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Title: A. M. Nekrich papers
Date (inclusive): 1940-1996
Collection Number: 96051
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material:
Russian
Physical Description:
63 manuscript boxes
(26.0 Linear Feet)
Abstract: Correspondence, writings, notes, printed matter, and photocopies of Soviet, American and German government documents relating
to twentieth-century Soviet history and foreign relations, the Soviet Union during World War II, and Soviet historiography.
Creator:
Nekrich, A. M. (Aleksandr Moiseevich)
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
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.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 1996.
[Identification of item], A. M. Nekrich papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
| 1920 March 3 | Born, Baku, Azerbaijan |
| 1941 | M.A. in History, Moscow State University, USSR |
| 1942-1945 | Military service in the Soviet Army |
| 1949 | Ph.D. in History, USSR Academy of Science, Institute of History, Moscow |
| 1950-1956 | Junior Scholar, USSR Academy of Science, Institute of History, Moscow |
| 1956-1976 | Senior Scholar, USSR Academy of Sciences, Institute of History (reorganized in 1968 as the Institute of World History), Moscow |
| 1963 | Post-doctoral degree in History, USSR Academy of Sciences, Institute of History, Moscow |
| 1976 October | Immigrated to the United States |
| 1976-1987 | Senior Research Fellow, Russian Research Center of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| 1977, 1980 | Visiting Lecturer, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts |
| 1980-1981 | Visiting Professor, Tübingen University, Federal Republic of Germany |
| 1981 | Visiting Scholar, Australian National University, Canberra |
| 1982-1986 | Editor-in-Chief, Obozrenie Magazine (Paris) |
| 1983 | Fellow, Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan |
| 1993 September 2 | Died, Cambridge, Massachusetts |
This collection consists of the papers of Professor Aleksandr Moiseevich Nekrich and covers mainly the period after he immigrated
to the United States in 1976. It includes correspondence, writings, printed matter, and photocopies of Soviet, American, and
German government documents relating to twentieth-century Soviet history and foreign relations, the Soviet Union during World
War II, and Soviet historiography.
Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, Nekrich graduated from Moscow State University and earned a Ph.D. at Moscow's Institute of History
of the Academy of Sciences, where he also received a post-doctoral degree. From 1956 until 1976, he held the title of senior
scholar at the institute.
In 1965, he published his famous book
June 22, 1941, an account of Stalin's pre-war record, which also got translated in the West. The official Soviet view was that he had been
a steady military commander of great wisdom. Stalin's crimes had been revealed years before by Nikita S. Khrushchev, but Dr.
Nekrich's documentation of Stalin's blunders and Soviet unpreparedness for the German invasion of 1941 struck a raw nerve
in Moscow, and he was expelled from the Communist Party in 1967. His freedom to write and work was then curtailed by the academic
establishment, which was subservient to the Party's ideology. Finally, in 1976, Dr. Nekrich was allowed to leave the Soviet
Union; he emigrated to the United States, where he joined the Harvard faculty as a research fellow, attaining the rank of
senior fellow in 1987.
After he left the Soviet Union, more of Dr. Nekrich's books appeared on both sides of the Atlantic. They include
The Punished Peoples, on Stalin's banishment of whole nationalities; Dr. Nekrich himself witnessed deportations in the Crimea, and his book traced
the fates of those ethnic groups. (See also the entry for Crimean Tatars in the SUBJECT FILE.) Later, with Michael Geller,
he wrote
Utopia in Power, a widely acclaimed history of the Soviet Union. Fluent in German, he also completed a study of Soviet-German relations between
the wars (see "Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German-Soviet Relations, 1922-1941," in the speeches and writings file).
His papers are arranged into eleven series. The largest series contains his speeches and writings, including holograph and
typescript drafts of the books mentioned above. Also of interest is the material related to his work as editor of the
Obozrenie Magazine from 1982 to 1986. The series contains a full run of the magazine, which gives a general picture of life in the
Soviet Union (each issue was devoted to a specific aspect of Soviet society).
The biographical file is noteworthy because it documents the difficulties Nekrich had in obtaining legal permanent residence
in the United States, and helps the researcher understand his personality, character, values, and beliefs. It also contains
letters he wrote his family when serving on the Russian front during World War II, which complement his memoirs about the
war found in the speeches and writings series.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
World War, 1939-1945 -- Soviet Union
Soviet Union -- History
Soviet Union -- Foreign relations
Soviet Union -- Historiography