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Most of the collection dates from 1918-1940, and concerns the Civil War in Siberia and the emigration in China. There is a long manuscript by Golovachev on the Civil War. Other manuscripts include memoirs by F. Porotikov on Admiral Kolchak, and one by V. Russii︠a︡n, a former tsarist police official, attempting to prove that Stalin was a police agent. Photographs include an inscribed portrait of Lev Tolstoĭ. Subject files concern various Siberian and Far Eastern institutions and organizations, and deal with both the Civil War and the emigration. Printed materials include books, pamphlets, newspapers, and clippings, again mostly on Siberian or Far Eastern affairs, or on the law.

The Packer collection contains 64,000 items from the files of this American diplomat. It is complete in its representation of every aspect of his life. The papers include personal and professional correspondence, manuscripts, documents, printed materials, and Russian cartoons and illustrations, as well as original World War I posters. It also contains an array of photographs taken by Mr. Packer between 1917 and 1923, which depict scenes from the Russian Revolution and from Russian city life.

Correspondence, manuscripts, documents, subject files and printed materials. The greater part of the collection concerns the period 1917-22, with a substantial amount of material on the Humanities Fund and Bakhmeteff's friendships with prominent Americans. Cataloged materials include 50 or more letters from John Spargo, Vasilii Maklakov, Ekaterina Kuskova, Frederic Coudert, Georgii L'vov and Michael Karpovich (the last largely concerning the Humanities Fund); there are also a few items by Louis Brandeis, John Foster Dulles, Samuel Gompers, Colonel Edward House, Charles Lindbergh, and Thomas Masaryk. Extensive files of arranged materials include hundreds of letters by Arkadii Zak (who headed the Russian Information Bureau in New York, 1917-22), items to and by Sergei Uget, and official telegrams from 1917-22. There are manuscripts in the collection by Bakhmeteff, Spargo, Uget and Sergei Prokopovich. Subject files chiefly cover the Civil War period, the Paris Peace Conference, the Humanities Fund and Soviet Russia in the early 1920s. Printed materials include pamphlets, journals and clippings. There are also bound reports by different departments of the Russian embassy and mission from 1917 through the 1920s. In addition, the collection contains an oil portrait of Bakhmeteff by the artist Nicolas Becker.