Catherine Post Collection, 1900-1986

The collection consists of manuscripts, photographs, original watercolors, clippings and printed materials. The collection primarily concerns Ms. Post's family in Russia before the Revolution and in the emigration in France and the U.S.A. and to Boris Bakhmetev who was the ambassador of the Russian provisional government to the United States, later chairman of the Lyon Match company in Long Island City where Ms. Post worked for many years.

Materials relating to Boris Bakhmetev include photographs of his family in Tbilisi, photographs of the opening of the Russian embassy in Washington D.C. in 1917 and a large file of obituaries.

Memorabilia of Ms. Post's family begin chronologically with photographs of her grandfather, Nikolai Fedorovich Bekker. Bekker's daughter Vera was an accomplished amateur artist and examples of her original water colors and poems are included, along with reproductions of paintings by her husband Iosif Krachkovskii who was a popular Petersburg society painter around the turn of the century. Their son, Dmitrii Krachkovskii wrote under the pen name Klenovskii and was a popular poet in the emigration who published many books of verse, some of which are included in the collection. Also included is Klenovskii's bound manuscript entitled "Stihotvorenniia", his autograph poems, photocopies of manuscripts, photographs and clippings.

Nikolai Bekker's son Nicolas Becker (de Becquère) was a successful artist both in St. Petersburg and on the French Riviera where he painted portraits of the European aristocracy. Reproductions of his paintings are included along with manuscripts of his poems, and miscellaneous biographical information.

Materials not relating to the Bakhmetev or Bekker families include the typescript memoirs of a self-taught Russian peasant named Alekseĭ Savisko who moved to the U.S.A. in 1957 and became a farmer in Maine. The memoirs entitled "Otvet khuliteliam proshlogo Rossii" (In Answer to the Degraders of Russia) describe his family and work on farms and factories in the Ukraine before the Revolution. Savisko defends the tsarist government against its critics and praises its treatment of peasants and workers.

Miscellaneous items include a photograph of Nicholas II inspecting the Vyborg Regiment, an embroidered collar from the Obshchestvo Pooshchreniiia kustarnoi promyshlenosti (Home Craft Art Industry) in St. Petersburg, an unidentified watercolor stage design, a small collection of Russian postcards, and examples of Russian currency from the tsarist and provisional governments.