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Title: Nikolaĭ D. Zarin papers
Dates: 1900-1953
Collection Number: 2011C24
Creator: Zarin, Nikolaĭ D., d. 1918
Collection Size:
1 manuscript box, 1 oversize box
(1.3 linear feet)
Repository:
Hoover Institution Archives
Stanford, California 94305-6010
Abstract: Diaries, certificates, photographs, and memorabilia, relating to Russian military operations during World War I. Includes
English translation of diaries.
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Archives
Languages:
Russian
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[Identification of item], Nikolaĭ D. Zarin papers, [Box number], Hoover Institution Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Archives in 2011.
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 Socrates at
http://library.stanford.edu/webcat . Materials have been added to the collection if the number of boxes listed in Socrates is larger than the number of boxes
listed in this finding aid.
Major general, Russian imperial army; commanding general, 47th Division.
Zarin began the First World War as commander of the 10th Ostrovsky Regiment, based in Vitebsk. Zarin did not see the worst
of the dissolution of the Russian Army in 1917 because the effects of an earlier contusion had forced him to seek medical
treatment. In March of that year, after two months in command of the 47th Infantry Division, he left the army. During the
Russian civil war, Zarin joined the White (anti-Bolshevik) movement in Siberia. He was caught by the Bolsheviks and murdered
in June 1918. His widow, Eugenie, immigrated to the United States, settling in San Francisco, where she died in February 1979.
Scope and Content of Collection
The papers consist of nine volumes of a handwritten diary of Zarin's experiences in the First World War, two drafts of the
diary typed in English, twenty photographic prints (mainly of Zarin and his wife), four negatives, a military order dated
30 December 1916, an educational honors certificate (pokhvalnyi list) issued to Evgeniia Zubatova (Zarin) on 8 June 1902,
and a military cap.
The diary begins with the first day of mobilization and describes preparations for entrainment for the front. Zarin describes
the first battles in East Prussia, examining reasons for the defeats based on his own experience (Zarin's regiment was part
of Gen. P. K. Rennenkampf's 1st Army). The first part of the diary concludes in January 1915, when the army corps was transferred
to the southwestern front (Galicia and the Carpathians). The retreat of 1915 is described in great detail, as are the following
triumphs of 1916. Much of the rest of the diary describes the situation in Petrograd and at his estate in Klemshino (southwest
of Petrograd) in 1917. The final entry, dated 25 January 1918, describes how the author and his family abandoned their estate,
feeling evermore threatened by the excesses of the surrounding peasants.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
World War, 1914-1918--Campaigns--Eastern Front.
World War, 1914-1918--Russia.
Russia. Armiia--Officers.