Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- A. M. Nekrich papers
- Dates:
- 1940-1996
- Creators:
- Nekrich, A. M. (Aleksandr Moiseevich)
- 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.
- Extent:
- 63 manuscript boxes (26.0 Linear Feet)
- Language:
- Russian
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], A. M. Nekrich papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
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.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Date Event 1920 March 3 Born, Baku, Azerbaijan1941 M.A. in History, Moscow State University, USSR1942-1945 Military service in the Soviet Army1949 Ph.D. in History, USSR Academy of Science, Institute of History, Moscow1950-1956 Junior Scholar, USSR Academy of Science, Institute of History, Moscow1956-1976 Senior Scholar, USSR Academy of Sciences, Institute of History (reorganized in 1968 as the Institute of World History), Moscow1963 Post-doctoral degree in History, USSR Academy of Sciences, Institute of History, Moscow1976 October Immigrated to the United States1976-1987 Senior Research Fellow, Russian Research Center of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts1977, 1980 Visiting Lecturer, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts1980-1981 Visiting Professor, Tübingen University, Federal Republic of Germany1981 Visiting Scholar, Australian National University, Canberra1982-1986 Editor-in-Chief, Obozrenie Magazine (Paris)1983 Fellow, Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan1993 September 2 Died, Cambridge, Massachusetts - Acquisition information:
- Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library Archives in 1996.
- Physical location:
- Hoover Institution Library & Archives
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
About this collection guide
- Date Encoded:
- This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-11-01 16:26:20.522027
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
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.
- Terms of access:
-
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], A. M. Nekrich papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
- Location of this collection:
-
Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford UniversityStanford, CA 94305-6003, US
- Contact:
- (650) 723-3563