This collection is located on-site.
This collection has no restrictions.
The papers of Vasiliĭ F. Butenko (1894-1976), Russian émigré socialist and political activist, include correspondence, manuscripts, documents, photographs,and printed materials. The bulk of the collection relates to various émigré political organizations in which Butenko was involved: the Labor Peasant Party (Trudovai︠a︡ krestʹi︠a︡nskai︠a︡ partii︠a︡), the Russian Consolidated Mutual Aid Society in America (Russkoe obʺedinennoe obshchestvo vzaimopomoshchi v Amerike), the Anti-Bolshevik Struggle Coordinating Center (Koordinettsionnyi Tsentr Antibol'shevistskoi Bor'by or KTsAB), and others.
Most of Butenko's correspondents were politically-active émigrés of a similar hue. The manuscripts, with few exceptions, relate either to the Soviet Union or to the affairs of the émigré parties. Besides brief articles and letters to the editor by Butenko himself, there are articles on the Soviet economy and Soviet politics by D. N. Ivantsov and a memoir of life in German-occupied Kharkov during World War II by P. N. Sedenko. The largest manuscript is a collective Istoriia Markovskikh pokhodov devoted to the Markov unit of the White Army in which Butenko served.
Other materials include manifestos, programs, minutes, and membership lists of various parties or groups; stenographic reports of the 1952 and 1953 coordinating conferences in Germany which led to the establishment of an umbrella organization representing various émigré parties (the KTsAB); clippings, which often trace the course of some controversy in the émigré press; and issues of several party organs—notably Znamia Rossii and Partiinaia Mysl' (Trudovai︠a︡ krestʹi︠a︡nskai︠a︡ partii︠a︡).
This collection is arranged in four series.
You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.
This collection is located on-site.
This collection has no restrictions.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Vasiliĭ Fedoseevich Butenko Papers; Box and Folder (if known); Bakhmeteff Archive, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Libraries.
Roman Gulʹ papers: contains a folder of correspondence between Butenko and Gulʹ. At the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Boris I. Nicolaevsky collection: Boxes 472 and 475 include correspondence and clippings with or related to Butenko. At the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
Papers: Method of acquisition--Purchase; Date of acquisition--1961.
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Papers Accessioned 1961.
Papers Processed 06/--/81.
Materials were intellectually arranged into four series at the same time the finding aid was converted to EAD. A biographical note and related materials notes were also added. Nothing in the collection was physically rearranged.
2020-04-28 PDF finding aid converted to EAD and biographical note revised by CLB and KSD.
Vasiliĭ Fedoseevich Butenko (1894-1976) was a Russian émigré socialist political activist. He was born in the Russian Empire on July 31, 1894. He served in the Markov unit of the White Army during the Russian Civil War, then emigrated to New York at the close of the war.
Butenko, a supporter of the Socialist Revolutionary (Partii︠a︡ Sot︠s︡ialistov-Revoli︠u︡t︠s︡ionerov) Party prior to the Civil War, was active in several émigré political organizations. These included the Labor Peasant Party (Trudovai︠a︡ krestʹi︠a︡nskai︠a︡ partii︠a︡), the Russian Consolidated Mutual Aid Society in America (Russkoe obʺedinennoe obshchestvo vzaimopomoshchi v Amerike), the Anti-Bolshevik Struggle Coordinating Center (Koordinettsionnyi Tsentr Antibol'shevistskoi Bor'by or KTsAB), and the New York League of Struggle for People's Freedom (Liga Bor'by za Narodnuiu Svobodu).
At one point, Butenko lived in the office of one of these political organizations, and complained of hunger in his letters to Roman Gul'. He explained that he had turned down a job as a dishwasher because it would take too much time from his political work. In 1952 and 1953, he attended two coordinating conferences of émigré political organizations in Germany.
Butenko died in New York City in February of 1976. He is buried in St. Vladimir's Russian Orthodox Cemetery in Jackson, New Jersey.
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
All links open new windows.