A. A. Kurenkov was born in Kazan' on 13 May 1891. He studied at Kazan' Military School and began military service in the fortress at Auschwitz. During the First World War he was gassed and wounded. Thereafter he specialized in defense against gas attacks, and was promoted to command the 1st Chemical Company of the XLIV Corps with the rank of captain (1917). Demobilized in 1918, Kurenkov joined an officers' unit in Shadrinsk during the anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Siberia and the Urals in summer 1918, rising to command the 27th Verkhoturskii Siberian Rifles in 1919.

Courtesy of the Museum of
Russian Culture, San Francisco
Из коллекций Музея Русской
Культуры, Сан-Франциско

Kurenkov arrived in Seattle, Washington, in February 1923, where he later abbreviated his name to Koor. Here he became involved in numerous émigré organizations, particularly those with a monarchist flavor, and he was promoted to the rank of major general by Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich in 1937. In San Francisco, where he moved in the 1950s, Kurenkov edited and published a monarchist newspaper called Vestnik pravdy (1964-1968). In 1947, he received the degree of "Doctor of Psychology" from the "College of Divine Metaphysics, Indianapolis, Indiana." Following this, he became intensely interested in ancient Russian and Slavic history, writing about and promoting the so-called "Vles-Kniga," a written work purporting to date from the 5th-6th centuries, A.D., dismissed as a forgery by all competent scholars. Much of the collection consists of his musings and collected materials on this subject.

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.

Alexandr Kurenkov Register