Evgeniia Sergeevna Isaenko, 1899 - 1969

E. S. Isaenko was born Evgeniia Pechatkina in Askhabad on 16 December 1899, the daughter of General Sergei Pechatkin. Living in Harbin following the Revolution, she was among the first Russian students to depart for the United States in the early 1920s, where she continued her education at Pomona College. For personal reasons, she left college and went to San Francisco, making her living performing menial labor as a packer in a factory, dishwasher, seamstress, etc. Meanwhile, she devoted her free time to Russian social life, actively participating in musical, theatrical and literary presentations. She directed and acted in plays, and wrote articles, reviews, short stories and two books, Perekati-Pole (published in 1953) and Petr Ivanovich (1961).

Though she married Aleksei Leonidovich Isaenko and assumed his last name, she continued to publish under her maiden name. Her husband was also active in the San Francisco Russian community as librarian of the Russian Club and Russian Center. He was born in Orenburg in 1894, the son of Major General Leonid Isaenko. Receiving a degree in law from Moscow University in 1917, he joined the White Army in Siberia during the Civil War. He arrived in America in 1923, and met Evgeniia Sergeevna through their common interest in theatrical and social activities. He died in 1957; Evgeniia Sergeevna Isaenko died in Burlingame, California, in July 1969.

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.

Evgeniia Isaenko Register