Troussoff Collection (1910-1977)
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Archives and Special Collections Dickinson College Carlisle, PA COLLECTION REGISTER Name: Troussoff Collection (1910-1977) Material: Letters Postcards, Personal papers, Photographs, Artifacts (1910-1977) Volume: (12 Document Boxes, 5 artifact boxes, 12 oversized folders) Donation: Gail Troussoff Marks Usage: These materials have been donated without restrictions on usage. Biographical Information The letters and postcards chronicle the lives of three siblings from the Troussoff family. They are the children of Vasilly Troussoff and his wife Aleksandra (née Afonina) Troussoff (1863- 1944) of Moscow, Russia. Altogether the two had five children: Vasilly Vasil’evich (Basil) Troussoff (1887-1979), Evgenia Vasil’evna (Eugenia) Galtsoff (1883-1978), Victor Vasil’evich Troussoff (d.1964), Elena Vasil’evna Dianova (1890-?) and Sergei Vasil’evich Troussoff (1894- ?). [Василий Васильевич Трусов, Евгения Васильевна Гальцов (Трусовa), Виктор Васильевич Трусов, Елена Васильевна Дианова (Трусовa), Сергей Васильевич Трусов] Beginning with Basil, three of the five siblings found themselves living in the United States by the end of their lives. Basil came to the United States with his wife Helen (Lena) Troussoff (Елена Трусов) in 1915 as a munitions inspector for the Russian Army in New York City. After two years the Troussoffs prepared to return home, shipping all of their belongings back to Moscow. However, when news of the turmoil mounting in the Russian Empire reached them in 1917, they decided to stay. Basil worked for the Russian Army in New York at least through 1918 in some capacity related to procurement of railroad cars built to the gauge needed in Russia and then became a night watchman in a New York Harbor. Basil who was trained in engineering and art turned to his art interests in 1920. Basil went to Joseph Urban’s scenic design studio to inquire about work and was hired on a trial basis. By the end of the first day Urban hired Basil on the basis of his expertise in perspective. A majority of the postcards are addressed to “The Artist Troussoff” no doubt in recognition of his passion for art. Joseph Urban’s studio created scenic designs for the Ziegfield Follies, Broadway shows, as well as decorative art for restaurants, hotels and private mansions. Joseph Urban was also an architect. Buildings remaining that were designed by Urban are a house for E.F. Hutton and Marjorie Merriweather Post, “Mar-a-Lago”in Palm Beach, Florida and the New School for Social Research in NYC. I suspect that Basil Troussoff must have worked for Urban on some Palm Beach project and his trip to Cuba was either related to work or for pleasure when in Florida working for Urban. After Urban’s early death in 1933 Basil Troussoff and the other Urban artists formed another studio, perhaps United Scenic Design. Basil continued to work in scenic design the rest of his life while also trying his hand at World’s Fair exhibit production and mural painting in restaurants. (this sentence in the original is not incorrect but I said most of it above: He worked in the New York theatres, painting sets and drawings for shows and theatres.) The letters reference a couple of Basil’s paintings that the Pushkin Museum of Fine Art in Moscow had accepted for exhibit and one was purchased. Basil and Helen Troussoff had two children together: Natalie (Natasha) Troussoff and George Basil Troussoff. The latter married Ruth Van Winkle Troussoff with whom he raised Gail Troussoff Marks ’73, who donated the Troussoff collection. The oldest of the five, Eugenia Galtsoff came to the United States with her husband Paul Simon Galtsoff (Павел Симонович Гальцов) escaping likely Bolshevik persecution. The two were married in a Russian Orthodox service in Moscow on November 5, 1911. In 1914 they moved to Sevastopol so, that Paul, a marine biologist, could direct the Biological Station there—a branch of the Imperial Academy of Science. At the breakout of the World War I in 1914 Paul joined the Imperial Russian Army and continued on when the Army became the White Guard during the Civil War. In April of 1920, when it had become clear the tsarists had lost the war, Paul quickly arranged to transport his wife and himself—first to Constantinople, then to the United States. Having had extensive experience in Russia in zoology, Paul found a position with the United States Bureau of Fisheries in 1921. The two of them pursued degrees in the time following— Eugenia graduating from George Washington University in 1924 with the goal to help her husband’s work and Paul graduating from Columbia in 1925 with a PhD. In his career at the Bureau of Fisheries in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, Paul wrote more than one hundred papers on oysters and published the monograph The American Oyster in 1964. He retired in 1957 and lived