Collections : [Rare Book & Manuscript Library]

The collection consists primarily of Gasler's 26-part manuscript memoirs (ca. 1,350 p.), which discuss his family, his military career, World War I, the emigration in France, and interwar Latvia. The collection also includes Gasler's service record and passport, several postcards, and several clippings.

The memoirs of Smugge, nʹee Gori︠a︡chkina, which cover the 1880-1955 period, begin with a vivid description of her early life in Irkut︠s︡k. She then chronicles the years she lived and studied in Geneva and Paris before returning to Siberia and thence moving to Harbin, Port Arthur and, in 1902, to Vladivostok. The next section of the manuscript deals with her marriage to Evgeniĭ M. Smugge, a railroad engineer, and their life and work in Turkestan (1907-1910) and Odessa (1910-1911 and 1916-1920). The memoirs then turn to the Civil War period and the Smugges' evacuation via Constantinople to Yugoslavia where they lived until 1925. Following a description of the 1926-1944 period, when the Smugges lived in Riga, the memoirs end with the evacuation to Germany and their life there. A few revised sections are appended to the very end of the manuscript. The memoirs are in 5 notebooks and total ca. 250 pages.

The collection includes correspondence from Konstantin Balḿont, Nikolaĭ Evreĭnov, Zinaida Gippius, Georgiĭ Grebenshchikov, Vasiliĭ Maklakov, Sergeĭ Potresov and Nadezhda Teffi. There is one letter each from Boris Bakhmeteff, Vera Bunina, Aleksandr Grechaninov, Aleksandr Kuprin and Alekseĭ Tolstoĭ. The manuscripts include poems and a play scenario by Nadezhda Teffi as well as Roshchina-Insarova's autobiographical essays and article about Sergeĭ Lifar.́ In addition, there are three scrapbooks containing clippings and programs of Roshchina-Insarova's performances, and approximately 40 photographs of her.

Petr Pilśkiĭ's manuscripts include articles which are primarily essays on individual Russian writers of the late 19th and early 20th century, such as Belyĭ, Belinskiĭ, Bunin, Chekhov, Saltykov-Shchedrin etc. These manuscripts, most likely prepared initially to serve as introductions to publications of single or collected works, are typed carbons, apparently copied considerably later. The manuscripts of E.S. Pilśkai︠a︡ are chiefly memoirs, including recollections about her studies at the Imperial Theater School (Imperatorskoe Teatralńoe Uchilishche) in St. Petersburg, theater life in Russia, her stay in Odessa and Kiev during 1918-1919 and about the Soviet takeover of Latvia in 1940. Included in the collection are several articles about Pilśkiĭ by his wife and by A. Kuprin and A. Amfiteatrov.