I have about 90 letters written by Admiral M P Lazarev to an ancestor of mine. Lazarev was the commander of the Black Sea Fleet at the time and was overseeing the construction of navy docks and buildings at Sevastopol at that time. My ancestor was in charge of many projects including the building of the huge dry docks in Sevastopol.
The letters speak about the decisions made, materials chosen, the layout of roads, placement of important buildings and removal of others etc.
I believe they may be very interesting to someone studying the building and fortification of Sevastopol in the years before the Crimean War. I am just not sure how to get into contact with an appropriate person such as this.
Any thoughts?
Definitely donate them, or at least let someone make facsimile copies or transcripts of them! New sources are always a welcome addition that enable new and interesting research and could mean a lot to many researchers. If you want extra cool-points find a capable and trustworthy graduate student who is interested in the topic and let them see them first. It would be great to have new materials as part of one's doctoral thesis!
If you are in Canada and wish to contact other institutions that might be interested you might consider trying the Canadian War Museum (Ottawa), which has it's own archives. The University of Toronto also has a Slavic Studies program that could have some interested people, and there are military-oriented programs that could be interested at Wilfrid Laurier University, University of New Brunswick, University of Calgary, and Queen's University (connected to the Royal Military College) to name just a few!
I took several Russian history classes from Don Ostrowski years ago. He's still teaching at Harvard and would probably be interested or know someone else who would actually be working in the area. You can contact him here: http://harvard.academia.edu/DonOstrowski
Those would almost certainly be very useful to someone studying the Russian Navy in that era.
One place to start is your national archives. Glancing at your posting history, I saw references to Canada, so contact your National Library and Archives. If they don't want them for themselves, there will be someone there who can probably direct you to a specific collection that would be appropriate.
http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/contact-us/Pages/contact-us.aspx
scan them and upload them somewhere so no one scholar or institution will have a monopoly.
Scan them and throw them up on a free Wordpress website and a couple of other online sites--even flickr would at least make them accessible. Email a couple of museums which contain similar collections and which might be interested in permanently housing the paper collection in a climate- and humidity-controlled archive. Instantly available to the world's scholars.
Assuming it is written in Russian, and depending on the amount of text I can make a tl;dr or even translate them to English. Or I can translate them to Russian if they are written in English.
We can all make some research here guys!
Make copies of them and keep the copies safe somewhere then donate originals to the Russian Military Archive if they want them http://eng.mil.ru/en/archival_service/central.htm
That is amazing!
Why don't you donate them to a relevant museum if you don't find someone suitable? :)
Thank you to all for some excellent suggestions. i will try to get scanning soon, as well as contact a few of the suggested parties. Other ideas are most welcome. It seems that Russian first hand history is a bit sparse.
I'm working on a project to crowdsource the transcription and translation of these types of materials. PM me if you'd like to learn more.
The University of Chicago might also be interested. A former professor of mine did his graduate work in Russian military history there and I remember him commenting on how they were one of the top schools for graduate studies in Russian history. Not sure if they still are but might be worth looking into.
*** update ***
I have started scanning in the letters from Admiral Lazarev to my ancestor Colonel John Upton. I am new at this, but I think that I have figured out how to link to the image:
http://i.imgur.com/oxJcY4c.png
http://i.imgur.com/ZH6bFHf.jpg
Included above are a scan of the first of about 90 letters, plus an image showing the format of many of the letters.
They were often written on a large piece of paper which was then folded up to create its own envelope, which was then sealed shut with wax, and then the Admiral's seal applied.
More to follow soon I hope.
I'd be interested in seeing the scans of them. My history prof. would love to see those. Sounds like you've got some good primary sources.
I'm not sure but I read James Nasmyth's autobiography last year and he mentions some of his machinery being sent to Sebastopol so your letters might well mention it. Here is a google books link.
Perhaps a place like the London Science Museum might be interested?
Hell, if you can't decide on anywhere else, the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD likely has the people, the facilities, and the academic interest to know exactly what to do with them.
Or the Naval War College.
I'd imagine the city fathers of Sevastopol might be interested as well - to know that they've shown up at least.
I'm curious about where you got them/how they came into your possession more than anything else! Where did you find them?
Check out the University of Iowa's excellent DIYHistory site. I'm sure they'd be interested in adding your letters to their collections.
