Donald W. Nesbit Papers
Dates: 1904-1924
The papers of Donald W. Nesbit contain primarily the letters that Russian diplomat Constantine Nabokov wrote to his American friend Donald W. Nesbit. The collection includes approximately 200 letters. About 180 of them are from Nabokov to Nesbit, almost all written from 1906 to 1908. The collection also includes several letters from Nabokov to Scott Nesbit, Donald Nesbit's father, and a few letters involving other correspondents. Nabokov's letters discuss such topics as political conditions in Russia and the effects of the events in that country on his family, Nabokov's diplomatic career, his work and life as part of the Russian legation in Brussels, Belgium, his European and Russian travels, and world events in general.
Size: One linear foot (About 1,000 pages)
Access: Open
Copyright: Nancy Nesbit Hatch has donated to the United States government her
copyright interest in unpublished materials in the collection and in all of Donald W. Nesbit's
unpublished writings that are in the custody of any repository administered by the United States
government. Copyright interest in documents not included in the above two categories is
presumed to remain with the creators of the documents or their heirs.
Processed by: Dennis Bilger, Raymond H. Geselbracht, Anita Smith, and Sharie Simon
for Constantine Nabokov
| ca. 1877 | Born, probably near St. Petersburg, Russia | |
| 1905 | Third Secretary in the Russian delegation at the peace talks between Russia and Japan held in Portsmouth, New Hampshire | |
| 1906-1910 | Assigned to the Russian legation in Brussels, Belgium | |
| 1906, 1907, 1908 | Took trips to Russia to visit his family | |
| 1907, 1908 | Took trips to the United States to visit Donald Nesbit and his family near Warrenton, Virginia | |
| 1910-1912 | First Secretary to the Russian Embassy, Washington, D.C. | |
| 1912-1915 | Consul General to the Russian legation in Calcutta, India | |
| 1915-1919 | Assigned to the Russian Embassy in London, United Kingdom; Charge d'Affairs from January 1917 | |
| 1919 | Resigned as Charge d'Affairs in the Russian Embassy in London to allow a Bolshevik to take the position | |
| 1919 | Russian Minister to Norway | |
| 1920 | Forced by the Russian government to leave the diplomatic service | |
| 1921 | Published The Ordeal of a Diplomat, about his diplomatic service in London during World War I | |
| 1929 | Died in London |
The papers of Donald W. Nesbit contain primarily the letters that Russian diplomat Constantine Nabokov wrote to his American friend Donald W. Nesbit. The collection includes approximately 200 letters. About 180 of them are from Nabokov to Nesbit, almost all written from 1906 to 1908. The collection also includes several letters from Nabokov to Scott Nesbit, Donald Nesbit's father, and a few letters involving other correspondents. Nabokov's letters discuss such topics as political conditions in Russia and the effects of the events in the country on his family, Nabokov's diplomatic career, his work and life as part of the Russian legation in Brussels, Belgium, his European and Russian travels, and world events in general.
The letters are arranged in chronological order in a correspondence series. The earlier letters from Nabokov to Nesbit are numbered, and several gaps exist in the sequence, suggesting that not all of Nabokov's letters to Nesbit survive. The collection includes several letters from Nabokov to Scott Nesbit, Donald Nesbit's father, and others between different members of Nesbit's family. Some of Nabokov's letters indicate the date according to both old style and new style calendars -- for example, "February 10/23."
The letters of Constantine Nabokov and other materials in this collection were discovered by John F. Melby among the effects of Constance Hordern Clark, Donald Nesbit's niece. Melby and an associate edited and published Nabokov's letters to Donald Nesbit in 1989 under the title Letters of a Russian Diplomat to an American Friend, 1906-22 (The Edwin Mellen Press: Lewiston, New York). On Melby's advice, Nancy Nesbit Hatch, Donald Nesbit's daughter, donated Nabokov's letters and a small amount of additional material to the Truman Library in 1993.
