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Finding Aid to the P. P. Balakshin Papers, 1929-1989
BANC MSS 86/141 c
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Collection Title: P. P. Balakshin Papers,
Date (inclusive): 1929-1989
Collection Number: BANC MSS 86/141 c
Creator:
Balakshin, P. P. (Petr P.)
Extent:
Number of containers: 3 boxes
Linear feet: 1.25
Repository: The Bancroft Library
Berkeley, California 94720-6000
Physical Location: For current information on the location of these materials, please
consult the Library's online catalog.
Abstract: Includes correspondence between Balakshin and various Russian emigre and American
writers, literary critics, editors, professors, journalists, researchers, and book distributors. One
group of correspondence and related papers pertains specifically to preparation, publication, and
distribution of Balakshin's book, Final v Kitae.
Languages Represented: Collection materials are in Russian and English
Collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to The Bancroft Library. All requests for permission to publish or
quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Public Services. Permission for
publication is given on behalf of The Bancroft Library as the owner of the physical items and is not
intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the
reader.
[Identification of item], P. P. Balakshin papers, BANC MSS 86/141 c, The Bancroft Library, University
of California, Berkeley.
Purchased from Globus Bookstore, through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, for the
Russian Emigre Project, in March 1986. Additions received as a gift of Peter P. Balakshin, August
1986 and September 1989.
Autobiography of Petr P. Balakshin
I was born on October 5, 1898 in Vladivostok, in the Maritime Province of the Russian Far East. In 1916 I
graduated from high school, and a year later from the Aleksandrovsk Military College in Moscow. I am a
veteran of World War I and the Russian Civil War, serving under Admiral Kolchak in the latter.
After the collapse of the White Russian Movement, I left Russia and moved to Japan temporarily;
eventually, I settled in Shanghai, China, where I was a partner of the Shanghai Riding School, and,
later, employed by an American engineering company.
In August, 1923, I immigrated to the United States, and settled in Seattle, Washington. Four years later
I moved to San Francisco in order to enter the School of Architecture at the University of California,
Berkeley. After three years of college, serious illness and hospitalization terminated my architectural
study.
I began writing early in my life, going through the usual stages many young writers experience; I edited
a high school magazine, wrote poems, stories, and articles, some of which were published in local
newspapers. In my long literary and journalistic life, I contributed hundreds and hundreds of articles
and stories to almost all emigre publications, the most important of which were
La Pensee Russe,
Paris;
Novoye Russkoye Slovo, New York;
Sovremennik, Toronto,
Canada; and newspapers of the Far East.
In the early 1930s I organized the Guild of Russian Writers in California which brought me into contact
with numerous Russian emigre writers, poets, and journalists living in Paris, Berlin, and other centers
of emigre communities abroad.
During the same period I published and edited the Russian literary magazine
Zemlya Kolumba
("The Land of Columbus") as well as the newspaper,
Russikye Novosti ("Russian
News"). A few years later, I acquired the third oldest Russian language newspaper in the United States,
the
Russian Life, and merged it with the earlier newspaper under the title
Russian
News Life.
I am the author of nine published books in Russian and three historical monographs in English. [See
Appendix A]
Prepared for publication are the following: two plays entitled "The Troublesome Night" and "Guests from
the Soviet Ship," and a collection of short stories and articles.
In 1941, at the outbreak of war in the Pacific and World War II, I joined the Bureau of Information
Control (later named Office of Postal Censorship), in charge of Slavic language publications.
From 1946 until 1949, I was in Seoul, Korea, a civil service employee with the United States Department
of Defense; first as a member of the US USSR Joint Commission on Reunification of Korea, then as
translator and editor of Russian language documents. I served as Information Specialist with the US
Military Government of Korea, Department of Information; as a Political Analyst with Headquarters of
XXIV Corps; and finally, as Military Historian.
From May, 1949, until October 1955, I was Military Historian, Far East Command, serving in Tokyo, General
Headquarters of General MacArthur's staff. I also served as a command historian for two years after that
in Nagoya, Headquarters, 314 Air Force Division.
In 1952, after resigning the Air Force post, I joined the Psychological Warfare department in the US
Department of Defense, in Tokyo; after three years I moved to Washington, D.C.
In March, 1956, during the Hungarian Uprising, I was sent to Athens, Greece, to write about the events of
this uprising and radio broadcast the information to Soviet population. I continued radio script writing
and broadcasting to the Soviet Union from Athens until March 1960.
In September 1960, at the age of 62, I resigned from the Civil Service and became a freelance translator
of books and articles on political and technological matters from Russian, Ukranian, and Bulgarian into
English.
From 1971 to 1982, I lived in Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, and England. In 1977, I visited Moscow,
Leningrad, Riga and Tallin.
(signed Peter P. Balakshin)
August, 1986
August, 1986