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Most of the collection relates either to the role of the Cossacks in the Revolution and Civil War or to the affairs of the Russian emigre community in the Far East. The largest item is a memoir by Vladimir Nikolaevich Gaevskii, the son of landowners in Voronezh guberniia, concerning his childhood. There are two memoirs of the Cossacks' activities during the revolutionary period, one by Cheremshanskii himself, the other by I. N. Oprits. Substantial subject files are devoted to the troubled affairs of the principal administrative body of the Shanghai Russian emigre community, the Russkii Emigrantskii Komitet, in 1939-1941. Other files are devoted to Ataman Grigorii Semenov and to emigre political organizations, the Brotherhood of Russian Truth (Bratstvo Russkoi Pravdy) and Russian facists. There is a single catalogued item, a 1937 letter from Vladimir Burtsev to Cheremshanskii proposing the creation of an anti-GPU organization.

The papers consist of correspondence, a report, and subject files. Correspondence includes requests for financial aid from Russian citizens; there is a report on credit operations of the Russian government in Japan; and subject files on the Russian Red Cross in the Far East and on closing down of the Russian Embassy and consulates in China.