Register of the Vorontsov Family papers

Finding aid prepared by Hoover Institution Library and Archives Staff and Tess McCarthy

Hoover Institution Library and Archives

434 Galvez Mall

Stanford University

Stanford, CA 94305-6003

hoover-library-archives@stanford.edu

URL: http://www.hoover.org/library-and-archives

Title: Vorontsov family papers

Date (inclusive): 1921-1956

Collection Number: 2000C113

Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives

Language of Material: Russian

Physical Description: 7 microfilm reels (1.1 Linear Feet)

Abstract: Correspondence, financial and legal records, reports, and photographs, relating to Russian émigré forestry and stockraising business activities in Manchuria and Mongolia.

Creator: Voront͡sov family

Creator: Voront͡sov, M. M.

Access

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.

Use

For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Acquisition Information

Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 2000.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], Vorontsov Family Papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Location of Originals

Originals in: Museum of Russian Culture, San Francisco.

Biographical Note

The Vorontsov brothers were the founders and directors of a major commercial enterprise that bore their name: Firma Brat'ia Vorontsovy. They began as workers then as contractors in the building of the Chinese Eastern Railway in 1898 and quickly became monopolists in the supply of timber for the western end of the line. They acquired timber concessions in North Manchuria, and their employees soon numbered nearly 3,000. By 1925, they entered into a partnership with the Chinese Eastern Railway and the local Chinese provincial government for the supply of timber, retaining control of operations of the new enterprise (Khaiminskoe lesopromyshlennoe tovarishchestvo).

In an attempt to create close and reliable food sources for their lumberjacks, they introduced wheat farming, cattle and dairy production to regions along the western line that had not had any experience of intensive agriculture and cattle breeding. The success was such that their dairy products found markets as far away as Tsingtao, Shanghai and Dairen. Their promising sheep-breeding operations, which produced high-quality wool, were disrupted by the events of 1929. In addition to this, in 1917 they began breeding Orlov trotters, in 1924 they opened a winery and distillery, and over the 1920s and 1930s built electrical stations and saw- and flour-mills at various points. In 1929-1930, they constructed the first commercial refrigerated warehouse in Harbin.

Many Russian émigrés and countless Chinese found gainful employment thanks to the Vorontsovs' entrepreneurship, but in the mid-1950s the Chinese government nationalized all their enterprises, depriving their heirs and descendants of the fruits of the Vorontsov brothers' labors.

Scope and Content Note

This collection comprises the business records of the Vorontsov brothers, who ran forestry, mining and horse-breeding operations in Manchuria and Mongolia. The records cover the period from the 1920s to the 1950s, when the Chinese government confiscated their property. The records are supplemented by photographs of forestry and horse-breeding operations as well as of the brothers' visits to oversee these.

Detailed processing and preservation microfilming for these materials were made possible by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and by matching funds from the Hoover Institution and Museum of Russian Culture. The grant also provides depositing a microfilm copy in the Hoover Institution Library & Archives. The original materials remain in the Museum of Russian Culture, San Francisco as its property. A transfer table indicating corresponding box and reel numbers is available at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

The Hoover Institution assumes all responsibility for notifying users that they must comply with the copyright law of the United States (Title 17 United States Code) and Hoover Rules for the Use and Reproduction of Archival Materials.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

Russians -- Mongolia

Russians -- China -- Manchuria

box 1-5

BUSINESS RECORDS 1921-1956

Scope and Contents note

Clippings, contracts, correspondence, financial records, inventories, legal documents, minutes of meetings, and reports. Arranged in numerical files according to original order. Includes correspondence and financial records relating to the brothers' business ventures, primarily the Haimin Forestry Co. and other forestry concessions, documents relating to financial losses suffered during the Sino-Soviet conflict of 1929 and the Chinese government's nationalization of the brothers' business concerns in the 1950s, inventories and equipment rolls, contracts, legal and taxation records, reports by D. V. Murzaev on business conditions in Northern Mongolia and on red deer (maral) breeding.

box 1