Scope and Content Note
The papers of Peter A. Demens (1850-1919) span the years 1880-2000, with the bulk of the material dating from 1892 to 1919. The collection consists of notebooks, scrapbooks, and an addition.
The notebooks contain drafts of Demens's articles and correspondence. Tucked inside the front covers are notes written by former Library of Congress area specialist for Russia and the Soviet Union, Robert V. Allen, listing the contents of the pages and dates of each volume. Demens's articles, written mostly for the Russian journal Viestnik Evropy, were signed as P. A. Tverskoĭ. Topics include American politics and presidental campaigns, annexation of Hawaii, Cuba, Dukhobors and their immigration to Canada, treatment of Jews in Russia, the Russo-Japanese War and Bloody Sunday, Molokans in California and Hawaii, World War I, the Russian revolution, and Demens's life in Florida and California. Correspondents include Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko, Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin, kniazʹ, Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev, L. Z. Slonimskīĭ, M. Stasiulevich, A. S. Suvorin, Leo Tolstoy, and S. A. Vengerov. Of interest in the undated notebooks is a draft of "Ten Years in America: From My Personal Memories," a series of articles that appeared in Viestnik Evropy from January to May 1893.
The scrapbooks contain clippings of Demens's articles from various Russian and American newspapers and journals. The addition includes a photocopy of the scrapbook held by the St. Petersburg Museum of History, St. Petersburg, Florida, that covers a date span not represented by the other scrapbooks in the collection. The addition also contains a bibliography of works by Demens writing as P. A. Tverskoĭ and a publication from a symposium on Demens held in 2000.