Nikolai Viktorovich Borzov, 1871 - 1955

N. V. Borzov was a prominent and active figure in Russian education and émigré charitable and cultural work. Born in Glazov on 26 April 1871 (O.S.), he graduated with honors from St. Petersburg University, and entered into government service in the Ministry of Education. In 1897 he was a teacher at the Tomsk girls' high school, and in 1904 he was appointed inspector of the Tomsk Commercial School. Aside from his direct duties, he also established an evening school in Tomsk and participated in the work of societies advancing education in penitentiaries as well as in villages in the Tomsk region.

Having moved to Harbin in 1905, he was for twenty years director of the Harbin Commercial schools as well as of the education department of the Chinese Eastern Railway. At the same time, he established advanced economic and legal courses in Harbin. He was also a member of the city council. Dismissed in 1925 at the demand of the Soviet government, he moved to Berkeley, California, where his children lived. But he returned to Harbin in 1929-1931 to assume the post of director of the Kharbinskoe pervoe real'noe uchilishche. Back in California, he resumed his educational work by founding Russian kindergartens and high schools in Berkeley and San Francisco.

For many years, almost till his death on 25 November 1955, he organized the annual "Day of the Russian Child" (Den' russkogo rebenka), and edited the journal of the same name in order to raise funds and awareness of the plight of Russian children abroad.

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.

Nikolai Borzov Register