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Title: Peter Kudrik papers
Date (inclusive): 1906-1991
Collection Number: 2017C25
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material: English and Russian
Physical Description:
1 manuscript box
(0.4 Linear Feet)
Abstract: Correspondence, diaries, other writings, reports, personal documents, and photographs relating to conditions in Poland during
World War II and to Slavic librarianship in the United States.
Creator:
Kudrik, Peter, 1914-1991
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.
Materials were acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 2017.
[Identification of item], Peter Kudrik papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Peter Kudrik was born Petr Aleksandrovich Kudrin in 1914. His family lived in Vilnius (now Lithuania, then Poland) between
the two world wars, changing their last name to Kudrik. After World War II, Kudrik lived in a displaced persons camp in Germany
before moving to the United States in 1950. He studied at the University of North Carolina, where he received his degree in
library science, following which he worked as a Slavic librarian and curator at the University of Michigan and at Stanford
University. Kudrik was Slavic curator at Stanford University Libraries in the 1970s. After retiring, he worked for a time
as manager of the local Russian newspaper
Russkaia zhizn' (San Francisco). Kudrik died in San Francisco in 1991.
Scope and Content of Collection
The papers of Peter Kudrik consist of photographs, personal documents, correspondence, and reports (in part relating to Soviet
book trade and librarianship.
The key documents in this collection are Kudrik's diaries and autobiographical writings related to his life in Poland during
the Second World War. In these he describes the onset of the war and gives details on the early days of the Nazi and Soviet
occupation of Poland from the point of view of a Russian émigré residing in the country. Particularly significant are the
detailed diary entries describing Kudrik's experience in Warsaw in 1944. These experiences formed the basis of an unpublished
autobiographical novel, drafts of which are also among the papers. All of these materials are in Russian.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Poland -- History -- Occupation, 1939-1945
World War, 1939-1945 -- Poland
Libraries -- United States