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.
Correspondence, manuscripts, documents, photographs, subject files, printed materials, and memorabilia of historian George Vernadsky (Georgii Vladimirovich Vernadskii; 1887-1973). Most of the collection consists of his personal and professional papers, circa 1918-1973. Sizable groups of materials also concern members of his family, especially his wife Nina (1884-1971); his father, scientist Vladimir I. Vernadskii (1863-1945); his mother Nataliia E. Vernadskaia (1860-1943); and his sister Nina V. Toll' (1898-circa 1976).
Family correspondence (Nabokov, Falts Fein, Sviatopolk-Mirsky, Ariadna Tyrkova-Williams, Roman Yakobson); diaries, notesbooks, photographs, printed matters, official documents. Rare photographs of Nicholas II and his family; documents and manuscripts of Ledkovsky/Nabokov/ Falts-Fejn families.
Papers include Kagan's correspondence, photographs, printed materials and audio tapes. All letters in the collection date from 1938-39, when he had moved his Petropolis operations to Brussels; there are items by Vladislav Khodasevich, Vladimir Nabokov, and Mikhail Osorgin, and others. Among the photographs are pictures of Ivan Bunin, Konstantin Fedin, and Evgeniĭ Zami︠a︡tin. Printed materials consist chiefly of books published by his firms; some of the books are inscribed, for example by Nikolaĭ Berdi︠a︡ev and Lev Karsavin. Included is a lengthy taped interview of Kagan by Marc Raeff in which Kagan discuses his life and publishing activities.
Besides correspondence, there are a few manuscripts, and also biographical information on many of the authors. Among the correspondents are Ivan Bunin, Vladimir Nabokov, Alekseĭ Remizov, Gleb Struve, and Boris Vysheslavt︠s︡ev.
Letters addressed to Roman Grynberg, and a few to his wife, Sophie. Included are 28 letters by Vladimir Nabokov (1943-63); 29 by Edmund Wilson (1943-70); 3 by Julian Tuwim (1944-47); 10 by Georgiĭ Adamovich (1962-64); and 1 by Vera Nabokova (1962). Also included are a poem by Nabokov"Romanu i Sone ot geroi︠a︡ 'Dara;'" a corrected galley proof by Wilson for the New Yorker"Seeing Chekhov Plain;" a typescript of a poem by Marina T︠S︡vetaeva, beginning "Zerna ognennogo t︠s︡veta;" and a series of poems, by Elena [Mikhaĭlovna?] Tager, written in the Soviet Union in 1946-54.
The collection chiefly consists of Goldenweiser's American legal case files. There are also case files from his German years, and substantial materials on his research into the condition of Russian refugees and refugee problems in general in the 1930s. Much of the correspondence from the late 1930s and early 1940s concerns Jews in Germany and occupied Europe. Correspondents in the collection include Mark Aldanov, Abraham Cahan, Antal Dorati, Georgiĭ Florovskiĭ, Tatʹi︠a︡na Frank, Vladimir and Vera Nabokov, and Mikhail Karpovich; there are 1 or 2 items each from Dwight D. Eisenhower, Eleanor Roosevelt, Herbert Lehman, and Nikolaĭ Losskiĭ. Letters, manuscripts, and documents by Vera Nabokova contain considerable information on her and her husband's lives in Germany and in the United States. Many of the American case files concern (as does much of the Nabokova material) individual claims for reparations from Germany after World War II.
