The Allworths and Central Asian Library Resources at Columbia and Beyond: A Note

ABSTRACT

The role of Professor Edward Allworth in building the academic study of the Soviet Union’s many ethnic minorities in general, and of the peoples and cultures of Central Asia in particular, is well-known. Perhaps less well-known is his tireless work, along with his wife Janet, in building library collections capable of supporting advanced research. This essay looks at aspects of this important activity and its impact on the holdings of the Columbia University Libraries.

KEYWORDS:

• Library resources
• Central Asia
• nationalities of the former Soviet Union

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

^1. The Allworths were married in Chicago in December of 1952.

^2. Menges, who spoke some “ … 30 Turkic, 5 Mongol, and 6 Tungusic … ” languages, was born in Germany, and conducted field work in Central Asia during the 1930s before fleeing the Nazis. On Menges, see William H. Honan, “Karl H. Menges, 91, and Expert on Central Asian Languages,” The New York Times, October 25, 1999.

^3. On Eckmann, see Edward Allworth, “The Papers of Professor János Eckmann (1905–1971) Eminent Central Asianist and Turkologist, in The New York Public Library,” Central Asiatic Journal 39, no. 1 (1995): 1–8.

^4. Following departmental protocol, the official sponsor of his dissertation was the Russianist Leon Stilman (1903–1987), even though Stilman was not involved in Central Asian studies. Stilman served as Chair of the Slavic Department from 1958–1961, had taught Russian at Columbia since 1946, and earned his PhD in 1952.

^5. Kerner served first as a professor of modern European history (1928–1941), then became Jane Sather Professor of History (1941–1954) and Director of the Institute for Slavic Studies from 1948 to 1954.

^6. See his obituary in the New York Times of October 12, 1945, 19.

^7. For a sense of the diversity of contacts made by the then-Chief of the Slavonic Division, Avrahm Yarmolinsky (1890–1975), see Robert Davis, “Something Truly Revolutionary: The Correspondence of Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky, November 1923-February, 1924,” Biblion 2, no. 1 (1993): 140–76. Yarmolinsky and NYPL’s Chief of Reference Harry Miller Lydenberg (1874–1960) were the first American librarians to visit Soviet Russia in l923/24 with the goal of buying large quantities of printed works. The contacts that they made – from Lunacharsky to Maiakovsky – enabled the NYPL to obtain a variety of materials of great intellectual and cultural value. See also Robert A. Karlowich, “Stranger in a Far Land: Report of a Bookbuying Trip by Harry Miller Lydenberg in Eastern Europe and Russia in 1923–24,” Bulletin of Research in the Humanities 87, no. 2/3 (1986–1987): 182–244; Kevin M. Kain, “Collecting the Revolutions: New Directions in Research,” Slavic & East European Information Resources 19, no. 3/4 (2018): 141–58; and, in the same issue, the present author’s “Collecting the Revolution: The New York Public Library,” 126–140. Lydenberg arrived back in New York on February 26, 1924. Yarmolinsky arrived back in New York on May 27, 1924.

^8. For a history of the acquisition and contents of this collection, see Edward A. Allworth, “The Rediscovery of Central Asia: The Region Reflected in two Collections of The New York Public Library,” Biblion 4, no. 2 (Spring 1996): 95–124, most especially 104–12.

^9. In the mid-1990s, 685 embrittled pamphlets from this collection were cataloged, microfilmed, and made available for inter-library loan via the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago. The originals have been retained by the NYPL. On this project, see Nermin Eren Preliminary List of Publications From the Former Soviet East, By Language Group in the Slavic and Baltic Division (New York: The Library, 1996–97).

^10. Rosemarie Crisostomo, “The Central Asian Collection of the Library of Congress,” typescript, 15 p., Foreign Demographic Analysis Division, Bureau of the Census, October 1980, p[1].

^11. Various bibliographical publications emerged from this project which are still vital today, for example Central Asian Publishing and the Rise of Nationalism: An Essay and a List of Publications in the New York Public Library (New York: The Library, 1965).

^12. Typescript memo, “Columbia University’s Collection of Publications in Languages of the Non-Russian Soviet Nationalities,” dated May 1984, in the “Nationalities” file, 306 Lehman Library.

