Russian Club Tours Hamilton Library’s Russian Collections

Patricia Polansky, bibliographer of the Russian collections at Hamilton Library

This week Russian club visited the Russian collection in Hamiliton library and got a tour of what this extensive collection has to offer by Russian bibliographer, Ms. Patricia Polansky. The Russian collection here at UH Manoa, being one of the largest collections of works related to Russia’s influence in Asia in the world. Ms. Polansky also spoke on her experiences as a student of Ella Wiswell.

Ella Lury Wiswell, the Russian instructor that established the Russian major at UH, was originally from Nikolaevsk-na-Amure, a town on the banks of the Amur River in Far East Russia, not too far away from the Pacific Ocean. Ella was born into a wealthy family that fled Russia because of the revolution in the early 1900’s and settled in Japan. Ella received a primary education at the Canadian Academy in  Kobe, Japan. Later, she  went on to attend Sorbonne University in Paris, UC Berkeley, and graduated from the École des Professeurs de Français à l’Étrange. Ella was an Associate Professor of Russian at the University of Hawai’i from 1951 to 1968. She continued to be active after retirement and translated Russian literature, including a version of Anton Checkov’s The Cherry Orchard which was performed by UH theater (See the play bill here).

Ella wrote many works of her own related to world history, including a memoir of her hometown which was torn apart by the Russian Civil War. Today, many students of Russian benefit from the endowment Ella left to the Russian Program in the form of the Wiswell scholarship. In addition, our students are able to attend many events on Oahu related to Russian culture, such as Russian symphony, opera performances, and movies, free of charge thanks to the generous endowment. Ella also established a large endowment for sociology and anthropology students in the name of her first husband, John Fee Embree, after he passed away in 1950.

An aspiring pilot, Mathew Mangold (Rus 201), holds a Soviet pilot's map

During the meeting, students were able to, as Matt put it (pictured, left), “hold history in their hands,” as the collection holds not only books but also a plethora of historical documents and artifacts ranging from newspapers to civil war era bank notes from the White Army. I was probably most interested in the historical documents and books that came from pre and post-revolutionary Russia as they offered a unique depiction of what life was like for the everyday person before and after the revolution; one such book depicted life of serfs and

Tasia (Rus 311) and her son, Yasha (Russian major, graduating class of 2039)

another depicted life in a Soviet factory, two realities that I would struggle to envision myself. 

Personally, I was most impacted by the photos and descriptions of people who have worked in or were students of the Russian department before me, as it is both humbling and motivating seeing such great people like Ella Wiswell, that came from the same program. I hope that one day I will be able to contribute as much to the program and the university! 

Selected works of Patricia Polansky can be accessed here.

A catalogue of UH Manoa’s Social Movements Collection can be accessed here.