Special Collections:

Documents consist mostly of correspondence between the British Foreign Office, various British missions and consulates in the Russian Empire and the Tsarist government and later the Provisional Government. Topics covered include British subjects in Russia, intelligence reports on Russian military activities and Bolshevik political activities, and British relations with imperial Russia's bordering countries including Finland, Germany, Afghanistan, and Turkestan. Of interest to scholars of Russian studies, Slavic studies, Central Asian studies, political science, international relations, and history.

In spring 1942, Germany began to draft occupied populations as forced laborers. Eastern workers (Ostarbeiters) were of both sexes between the ages of 15 and 60 years old. During their period of residence in the Reich, Ostarbeiters were permitted to write their relatives in the Ukraine. Their letters, however, never reached their intended destinations. Instead they were directed into a secret archive and kept "under arrest" until the early 1990s, when the entire collection was finally declassified. The collection of postcards contains the testimonies of Ukrainian, most of who had been forcibly removed to Germany. The correspondence usually got past the German censors, even though it vividly describes the conditions in Germany, the kind of work, way of life, spare time, treatment of Ostarbeiters by the Germans, and relations with representatives of other nations (Frenchmen, Poles, Belgians, and others). Many letters are highly emotional as the writers express their longing to return home and concern about relatives and friends.

The Wrong family has many connections to the University of Toronto. George Wrong, son of Margaret and Edward Blake, was professor of history at the University of Toronto and head of the department from 1894 until his retirement in 1927. His son Hume served as lecturer in and assistant professor of history at the University, and his other son Harold and nephew Gerald Blake were graduates of the University.

The collection contains records of three generations of the Blake and Wrong families. It includes papers of Margaret Christian Wrong, a leader in the student Christian movement and missionary educator in Africa. Her files include letters and reports she wrote while with the World Students’ Christian Federation from 1921 until 1926. Her duties with this organization took her to Eastern Europe, where she helped organize student relief in Poland, Austria and the Baltic countries, and established a student YMCA, first in Riga, Latvia, and then in Austria. The material provides details on the issues she faced and the conditions under which she worked.

The collection consists of approximately 350 books and pamphlets in the Russian language, from the Yivo Library's Vilna and Elias Tcherikower collertions. Most of the books, pamphlets, and offprints contained in this collection were printed in Central and East Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries (all of them before 1940, and most before 1917). The topics covered in this collection are: Jewish religious traditions, Jewish history, the struggle for equal rights for Jews under the Tsarist regime, political movements among Jews in Russia, Jewish community organizations, intergroup relations in Russia and Poland, anti-Semitism, and emigration to America.

Clarence Richard Young served as Dean of Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering.

The letters, notes, press clippings and photographs reflect C.R. Young's involvement with, among many other organizations, the Polish Army in Canada. The photoprints include images of the Polish Army cemetery from 1923 and 1924.

Socio-political and historical pamphlets of the 19th and 20th centuries from the collection of the UCLA Library.

The collection includes a variety of material concerning agrarian development and the peasantry of 19th century Russia. The main bulk of the publications of the Zemstvo, provincial administrative bodies set up after the Reform of 1861, consists of more than 4000 volumes covering the period from 1860 to 1917. The material in the collection is important not only for historians of Russia but also for economists and others concerned with the agrarian economy and the doctrinal debate of the Marxists and Russian Populists.

The Andry Zhuk collection contains rare publications relating to the history of the first Ukrainian political parties in the Russian Empire, the Soiuz Vyzvolenia Ukrainy (Union for the Liberation of Ukraine), the Ukrainian cooperative movement, and the Ukrainian communities outside Ukraine, principally Geneva and Vienna. The collection provides valuable historical information on the political situation and events among Ukrainians in the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the First World War.