescripts, correspondence with people like General Denikin and his wife, Dmitry Nabokov, Andrei Sedykh, Nicholas Vakar, Viktor Varshavskii, and others, and Russian émigré periodicals. See also Lehovich Family: Personal papers.
  • Serge Lifar (1905 –1986) was a Ukrainian dancer and choreographer, and one of the greatest male ballet dancers of the 20th century. The NYPL holds Serge Lifar letters to Serge Diaghilev 1924-1928. 
  • Ernest Mandel (1885-1951), civil engineer, journalist, and editor, was active in Hungarian-American affairs in New York City. The collection consists of Mandel's correspondence, writings, and a scrapbook of newspaper clippings. 
  • Aleksander Witold Rudzinski (1900- ) was Acting Chief of the Polish delegation to the United Nations (1948-1950) and Chief of the Legal Department, Polish Consulate General in New York (1945-1950) before he resigned in protest against the Sovietization of Poland. The Aleksander and Anna Rudzinski Collection includes photographs of Rudzinski's family, correspondence, documents, and papers.
  • Albert Sonnichsen (1878-1931) was a writer, adventurer, and naval seaman who participated in some of the most significant events of his era, both locally and internationally. His time in Macedonia (1906-1907, 1927) yields correspondence, diaries, photographs, and printed material. There is a handwritten personal narrative of his work in Macedonia, complete with attached photographs, as well as numerous snapshots of Macedonian separatists, pictured with and without Sonnichsen. Postcards and memorial cards found in the collection represent people and events in the history of the Macedonian independence movement.
  • Aleksyei Grigoryevich Yevstafiev was the first Russian Consul General to the United States. His papers (1814-1852) contain photographs, family correspondence, extractions from his "Memorable Predictions..." as well as the transcript of his "The Great Republic...".