Samuel N. Harper and the study of Russia : His career and collection ; n°4 ; vol.14, pg 608-620

Paul A.Goble

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Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique - Année 1973 - Volume 14 - Numéro 4 - Pages 608-620
13 pages

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• Publié par: CAHIERS_DU_MONDE_RUSSE_ET_SOVIETIQUE
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1973
• Nombre de lectures: 22
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

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Paul A. Goble
Samuel N. Harper and the study of Russia : His career and
collection
In: Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique. Vol. 14 N°4. pp. 608-620.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Goble Paul A. Samuel N. Harper and the study of Russia : His career and collection. In: Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique.
Vol. 14 N°4. pp. 608-620.
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/cmr_0008-0160_1973_num_14_4_1197BIBLIOGRAPHIE
PAUL A. GOBLE
SAMUEL N. HARPER AND THE STUDY OF RUSSIA;
HIS CAREER AND COLLECTION*
Samuel Northrop Harper was the first American scholar to devote his entire
academic career to the study of Russian social and political institutions. As a
faculty member at the University of Chicago from 1906 until 1943, he was a careful
and persistent observer of the revolutions then taking place in Russia; and he served
as an active and enthusiastic catalyst to the concurrent transformation of American
studies of Russian politics and social life. During these years, Russia ceased to be
the empire of the tsars and became the Soviet state; and Western studies of her
shifted from the chance reports of travellers, emigres, and embassies to the more
systematic investigations of academic specialists and government analysts. As an
observer of the first, Harper published a number of still valuable books and articles;
and as a participant in the second, he helped train and provide assistance to
numerous scholars within an academic field which he helped to define. Harper's
career thus forms an important chapter in the intellectual history of Russian
studies; but his activities are of more than antiquarian interest, for alongside his
well-known books and the work of his students, Harper left an important source
for the study of Russia in his collection of papers, pamphlets and other materials.
This archive is now preserved at the University of Chicago; although it has
been used by a number of scholars, it deserves to be more fully explored. To
describe the organization and contents of this archive is the purpose of this article;
but in order to appreciate both its quality and variety, one must first know some
thing of the nature and the activities of the man who collected it.
Shortly before his death in January 1943, Samuel N. Harper began to compile
his memoirs; and he chose as their title, "Managed indiscretions. "* Unfortunately,
he did not live to complete them; and his literary executors were forced to edit the
still rough and fragmentary manuscript into a publishable form. In this format,
the memoirs appeared in 1945 as The Russia I believe in. Such a title reveals an
important part of Harper's intellectual position, but his own choice tells us more
about his fundamental character and about the way he entered into the study
of Russia.
* I would like to thank Margaret MacFadden of the Department of Special
Collections of the University of Chicago Libraries for her assistance in the prepa
ration of this article.
1. The following biographical sketch is drawn from information contained
in the Harper Papers as preserved at the University of Chicago Libraries and
in Paul V. Harper, éd., The Russia I believe in (Chicago, 1945). BIBLIOGRAPHIE 609
milieu Born within on April which g, he 1882, did Samuel not simply N. Harper or easily entered fit but early from on which into he an was academic never
completely to depart. His father, William Rainey Harper, served as the first
president of the University of Chicago; and consequently Samuel Harper grew up
in the whirlwind which was the founding of the University, an experience which
he was later to compare with the establishment of the Bolshevik régime in Russia.
Distinguished scholars were continually passing through the Harper household;
and the entire family was encouraged to take part in the discussions with them.
But at the same time, the elder Harper warned his son to keep a safe distance
from these people and to analyze their motives carefully lest, as a result of some
indiscretion, he place himself under an obligation which might redound unfavorably
on his father or the university. This principle was one which Samuel Harper
attempted to follow throughout his entire career; but not only did he receive this
principle from his father but also the basic direction which his career was to take.
Following his own advice, President Harper had made it his practice to seek his
own friends outside of the university community — lest he be accused of favoritism —
and it was one of these who first directed his attention to Russia.
Charles R. Crane, a distinguished and successful Chicago businessman, spent
much of his time studying and travelling to those sections of the world which he
believed should be better known to Americans and much of his money in encourag
ing others to do likewise. Particularly interested in China, the Arab world, and
the various Slavic peoples, he visited Russia itself some twenty-three times; and on
many of these trips he took along his friends. On one such visit in 1900, he included
in his party William Rainey Harper; and it was on this trip of the father that the
course of the son was largely determined. While in Russia, Harper met a wide
variety of people from peasants and workers to the tsar himself. Most of these
meetings were mutually rewarding; but the visit with Count Leo Tolstoy was
perhaps not, for Tolstoy was later to remark that it was extremely unfortunate
that an American university president should be so preoccupied with the task of
raising money for his school. As a result of this trip, Harper made two decisions
both of which were to affect the career of his son. Having been impressed by
Russian culture and scholarship, Harper decided that some program for the study
of Russia should be established at the University of Chicago; and to begin this
program, he brought with Crane's help Thomas Masaryk, Maxim Kovalevsky, and
Pavel Miliukov to Chicago for a series of lectures and invited a number of Russians
living in the United States to attend. A more immediate result of the trip was
Harper's decision to send his son, then a sophomore at the University, to Paris in
order to learn French. Although Harper himself had mastered a number of ancient
languages, he was acutely embarrassed when Crane remarked upon his failure to
know a single modern foreign language; and he determined then and there that his
own inadequacy would not be repeated in his son. Consequently, upon his return
to Chicago he obtained for his son a position as a guard at the 1900 Paris Exposition
and announced that Samuel Harper should become the first American expert on
Russia.
Having heard his father's decision, Samuel Harper left for Paris both out of a
sense of duty and with a sense of joy; for his own natural exuberance had been
confined up to that point by his continued residence at home. Having fallen
in love with Paris shortly after his arrival, Harper wrote home that he would need
more time to learn French and that he would be staying in Paris for the winter. His
parents replied that they would be joining him. The entire family returned to
Chicago in the spring of 1901; and Harper resumed his studies at the University.
During the following year, he began at first with little success to learn Russian
from an emigre student and, upon graduating in 1902, decided to return to Paris
to study the Russian language and Russian culture in earnest. This decision was
prompted both by a desire to return to Paris and by the recognition that the
possibilities for training in this field at an American institution were severely 6lO PAUL A. GOBLE
limited. (At that time, only Archibald Coolidge and Leo Weiner of Harvard were
at all involved in the Russian field; and the only important book which had appeared
was George Kennan's Siberia and the exile system.) Arriving in Paris in Octo
ber 1902, Harper enrolled in l'École des Langues Orientales Vivantes to study
under Paul Boyer and N. Speranski. He worked hard to conquer the Russian
tongue and in recognition of this was invited to adapt the Boyer-Speranski
reader for American students.1 He also worked toward perfecting his French
and attended numerous courses on Russian and European history from the leading
French scholars of the day. Finally, after a year of study, he decided to move in
with a group of Russian students who soon turned out to be quite radical in their
political views. While friendly to Harper most of the time, these Russians were
quite ready to turn on him when he expressed " incorrect " political views. Some
time later, this happened Harper tried to explain — not defend — the "Jim
Crow" laws of the American South.
Having lost his place to stay but having gained some confidence in his ability
to speak Russian, Harper left for Moscow on February 4, 1904. As a result, he
arrived there on the very day of the Japanese attack on Port Arthur and was soon
caught up in the ensuing political fray. Armed with introductions from Crane,
Harper became acquainted with a number of Moscow officials, professors, and
resident Americans; but armed only with his own personality, he also got to know
a number of workers, peasants,