IOWA WOMEN'S ARCHIVES - Helene Scriabine Papers

IOWA WOMEN’S ARCHIVES

UNIVERSITY OF IOWA LIBRARIES

IOWA CITY, IOWA

TITLE:»HELENE SCRIABINE (1906-1996)

SUBTITLE:»

»PAPERS, DATES:»1937-1996

»(bulk 1960-1993)

QUANTITY:»1.75 linear feet

and audiovisual material

ACQUISITION:	The »papers (donor no. 231) were donated by »Helene Scriabine in 1994 and succeeding years
ACCESS:	The »papers are open for research.
AUDIOVISUAL:	»One audiocassette shelved in the audiocassette collection [AC252] and two videocassettes shelved in the videocassette collection [V37, V38].
COPYRIGHT:	»Copyright has been transferred to the University of Iowa.
PHOTOGRAPHS:	In box »4.
PROCESSED BY:	Your name, year»Natalie S. Brody, 1995.

»Biography

Begin text here:»Helene Scriabine (Elena Skrjabina), author and Professor Emerita of Russian at the University of Iowa, was born on February 13, 1906 in Nizhny Novrgorod (Gorky), Russia. She grew up in St. Petersburg, where her father was a member of the last Russian parliament before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Scriabine studied comparative literature at the University of Leningrad. In 1925 she married Sergey Scriabine, an engineer, and a relative of the composer, Alexander Scriabin. Their two sons were Alexander (Sasha) (1926- ) and George (Yuri) (1936-1963).

After the Germans invaded Russia in June 1941, and Sergey Scriabine was drafted into the Red Army, Helene Scriabine, her sons and mother remained in besieged Leningrad until they were evacuated in February l942. During the perilous three-month journey to Pyatigorsk in the Caucasus Mountains, Scriabine's mother died and her son Sasha suffered a severe illness. The family remained in Pyatigorsk for only five months. The Germans occupied the city in August 1942, and early in 1943 when the Red Army threatened the lives of all Russian males between the ages of sixteen and fifty-five, the Scriabines, with many other Russians, escaped. They arrived at their ultimate destination, Bendorf, near Koblenz in the Rhineland, in December 1943, where they lived in a labor camp and Helene Scriabine worked at the Konkordia munitions plants until the Allies liberated the city on March 25, 1945. Helene and Sergey Scriabine each believed the other had perished during the war. Sergey remarried and died in 1946.

As inhabitants of the French zone, Helene Scriabine and her two sons escaped repatriation and remained in Germany until they obtained documents to immigrate to the United States. In May 1950 she and Yuri arrived in New York. Sasha, recently married, remained in Germany to pursue his medical education. After more than a year as a maid in a Croton Heights (New York) hotel, Scriabine was invited to teach at the Air Force

Russian Language Training Program at Syracuse University. After two years as a deputy chief instructor, she entered a doctoral program in comparative literature at Syracuse and received her Ph.D. in 1962. In 1960, she began her academic career at the University of Iowa, where she remained until her retirement in 1974. She taught also in summer sessions at Columbia University, Middlebury College, the University of Portland, and the Institute of Soviet Study, Munich. In 1978 Scriabine received an honorary degree from Grinnell College.

Helene Scriabine has published numerous books. She is best known for her three wartime diaries and a memoir. The diaries are Siege and Survival: The Odyssey of a Leningrader (1971), an account of the Leningrad siege and her flight to Pyatigorsk; After Leningrad: From the Caucasus to the Rhine (1978), about life in Pyatigorsk, her escape to Bendorf, and the time there until the Allied evacuation in 1945; and The Allies on the Rhine, 1945-1950 (1980). The memoir, Coming of Age in the Russian Revolution: The Soviet Union at War (1985) recounts her life from childhood in prerevolutionary Russia to the tragic death of

her son Yuri in 1963 during an earthquake in Skopje, Yugoslavia. Scriabine has also edited books of Russian grammar and literature.

Russian-language editions based on materials from her diaries and her memoir include Siege and Survival, published in France (1975) and entitled Years of Wandering; Coming of Age in the Russian Revolution (It Happened in Russia) published in the United States (1980); and Pages of Life, published in Russia in 1994.

Helene Scriabine died in Iowa City on October 22, 1996.

Scope and Content Note

Begin text here:» The Helene Scriabine papers date from »1937 to 1993 and measure »1.75 linear feet. The »papers »are arranged in »six series: »Biographical information, Book reviews and publicity, Correspondence, Diaries, Manuscripts, and Photographs and visual materials. The papers date almost entirely from the period since the 1960s, after she moved to Iowa City to teach at the University and during which time her books were published.

