Andrew T. Beltchenko, 1873 - 1958

Andrew Beltchenko was born in the village of Kozlovka, Bobrovskii uezd, Voronezhskaiia guberniia, Russia, on 29 October 1873. He graduated from St. Petersburg University with a degree in Oriental philology in 1897. Entering the Foreign Ministry, he was assigned to the Imperial Russian Legation at Peking as a student interpreter in 1899, where he witnessed the Boxer Rebellion and participated in the defense of the diplomatic quarter against the Boxers. Steadily climbing the career ladder, he was commissioned Acting Consul at Foochow in 1901, Vice-Consul at Hankow in 1902, Assistant Secretary of the Russian Legation at Peking in 1903, Consul at Niuchuang (Manchuria) in 1906, Consul at Foochow in 1910, Consul at Canton in 1912, and finally, Consul-General at Hankow in 1915.

More than a ministerial functionary, he was an avid student of China throughout his life. In 1912 he translated (into English) I. S. Brunnert's The Present Day Political Organization of China (Shanghai, 1912), and it was his intimate acquaintance with the politics and institutions of that land that saved him from the fate of other Russian diplomats when the Chinese government ceased to recognize their credentials. In 1920 he became advisor to the Chinese government in Hankow on Russian affairs (there was a small but influential Russian colony in Hankow with commercial enterprises), and from 1923 until his departure from China in 1947 he served as Portuguese Consul-General in Hankow, retaining his responsibilities for the Russian colony as well.

The primary value of the collection lies in Beltchenko's reports, diaries, scrapbooks, and collected materials on Chinese politics for this period, particularly for 1927, when Hankow became the Nationalist capital. The materials include clippings and issues of rare newspapers, such as the Hankow Herald, North China Daily News, Central China Post, and others, many of which may no longer be extant. In addition, there are significant materials on the Russian and other foreign concessions in Hankow, the Japanese occupation of that region, and Russian émigrés in Hankow and Shanghai, including correspondence, clippings, registration books, legal papers, photographs and other matter.

Following his departure from China, Beltchenko went briefly to Paris before settling in San Francisco, where he helped other Russian refugees from China as head of the Obshchestvo pomoshchi russkim na Tubabao and assisted in the work of the Museum of Russian Culture. He died in San Francisco on 1 February 1958.

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.