Columbia University, Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Library.columbia.edu/locations/rbml.html

6th Floor East Butler Library
535 West 114th St.
New York, NY 10027                    

 

Phone:  (212) 854-5590
Fax:    (212) 854-1365
Email:

Contact: Tanya Chebotarev, Curator of the Bakhmeteff Archive

 

About the institution:

The Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) is Columbia’s principal repository for primary source collections.  The range of collections in RBML span more than 4,000 years and comprise rare printed works, cylinder seals, cuneiform tablets, papyri, and Coptic ostraca; medieval and renaissance manuscripts; as well as art and realia.  Some 500,000 printed books and 14 miles of manuscripts, personal papers, and records form the core of the RBML holdings.  One can find literary manuscripts from the 14th century to the papers of authors Herman Wouk and Erica Jong.  Archives as varied as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Random House, NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International-USA, and the archives of Columbia University are available for research.  The history of printing, graphic arts, and the performing arts as well as an extensive collection of Russian and East European émigré materials are strengths of RBML.

 


Holdings related to RFE/RL:

Radio Liberty project : oral history, 1965
In anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, Radio Liberty and the Institute for the Study of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics in Munich collected memoirs of participants in the events of 1917. The material presents a broad political, social, economic and cultural panorama of Russia at that time.

 

Jurij Lawrynenko Papers, 1880s-1980s
A key figure in the cultural, literary, political, and social life of the Ukrainian community, he was a fellow of UVAN (the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the United States of America). He was a member of DOBRUS (the Democratic Union of Ukrainians Formerly Persecuted by the Soviet Government) and of MUR (the Ukrainian Art Movement). He was a co-founder and active member of Slovo (in English, "the Word") an organization of Ukrainian writers in exile. He was editor of the Ukrains'ki Visti (Ukrainian News) and, from 1959 to [1966?], of the Ukrainian broadcasts of Radio Liberty.

 

Charles Malamuth Papers, ca. 1910-1965
Papers consist of correspondence, manuscripts, documents, photographs, subject files, and printed materials. Malamuth translated such works as Trotsky's "Stalin" and Valentin Kataev's "Kvadratura kruga." After World War II, he worked successively for the American Joint Distribution Committee in Europe and the Middle East, the Voice of America, and Radio Liberty. Subject files deal with the publication of Trotsky's "Stalin," the American Joint Distribution Committee, the Voice of America, and Radio Liberty.

 

Lewis Galantière papers, 1920-1977
Translator of French literature, playwright, journalist. Galantiere (1893-1977) worked for the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris from 1920 to 1927, and came to know many French writers and American expatriates. He also worked with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Office of War Information, and Radio Free Europe. He was president of the American branch of P.E.N., 1965-1967.

 

Imre Kovacs Papers, 1945-1980
Hungarian writer and statesman; member of the Hungarian Parliament 1945-1947, Secretary General of the Hungarian National Peasant Party, staff member of the National Committee for a Free Europe in the 1950's and President of the International Center for Social Research from 1962-1963. There are also files on the Free Europe Press and the Free Europe Committee

 

Veĭdle, V. (Vladimir Vasilévich) Papers, 1875-1980
Writer and scholar. Manuscripts include articles, lectures, stories, poems, and many broadcasts which he made for Radio Liberty

 

Angelika Balabanova Sound Tapes, 1958
Magnetic sound tapes of interviews with Angelika Balabanoff. The tapes were made in 1958, apparently for Radio Liberty.

 

Konstantin Feodos'evich Shteppa Papers, ca. 1945-1959
Shteppa (or Shtepa; he also wrote under a variety of pseudonyms) was a professor of Medieval History and Byzantine Studies at the University of Kiev in the 1930s, and was later appointed Rector there. He left the Soviet Union during World War II. Nearly all the manuscripts in the collection deal with 20th century Russian and Soviet politics. These include a transcript of a Radio Liberty interview with Shteppa in 1953.

 

Mikhail Mikhailovich Novikov Papers, ca. 1925-1961
Professor of biology and rector of Moscow University who emigrated to the United States. Subject files deal in part with the celebration in the West of the Bicentennial of Moscow University, Radio Liberty broadcasts and UNRRA University in Munich. Printed materials include copies of publications by Novikov.

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