(BEILIS, MENDEL).
An extensive Russian Archive comprising ...

(BEILIS, MENDEL).
An extensive Russian Archive comprising hundreds of individual documents, autograph and typed letters and photographs, including early Marxist and other political related material.

This archive includes materials from one of the legal defenders of Mendel Beilis, Advocate D. N. Grigorovich-Barsky (1871-1958), from which this material has come down through his family.
The archive consists of approx. 800 individual pieces of paper including letters, photographs, and clippings comprising approximately 160 individual hand-written letters (totaling approximately 407 pages), approximately 70 typed pages (totaling approximately 235 pages), a mix of approximately 30 hand-written and typed letters (totaling about 75 pages), plus 66 vintage photographs, and 21 vintage newspaper clippings.
c. 1890-1950

The archive includes a good deal of material related to the “Union des Avocats Russe en France, ” correspondence written in both in Russian and French.

Also included in the archive are scores of letters addressed to Frida Abramovna, from the early 1920’s through the 1940's. Most are from the family of Leo Gregorievitch Deutsch (1855-1941) in Moscow. The political situation in Russia in the 1920's and 1930's is often discussed. “… I am glad to be still alive to witness the biggest revolution in the world: Existential, cultural, and industrial. … I don’t take any sides. What saddens me is not the fact that we can’t avoid moving toward new, but impossibility to return to the old…I think Marx and Engels would be in awe seeing what is happening in our country.” In another letter: “…Why do the Bolsheviks have to fight with the Mensheviks. Why do we have to fight against each other? …Why can’t we just live the way it is?”

MENACHEM MENDEL BEILIS (1874-1934) was a victim of a vicious blood-libel charge that brought world-wide approbrium upon the Russian system of justice after he was brought to trial falsely accused of ritual murder. Upon Beilis’s acquittal in 1913 he left Russia and moved with his family to Palestine and later, the United States.

After successfully defending Beilis, Dimitri Grigorivich Barsky (1871-1958) was called to serve as the head of Kiev’s Palace of Justice. However, he was removed from his position when the Bolsheviks seized control and eventually migrated to the United States. He died there and was buried in Chicago. See: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Григорович-Барский, _Дмитрий_Николаевич.

PROVENANCE: http://jacksons.auction/catalogs/Nov14_catalog/results.aspx (Lot 565). The Mendel Beilis portion of this archive was sold in Kestenbaum Sale 92, Lot 1. The present lot contains the rest of the archive as described in the above reference.