The Ivan Shkott Papers consist of one box of correspondence, manuscripts and printed material documenting Shkott's professional activities between 1927 and 1933.
Ivan Shkott (1903-1933) was descended from the Scottish educator James Scott, who came to teach Russian children English at the beginning of the 19th century. His great-grandson, Ivan Shkott, inherited his love of both, the Russian and Scottish cultures. In the early twenties he was a student at Moscow University, and in the spring of 1923 was accused of activities opposed to Bolsheviks. Soon after that he was arrested and exiled to the Narymsk district in Siberia. Shkott was lucky enough to escape crossing the Soviet-Polish borders. In 1925 he worked in France as a manual laborer. In 1927 he was introduced to A. Remizov and became an admirer of Remizov's writings. It was Remizov who helped Shkott to publish his first (and only published) novel on student life at the Soviet high school. In 1933 I. Shkott committed suicide by taking a huge dose of veronal.
Internal evidence suggests that Shkott's scrapbooks were compiled by A. Remizov after Shkott's death in May 1933. These scrapbooks are similar to the Remizov and Remizova-Dovgello scrapbooks put together by A. Remizov during the 1940s. They were created by combining letters and clippings that document Shkott's personal and professional activities.
RELATED MATERIAL: The Amherst Center for Russian Culture has information about I. Shkott beyond that found in this collection. Sources include: A. Remizov and S. Remizova-Dovgello Papers, Schakovskoy Family Papers, Union of Russian Writers and Journalists Abroad Records. Contact the Amherst Center for Russian Culture for further information.