The collection consists primarily of correspondence and manuscripts. There are letters from Korneĭ Chukovskiĭ, Mikhail Karpovich, Andre Mazon, Vladimir Nabokov, and Evgeniĭ Zami︠a︡tin. There is also one item each from Sergeĭ Esenin, Pavel Mili︠u︡kov, Ivan Pavlov, and Nikolaĭ Roerich. Manuscripts include photocopies of poems by Korneĭ Chukovskiĭ, Sergeĭ Esenin, and Boris Pasternak. There are subject files on Dostoevskiĭ, Turgenev, Soviet education, and Slavic studies in the United Studies, and a photograph of Isaak Babel ́with his daughter.

Most of the collection concerns the Russian emigration in interwar Europe; a sizeable part deals with the Kadet (Constitutional Democrat) Party in the Russian Civil War. There is correspondence, manuscripts, subject files, photographs, and printed materials. There are many letters by liberal figures, such as Astrov, Viktor Chelishchev, Petr I︠U︡renev, Aleksandr Kizevetter, Pavel Mili︠u︡kov, Vladimir D. Nabokov, Vladimir Obolenskiĭ, Panina, and Ivan Petrunkevich. There are also letters from Ivan Bilibin, Alice Masaryk, and Thomas Masaryk. Manuscripts are chiefly by Astrov, and include memoirs, poems, and lectures. There are also memoirs by Panina, and eulogies by various people on Astrov. Subject files from 1917-1920 have materials on Panina's arrest and trial by the Bolsheviks, Kadet conferences, protocols of meetings of the Kadet Party central committee, and other items. Files on the emigration deal with the Russkiĭ Ochag (Russian Hearth) and other bodies, especially in Czechoslovakia. There are photographs of Astrov, Kizevetter, Nikodim Kondakov, Alice Masaryk, Panina, and others. Printed materials include books, clippings, and offprints by Astrov and others.