with Eugenia in Woods Hole. The letters chronicle a number of health conditions afflicting both Eugenia and Paul. Eugenia suffered from breast cancer and underwent successful surgery in 1964. Elena Dianova, born 7 February, 1890, serves as the common bond between the majority of letters and postcards in the Troussoff collection. She was the wife of composer Anton Dianov, whose music students she often mentions and who was interred in Novodevichy Cemetery upon his death from cancer in 1939. Elena Dianova was trained as a microbiologist in bacteriology. She was affiliated with the Petrovskii Academy of agricultural sciences in Moscow, though it is not known for certain in what capacity and for how long. Additionally, she worked at the Timiryazev Russian State Agrarian University, also referred to as the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy, for twelve years. She references published papers in the letters, writing on ones she sent to Paul and asking if he’d like to receive others. She mentions two— “Bacterial Profile of Sea and Lake Precipitation as an Indicator of their Erosion and Age” (USSR 1941) and “About Bacteria of Oxidized Petroleum and its Migration into Natural Reservoirs” (“Microbiology”, 1950) by name. She retired in 1958 and most of the letters are from the period of her retirement. During this period she lived with Olga Martinovna Pavlova, a friend for forty years. They met in 1914 when Olga Martinovna was 27. Olga Martinovna writes a number of letters to the Galtsoffs on behalf of Elena, and on her own behalf. Elena spends much of the time of the 1960s in and out of sanatoriums in treatment of tuberculosis of the kidney. Not much is known about the other two brothers. Sergei had two children with his wife: Valerii and Marianna. Marianna worked with “Soyuz Mul’tfilm,” a Soviet animation company. His son, Valerii, fathered a daughter, Yulia Valer’evna Trusova (Troussoff), who was born December 10, 1964. Sergei committed suicide by throwing himself under a train on July 5 of an unidentified year, possibly 1952. He was the youngest of the five children. Even less is known about Victor, or Viti, born circa 1890. He arrived in America in 1954 with his wife Marie Kapistin. They had no children. It does not seem that he got along well with Elena or Eugenia. When referencing his death, Elena writes that she fears she never said a tender word to him in his life. He died in 1964. Victor worked for American Harvester in China before coming to the U.S. Natalie Troussoff, daughter of Basil Troussoff, Gail Troussoff Marks, the granddaughter of Basil Troussoff, and her daughters Anna Marks Crouch and Lydia Marks are the only known descendents of this branch of the Troussoffs currently living in the United States. It is unknown if any of Sergei Troussoff’s children or grandchildren are still alive, or if his grandchildren have had children. Collection Description Special Collections and the Troussoff family began collaboration with a donation of books by Gail Troussoff Marks’73 and Gail’s aunt Natalie Trousof. These books were collected by Basil Troussoff (Gail’s grandfather and Natalie’s father) for interest and sale. It is a diverse and eclectic collection of publications. The collection has expanded over time to include documents, photographs, and memorabilia from the lives of Basil Troussoff and Eugenia Galtsoff and their spouses and relatives.The Troussoff Collection is composed of letters and postcards collected by Basil Troussoff and his sister Eugenia Galtsoff, Basil Troussoff’s personal papers related to his work as a munitions inspector and scenic designer, and Paul Galtsoff’s related to his work as a marine biologist and his writing hobby. The letters are between Eugenia Galtsoff and her husband Paul Galtsoff in America on one end and her sister Elena Dianova in Moscow, Russia on the other. They range from April 11, 1939 to November 18, 1977. The letters reference the respective lives of the sisters as they age in their separate locations. Elena discusses her health and the health of Moscow family and friends; reminiscences; her past work as a microbiologist; and the various gifts that the Galtsoffs send to her. The Galtsoffs also discuss their health and the health of their brother Basil. The letters highlight what it meant for this family to age in the 1960s and 1970s, in particular. Additionally, their letters reference Paul’s work as a marine biologist, and other matters of family. There are also a number of letters from Elena’s friend and roommate Olga Martinovna Pavlova and a Cleopatra Givotovsky. The postcards are written by Elena Dianova in Moscow to her brother Basil Troussoff in New York City and Yonkers, New York. The dates on the postcards range from August 21, 1916 to March 16, 1933. They primarily reference books and magazines that Elena is sending Basil from his collection and translations that Basil sends Elena.