The Biographical information series (1940-1996) includes documents, passports, university records, biographies of Scriabine, and interviews focusing on her life and her publications. Information about her honorary degree from Grinnell College, as well as memorabilia, guest books, a 1980 diary of a trip to the western United States, and two books about the Skopje earthquake in 1963, in which her son Yuri died, complete the series.

Reviews and newspaper articles about Scriabine's diaries and memoirs comprise the Book reviews and publicity series (1963-1980). The series includes the German media coverage of Leningrader Tagebuch (1972), a one-volume German publication of Siege and Survival and After Leningrad; and of Les Faux Dieux (1963), Scriabine's doctoral dissertation, based on literature of the Russian and French authors Mikhail Zoshchenko and Marcel Ayme.

The Correspondence series (1951-1993) includes a chronological arrangement of letters from friends and colleagues as well as more extensive materials from the following correspondents: Almanac Press (1979-1982), which published Scriabine's Russian-language works in the United States; Marcel Ayme (1957-1967), the French author and subject of her doctoral dissertation; Dr. Karl Miltner (1974-1989), a German government official; Barry Morrow (1982-1983), film director and friend who has been interested in producing a TV film about Scriabine's wartime experience; Harrison Salisbury, who

wrote the introduction to three of Scriabine's books and is the author of The 900 Days: the Siege of Leningrad in which he used Scriabine's eyewitness account; and Albert Speer

(1977-1981), Hitler's munitions director, to whom Scriabine wrote after reading his book, Spandau, and subsequently visited in Germany.

Scriabine's recent Diaries cover the years 1984-1991 and are in Russian.

The Manuscripts series (1987-1988) includes typescripts in French, German, Russian, and English of a short story, "Five Encounters," and drafts of sections of Scriabine's books.

The Photographs and visual materials series (1920s-1995) includes pictures of Scriabine's family and friends, many snapshots from receptions and publishers' parties honoring Scriabine, and posters of the Leningrad blockade.

Siege and Survival: The Odyssey of a Leningrader; After Leningrad: A Diary of Survival (paperback); The Allies on the Rhine; and Coming of Age in the Russian Revolution (paperback) are shelved in the printed works collection, along with Russian-language paperback editions of Siege and Survival; Coming of Age in the Russian Revolution; the short story, "Five Encounters;" and the 1994 Russian publication of Pages of Life.

Begin text here:»Box no. Description

Box 1

»Biographical information

Documents, 1940-1980 (scattered)

Grinnell degree, 1987

Interviews

Audiocassette [shelved in audiocassette collection: AC252]

"Leningrad - A Survivor's Tale," November 1986, Stanley Foundation, 30 minutes

Videocassettes [shelved in videocassette collection: V37-V38]

Speech, 1986 (VHS, 30 minutes)

Scriabine and Russian journalist in Leningrad, 1990 (VHS, 10 minutes)

Memorabilia

General, 1945-1992

Guest books, 1974, 1978, 1991

Travel diary, western United States, 1980 [in Russian]

Newspaper clippings, 1970s,1980s, 1996

Obituary, 1996

Skopje

Skopje, 1963

Box 2

Victims of Skopje (1963)

Book reviews and publicity

After Leningrad, 1978-1979

Allies on the Rhine, 1980

Leningrader Tagebuch, 1971-1973 [in German]

Newspaper clippings, 1971-1973

Reviews, 1972, 1973

Radio programs, 1972, 1973

Les Faux Dieux, 1963

Siege and Survival, 1971

Correspondence

1951, 1953, 1960-1979

1980-1989

1990-1993 and undated [in Russian]

Box 3

Almanac Press, 1979-1982 [in Russian]

Ayme, Marcel, 1957-1967 [in French]

Miltner, Karl, 1974-1989 [in German]

Morrow, Barry, 1982-1983

Salisbury, Harrison, 1966, 1974, 1979

Speer, Albert, 1977-1981 [in German]

Diaries [in Russian] [on loan to the donor]

1984-1985

1986-1987

1987-1988

1988-1989

1989-1990

1991

Manuscripts

"Five Encounters," 1987, 1988

English

German ["Funf Begegnungen mit Marina"]

Russian

French ["Jeune fille sur les bords de la Neva"]

Box 4

Book drafts [in Russian]

Allies on the Rhine

Coming of Age

Siege and Survival

1950-1987

Photographs and visual materials, 1920s-1995

Publishers' parties, 1971, 1972, 1974

Scriabine with family and friends, 1970s, 1980s, 1995 and undated

Scriabine, 1950s to 1990s and undated

Leningrad blockade posters, 1941-1944 [shelved in map case]

Painting of vase of flowers, undated [shelved in map case]