Letters, Envelopes, and Postcards with Enclosed Photographs, 1917-1947, undated

The Hazel B. King Collection consists mainly of letters written by Olga Samarina to her friend Hazel Barker King (1887-1960) between 1917 and 1947. Twenty-four manuscript letters and one typed letter, plus some photographs and stamp dated envelopes are filed here. There are also four letters by other writers: one from Mrs. Samarina’s mother in Warsaw, two from Anna Kopitza (or Kapitza) of Cambridge, England, and a typed carbon of the only letter in the collection written by Hazel B. King.

The relationship between Hazel Barker King and Olga Samarina likely began in Germany, where Hazel and her husband Harold L. King (1883-1926) lived during his doctoral studies at the University of Freiberg until 1914. Samarina (nee Niedzicka) was a Polish resident of Leningrad who worked for universities, academies, and institutes as teacher and translator between 1912 and 1937, at which time she received a special academic pension. Hazel Barker King was the Curator of the Allen Memorial Art Museum from 1928 to 1952. In a February 6, 1990 letter addressed the Archivist, Ernestine E. King (b. 1917), Hazel B. King’s daughter-in-law, reports that the correspondence was probably carried on between the two women before and after the 1917 letter (the earliest dated letter in the collection) because two King family photo albums hold 58 cancelled stamps of Russian/USSR issues, dating from 1909 to 1946. Most of the letters in the collection were written after the October 1926 death of Hazel B. King’s husband, Professor Harold L. King.  Ernestine E. King writes, “The young widow, forcibly launched into a career of her own, must have realized the uniqueness of her old friend’s experiences in the Soviet Union, and she saved many of the papers that followed.”

The letters by Anna Kopitza and Mrs. Samarina’s mother confirm the fact that censorship control was powerful. Mrs. Samarina’s mother, A. Niedwiecka, hoped to give Mrs. King an idea of Mrs. Samarina’s life as she “cannot do it herself” in her letters because of censorship regulations. In 1946, Mrs. Hazel B. King received a letter indicating that Mrs. Samarina’s “co-workers” did not mail a letter to Hazel that she found in the “remotest corner of bookcase”; perhaps, as Ernestine E. King points out, Mrs. Samarina was insinuating that her helpers were government spies. In a 1947 letter, Ernestine E. King noticed a reference to the fact that the Soviets were skeptical about allowing the correspondence to continue. E.E. King recalls asking Hazel B. King near the end of her life about Mrs. Samarina; the reply was that a message had come asking that no more letters be sent; “danger to the recipient was implied.”

The three letters Hazel B. King received from women who had visited Olga Samarina in Leningrad are significant for what information they reveal concerning Mrs. Samarina’s life and conditions in the Soviet Union. Following five years of separation, Mrs. Samarina’s parents visited their daughter in 1934 for two months. Anna Kopitza of Cambridge, England visited Mrs. Samarina in 1933. Both Mrs. Samarina’s mother and Anna Kopitza wrote to Hazel B. King at Olga’s request.

Both women spoke of the privileges Olga and her husband enjoyed since they were both employed by the military. But “They are not allowed to go abroad. Even at home they are not sure not to be overheard by spies, if a window or door is not shut. There are persons arrested, held in jail, sent to Siberia—and no one knows why. They returned...But often with ruined health.”

Anna Kopitza noted that Mrs. Samarina must follow all the guidelines placed on military officials, one of which is not to have any relations with foreigners without the permission of the government authorities. Kopitza adds that Mrs. Samarina does have permission to write to Mrs. King and that “she values very highly your [her] letters.” Mrs. Samarina requests that Mrs. King never write anything remotely related to political issues. Anna Kopitza wrote, “Just never ask about present conditions in Russia or abroad. All the letters to and from Russia are censored and people like Mrs. Samorina specially looked after as they count her on military service.”

In her own letters, Mrs. Samarina discussed her life in Leningrad: her career, her son, her husband, and her summer vacations. Mrs. Samarina worked as a school teacher, lecturer, translator of German and English texts, author of books and articles, language instructor, and collaborator with her husband’s research in abdominal surgery. She spoke and wrote the Polish, German, French, English, and Russian languages. Her husband, Nicolas, worked as a surgeon, researcher, professor, and author of scientific articles based on his own research.

Because she and her husband were both employed by the military, her family had many privileges that the average Soviet family was denied. She lived in a compound that was located by the hospital in which her husband worked. Her residence was spacious and included an upright and a grand piano. A “model girl” came to live with them as a nurse and maid.

Mrs. Samarina always commented in her letters on the activities and health conditions of her only child, Georgy (b. 1923), and often related or compared his life to that of Mrs. King’s only child, Charles (b. 1915). Georgy was often ill during the cold winter months of Leningrad. He participated in various activities and sports, including football, painting, handball, sledding, skating, and snowshoeing. In 1935, she noted that Georgy was attending a “model school” that received second place in the nation. After fighting and being wounded at the Battle of Stalingrad during World War I, her son completed medical school.

Mrs. Samarina was a career woman, wife, and mother; she commented on the pressure of her workload in one of her letters. She asks Hazel, “How do you manage all the kitchen-problem, is there some one to help you, that is the most tiresome part of existence don’t you think so? I know it’s greatly simplified at your country, but still it won’t never be enough simplified, it seems as not to take so much time and need much care from the women. Especially as one has to do with invalids. Do tell me please more about your condition of existence, I wonder how you can, working yourself, manage a household.”

In the 1930s, her letters made reference to the social and economic conditions that she experienced or observed in Leningrad. She alluded to crowded housing (“A flat of one’s own is a privilege”), poorly built, unheated homes, families sharing kitchen facilities, overpopulation that causes many to suffer, and the financial difficulties (“money simply melts in your hands”). She hopes to get a car but she has “to wait a year or too, it seems; they are not sold to private persons.” She spoke of alcoholics as the “bane of society” and causing many problems for the family and society.

The lettes between Mrs. Samarina and Hazel King give evidence of a relationship tied by mutual admiration, interest, and a sharing of lifestyles and experiences. Mrs. Samarina was grateful for all the books, journals, and information Hazel B. King sent to her. As Ernestine E. King points out, the letters of Olga Samarina give an interpretation of the Kings’ life and of a white middle class American family by someone who had never visited the United States. From a historical viewpoint, Mrs. Samarina’s correspondence provides insight into the life of an intellectual and her family under Stalin, an era of repression, and social and economic crises.