Rostislav Vladimirovich Polchaninov

R. V. Polchaninoff was born on 27 January 1919 in Novocherkassk, Russia, where his father served on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief of the White Army. He was evacuated with his family from Sevastopol to Constantinople (Istanbul) in November 1920, finally settling in Yugoslavia. There Polchaninoff finished his schooling and began studies in the law department of the University of Belgrade. At the same time, he was active in the scouting movement, joining the Yugoslav Boy-Scouts in 1931, and later the Russian émigré Boy-Scouts and Sokols. During the Second World War, he was one of the leaders of the Russian underground Scouting movement. At the end of the war he organized a Russian émigré Boy-Scout unit in Niedersachswerfen (near Nordhausen, Germany) just days after the U.S. army liberated the town (11 April 1945). He continued this work among both Russian and Yugoslav displaced persons throughout the immediate post-war years.

In 1951, Polchaninoff settled in the United States, where he continued his scouting work, as well as taught in parochial schools and worked for Radio Liberty (from 1967 to 1983). He also wrote articles for American and émigré newspapers and journals, and published books and bulletins, as well as textbooks for parochial schools.

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 for depositing a microfilm copy in the Hoover Institution Archives. The original materials and copyright to them (with some exceptions) are the property of the Museum of Russian Culture, San Francisco.

Rostislav Polchanivov Register