The Hoover Institution Library & Archives has acquired the papers of Boris Pushkarev (1929–) who is the son of prominent Russian émigré historian Sergei Pushkarev. An émigré political activist and leader in his own right, the younger Pushkarev was at one time a member of the board of the Narodno-Trudovoi Soiuz (NTS) and the founding director of the Russian Research Foundation (1981–).
Much of this collection relates to the activities of NTS and its publication Possev during the 1980s and 1990s. At one time, NTS, founded in 1930 and headquartered in Germany after World War II, was the leading émigré anti-Soviet organization, with followers in the USSR. NTS was involved in some of the more exciting Cold War operations, including sending agents behind the Iron Curtain by parachute drop, running a clandestine radio station (before Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty), sending leaflets to the USSR by balloons, and other activities. One of its leaders, Alexander Trushnovich, was kidnapped from Berlin in 1954, while another was the object of an assassination attempt. By the late 1980s, the organization had lost some of its early momentum, but it was nevertheless felt by the Soviets to be a significant threat, particularly in disseminating censored literature, or tamizdat—books published abroad and smuggled into the USSR.
The papers of Boris Pushkarev, held at Hoover Institution Library & Archives range from 1970 to 2015, but most of the papers (correspondence, photographs) in this collection range from the 1980s to 2000s. They also relate to Narodno-Trudovoi Soiuz’s transformation from an underground subversive network to a legal entity in the Russian Federation in the 1990s. Among the significant documents in tracing the organization’s history are the audiocassette recordings of the NTS convention in 1989, which includes talks by some leading Soviet dissidents and cultural and political figures, such as Naum Korzhavin, Viktor Aksiuchits, and others. A good deal of the papers also relates to the humanitarian activities of the Russian Research Foundation in the post-Soviet Russian Federation in the 1990s.
This collection is currently undergoing preservation processing. Future access to this collection will be available in the reading room. Please contact us for information concerning access.
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