The materials of Serbian interest in the Manuscript Reading Room of the Library of Congress are limited to those of American provenance such as the papers of U.S. diplomats and political figures. The most pertinent example is the collection of papers of John Adams Kingsbury, an American social reformer, who was very active with war relief groups trying to help Serbia and former Yugoslavia. His collection holds many letters and reports on the appalling conditions in Serbia after the Balkan Wars and WWI. This collection also includes the papers of the America-Yugoslav Society, information about Serbian reparation bonds 1922-1925, and the American Committee for Yugoslav Relief 1945-1947, among other topics.
Also of potential interest to researchers on Serbia are the papers of Peter Constan, (1888-1985) the American diplomat who served as the vice-consul at Zagreb in 1946 during the trial of Draža Mihailović (1893-1946), the Serbian Chetnik leader. Constan attended the trial and filed official reports with the Department of State on the matter. His papers also contain an eyewitness account of a November 1943 attack by Yugoslav partisans on the monastery in Begaljica that occurred because the abbot was suspected of aiding the Chetniks. Also in the collection is a folder with several pieces of election ephemera (in Cyrillic) from November 1945 and some propaganda pamphlets from the 1940s.
Correspondence of the Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla are available on microfilm. The letters are copies of originals held in the Muzej Nikole Tesle (Tesla Museum), Beograd, Serbia. Correspondents include Robert Underwood Johnson, J. Pierpont Morgan, George Scherff, George Westinghouse, and the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company.
A number of the collections described below are related to Yugoslavia or the 1990s war in Bosnia, but when you dig deeper into them, Serbian-related content is abundant. For example, the Manuscript Division holds the papers of Anthony Lewis (1927-2013), a U.S. journalist who covered the war in Yugoslavia for the New York Times, and the papers of the U.S. Senator Daniel P. Moynihan, who was very active in the areas of foreign relations and human rights. Some larger historical collections such as the Woodrow Wilson Papers and the United States. American Commission to Negotiate Peace records, 1898-1919, also have content elucidating the complex political situation and boundaries affecting the Serbs of the time.
Below are descriptions of selected collections with content relevant to the study of Serbia and former Yugoslavia. Titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. For all collections researchers should contact the Manuscript Reading Room in advance of a research trip, because some collections below have access restrictions and others are stored off-site.
Anthony Lake papers, 1916-2003 (bulk 1963-1997) by Anthony Lewis papers, 1941-2007 (bulk 1963-2001) by Daniel P. Moynihan papers, 1765-2003 (bulk 1955-2000) by Frontline Diplomacy: The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and TrainingJohn Adams Kingsbury papers, 1841-1966 (bulk 1906-1939) by Nikola Tesla correspondence, 1890-1934 by Petar II Karađorđević, King of Yugoslavia, papers, 1945 by Peter Constan papers, 1941-1947 by Theodore Gordon Ellyson papers, 1912-1951 (bulk 1913-1920). by United States. American Commission to Negotiate Peace records, 1898-1919 (bulk 1918-1919)William H. Taft Papers, Series 6: Executive Office CorrespondenceWoodrow Wilson Papers
Aid to libraries, a photographic appendix from the report of the United Yugoslav Relief Fund of America, 1948. John Adams Kingsbury Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Reading Room.
Aid to libraries, a photographic appendix from the report of the United Yugoslav Relief Fund of America, 1948. John Adams Kingsbury Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Reading Room.
First page of a letter asking for American war relief for Serbia, from Archimandrite Nikolaj Velimirović to Miss Helen Losanitch, a prominent Serbian humanitarian activist, dated January 7, 1916. John Adams Kingsbury Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Reading Room.
Page two of a letter asking for American war relief for Serbia, from Archimandrite Nikolaj Velimirović to Miss Helen Losanitch, a prominent Serbian humanitarian activist, dated January 7, 1916. John Adams Kingsbury Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Reading Room.
The Manuscript Division seeks to preserve personal papers and organizational records that document the course of America's national experience. Its more than twelve thousand collections and more than seventy million items touch upon every aspect of American history and culture. The Manuscript Division's holdings are strongest, however, in the areas of American national government, the federal judiciary, diplomacy, military history, women's history, and black history.
