News Release

UNC to digitize Russian emigration resource,
with support from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

CHAPEL HILL -- Soon, a treasure trove of materials relating to the experience of Russian émigrés in the 20^th century – and housed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – will be available to researchers worldwide. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded Carolina $363,000 to digitize records from the collection.

"These notes are incredibly important works of original scholarship," said Nadia Zilper, curator of the University Libraries’ Slavic and East European Collections and the Andre Savine Collection. "They are full of information that has never been published about individuals, organizations, events and publications of the worldwide Russian émigré experience after the 1917 revolution."

Scholars will be able to search and cross-reference names, organizations, publishing houses, geographical locations, occupational titles and other essential data.

The records came to Carolina in 2002, when the University Libraries used a gift from Van and Kay Weatherspoon of Charlotte to purchase the collection of the late Andre Saviné, a Parisian book dealer and son of Russian emigrants. In the wake of the 1917 revolution, Russians dispersed across the globe in waves of migration that continued through the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Savine devoted himself for more than 30 years to documenting this Russian diaspora.

The collection’s influence is enormous, said Dr. Beth Holmgren, chair of Carolina’s department of Slavic languages and literatures, within the College of Arts and Sciences. Rare editions, archives and published and private journals provide a vivid record of people’s lives as they struggled to retain their culture and maintain their ties to Russia during the Communist era, she said.

"The Savine Collection represents an enormously rich resource reflective of the experience, sensibility and creativity of this post-revolutionary Russian emigration," Holmgren said. "I can’t wait to make use of its bounty as a scholar and a teacher."
Savine’s own annotations, maintained in 21,500 index cards and notebook pages, provide the key for understanding and mining the collection. The Mellon foundation funds will enable the library to digitize these documents and create the first module of an expandable database of materials from the collection.

Zilper said she sees the project opening up research within Slavic studies, especially in the history of the Russian diaspora, the Russian White Army and Russian literature and culture in exile. Such research has been difficult or impossible because the rare materials dating from the aftermath of the revolution have been fragmented and scattered worldwide.

The interest of researchers is already quite high. Zilper recently returned from the Congress of the International Council for Central and East European Studies, a gathering of the world’s leading scholars in the field. Not only did she observe an upswing of interest in the study of Russian emigration generally, but she found that her supply of promotional materials about the Savine Collection was exhausted almost immediately.

In acquiring the Savine Collection and making portions of it available globally, the University Libraries "is in a position to catalyze international research and understanding about one of the great currents in 20^th-century political and social history," said Sarah Michalak, university librarian and associate provost for the University Libraries.

"This grant capitalizes on the expertise built in the library through other projects and will allow us to fulfill our deep responsibility to unlock for scholars everywhere the potential of the collection entrusted to us."

Full digitizing and indexing of Savine’s index cards and notebook pages is scheduled to be completed by 2007. The library expects projects on cataloging and digitizing other portions of the collection to follow.

The University Libraries represents one of the leading research libraries in North America. Its holdings include more than 5.6 million volumes, 21 million manuscript items and 50,000 serial subscriptions.

The Mellon foundation’s award counts toward the university’s Carolina First campaign goal of $1.8 billion. Carolina First is a comprehensive, multi-year, private fund-raising campaign to support Carolina’s vision of becoming the nation’s leading public university.

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Note: Contact Zilper at (919) 962-3740.

Related link:
Savine Collection comes to UNC: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/apr03/russiancoll040303.html

UNC News Services contact: Deb Saine, (919) 962-8415 or deborah_saine@unc.edu