| Container Nos. | Series | |
| 1-2 | CORRESPONDENCE FILE, 1904-24 | |
| Letters from Constantine Nabokov to Donald W. Nesbit and a small number of letters involving other correspondents. Subjects discussed include political conditions in Russia and the effects of those events on his family, Nabokov's diplomatic career, his work with the Russian legation in Brussels, his European and Russian travels, and world events in general. Arranged chronologically. |
Box 1
- Correspondence--January 1 and 7 [two letters with this date], and June 5 and 27, 1906
- Correspondence--July 2 and 19, and August 2, 5 and 7, 1906
- Correspondence--August 10, 13, 17 [marked 4/17], and 23 [two letters with this date], 1906
- Correspondence--August 24 and 28 [marked 15/28], and September 2, 5, 12 and 16, 1906
- Correspondence--September 18 [two letters with this date], 22 and 25, and October 2, 1906
- Correspondence--October 7 and December 25, 26, 28 and 30 [two letters with this date], 1906
- Correspondence--January 2, 9, 10, 11 and 14, 1907
- Correspondence--January 16, 19, 20 and 23, 1907
- Correspondence--January 24, 25, 27, 29 and 31, 1907
- Correspondence--February 2, 3, 8, 10 [marked January 28/February 10], and 13, 1907, and Undated [one letter postmarked February 20, 1907]
- Correspondence--February 16, 19, 20, 23 [marked 10/23], and 25, 1907
- Correspondence--February 27 and March 3, 6, 8 and 10, 1907
- Correspondence--March 13, 15, 17, 24, 27 and 28, 1907
- Correspondence--April 5, 11, 18, 24 [marked 11/24] and 29, 1907
- Correspondence--May 7, 12, 17, 19 and 24, 1907
- Correspondence--May 28 and June 2, 5, 9, 14 and 17, 1907
- Correspondence--June 20, 25 and 29, and July 4, 7 and 12, 1907
- Correspondence--July 15, 18, 19 and 25/26 [written over two days], 1907
- Correspondence--July 30 and August 5, 6, 16 and 20, 1907
- Correspondence--August 25, 26, 29 and September 2 [marked August 20/September 2], 14 and 20, 1907
- Correspondence--December 3 [from "Chas." to "Uncle Scott"], 9 [two letters, one dated, one not, both probably written on this date] and 17, 1907
- Correspondence--December 18, 19, 21, 22[two letters from this date, one from "Charles" to "Uncle Scott"] and 24, 1907
- Correspondence--December 25, 26, 29 and 31, 1907
- Correspondence--January 1, 2, 3, 6 and 8, 1908
- Correspondence--January 11, 14 [marked 1/14], 18, 21 and 23, 1908
- Correspondence--January 24, 27 and 29, and February 2, 1908
- Correspondence--February 6, 12, 15, 17, 19 and 25, 1908
- Correspondence--February 21 and 27, and March 1, 2 and 6, 1908
- Correspondence--March 10, 15, 21, 25, and April 1, 1908
- Correspondence--April 9, 12, 17, and 27, 1908
- Correspondence--May 4, 12, 15, 19 and 26, 1908
- Correspondence--May 30 and June 5, 11, 17 and 22, 1908
- Correspondence--June 30 and July 7, 14, and 21, 1908
- Correspondence--August 3, 5, 10, 19 and 26, 1908 [a postcard dated August 17, 1908]
- Correspondence--September 3 and 14, and October 11, November 4 and 22, 1908 and Undated [a postcard postmarked October 10, 1908]
- Correspondence--December 4, 15 and 25, 1908
- Correspondence--January 3, 1909
- Correspondence--September 20, 1910 [to "Mr. Nesbit"]
- Correspondence--February 9 [to Mrs. Scott Nesbit], June 5, June 17 [to Mrs. Scott Nesbit], and October 7, 1912
- Correspondence--January 23 [to Scott Nesbit], October 16 [from "Harry" to Scott Nesbit], November 4 and 24 [from "Harry" to Scott Nesbit], 1913
- Correspondence--July 14, 1914
- Correspondence--March 31 and June 9, 1918 [both to Scott Nesbit]
- Correspondence--February 23, July 20, September 17 and December 31, 1919 [all to Scott Nesbit]
- Correspondence--May 31, 1920 [to Scott Nesbit]
- Correspondence--February 10 [to Scott Nesbit], February 18 and 20 [both from Scott Nesbit to his wife], March 28 [to Grace Hordern], and April 10 [to Scott Nesbit], 1921
- Correspondence--May 15, 1922 [to Scott Nesbit]
- Correspondence--January 3, 1924 [from Donald Nesbit to Scott Nesbit]
- Undated and Miscellaneous
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