^13. Nina Lenček, “Opportunities for Research: The Non-Russian Soviet Republics: `Soviet Asia’,” typescript, 6 p., (Undated, circa 1979–80), p. 3. Nina was preceded in the position of Slavic and East European Librarian by the important antiquarian bookseller (and former Imperial diplomatic functionary) Simeon A. Bolan (from 1946–1956), Karol Maichel (1956–1960, later Russian Curator at Hoover Institution Library), Dr. Svatopluk S. Souček (1960–1963), and Dr. Robert A. Karlowich (1963–1968). Following a brief period of “diarchy,” in which there were separate bibliographer positions for Russian (Gail Persky, 1968–1969, and Leonarda Wielawski, 1969–1972) on the one hand, and East Central Europe (Nina Lenček, 1968–1972) on the other, responsibilities were rejoined with Nina’s solo appointment in 1972.

^14. Typescript memo, “Soviet Asian Books to October 1969,” found in the “Nationalities” file, 306 Lehman Library. A typed note updates this memo to January 1970.

^15. Typewritten memo, “Soviet Nationalities Collection, Lehman Library, July 1986,” found in the “Nationalities” file, 306 Lehman Library.

^16. On Altay, see Jeffrey B. Lilly, Have the Mountains Fallen: Two Journeys of Loss and Redemption in the Cold War (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018), which focuses on the lives of Altay and his countryman Chingiz Aitmatov (1928–2008). On his Columbia years and work with Professor Allworth, see especially 99–102 passim.

^17. Central Asiatic Journal 39, no. 1 (1995): 1–8.

^18. Biblion; the Bulletin of the New York Public Library 4, no. 2 (1996): 95–124.

^19. As of March 2021, some 3,105 titles from his personal library have been cataloged into NYPL holdings. His archival collection, the Edward Allworth papers (https://archives.nypl.org/mss/3621), is located in their Manuscripts and Archives Division, and includes more than 29 linear feet of material. Donated in installments from 1994 to 2013 (with a posthumous supplement in 2019), The Edward Allworth papers span from 1934 to 2012, and according to the Finding Aid: “document his interest in and research on ethnic minority groups and the question of nationality in Soviet Central Asia and on the Soviet conflict in Afghanistan, as well as the drama and theater of Central Asian cultures. Populations represented in the collection are Crimean Tatars, Uzbeks, Tajiks and Bukharan Jews,” and the collection consists of “correspondence, writings, interview transcripts, research notes, citations, statistical analyses, photographs, biographical scrapbooks, printed matter, artifacts, and sound recordings of oral histories and interviews.”

Series I, Afghan Files, contains newspaper clippings and other printed matter on the Soviet conflict, and undated Arabic manuscripts, obtained by Professor Allworth from a dealer operating in the country.

Series II, Crimean Tatar Files, focuses on the Tatar experiences of deportation to Central Asia in 1944, activist movements beginning in the 1960s, and their push for the right of return to the Crimea in the 1980s. A significant amount of material was received from activist and author Reshat Djemilev, including an extensive oral history, in Russian.

Series III, Tajik Files, the smallest in the collection, consists of writings by Mordekhay Bachaev; interviews in Hebrew of members of the small ethnic and religious minority of Bukharan Jews; newspaper clippings on the resurgence of a Muslim identity in Dushanbe following the fall of the Soviet Union; and other printed matter.

Series IV, Uzbek and Supreme Soviet Project Research Files, consists of the “Uzbek Intelligentsia Project,” which looked at the integration of ethnic Uzbeks into the Uzbek Soviet and larger USSR Supreme Soviet. These materials consist of selected research files compiled on members of both Soviets, and statistical printouts analyzing Allworth’s collected data. There are also files related to Allworth’s translation work of Abdalrauf Fitrat.

Series V, Central Asian Drama and Theater Research Files, holds Allworth’s research on the theater of multiple ethnic groups in Central Asia, as well as materials for a course he taught on the subject at Columbia University.

Series VI, Miscellany, includes biographical information for Allworth; correspondence and interviews with Central Asian individuals and scholars; and research notes and writings on various topics in Central Asian history, identity, and politics.

Series VII, Sound Recordings, holds an interview and radio programming by Uzbek writer Fayz Allāh Aymāq; a recording of folk songs sung by the Uighur People’s Republic Group; and a series of interviews with Crimean Tatar activist Reshat Djemilev.

^20. An August 2010 survey of the WorldCat bibliographic utility shows Columbia holding 3,212 Kazakh, 1,288 Turkmen, and 1,648 Turkmen monographs. The Kyrgyz and Uzbek collections are second only to those of Harvard.