More on Andrew Grajdanzev, from Michael Cannings of Camphor Press

Michael Cannings of Camphor Press found some more information on Andrew Grajdanzev on Ancestry.com. (I guess I should subscribe to that service--looks like I could access a lot of info that way.) Here's what he had for me:

The first entry is a passenger manifest for the SS President Grant, sailing from Shanghai to Seattle, WA in 1937 – he is listed as a teacher with his last residence in Tianjin. I've attached it here. His name is listed as Andrew Jonas (note the "s" but it's almost certainly the same guy).

He is listed as resident in Oakland, CA in 1939.

According to his US naturalization records Andrei Iona Grajdanzev (anglicized as Andrew Jonah Grajdanzev) was born in Ussolie (now known as Usolye-Sibirskoye) in Russia, 10 November 1899. Here's his certificate recording his application for naturalization:

Naturalized 26 June 1945 in New York. Spouse named as one Mary Grajdanzev (née Jakov).

From 1945–1949 he's listed in the NY phone book.

Then there are two index cards from the Associated Press records, attached here.

His name in Russian is Андрей Ионович Гражданцев – running it through Google (plus Google Translate) shows a bit more info, along with someone who says he's his great-great-nephew.

https://m.ok.ru/group52677088247981/topic/64410290451885

Moved to Harbin 1924, later taught at Nankai University in Tianjin. A Russian speaker would be able to tell you more. And there's a picture:

I hope that's of some help!

Michael

It is indeed! I looked at the link to OK.ru, which is, according to Wikipedia, sort of a Russian version of Classmates.com. At first I tried to read it with my rusty high school Russian, but gave up pretty quickly and used Google Translate to get these results:

Letter of the day
Andrei Grazhdovtsev, orientalist-economist
Letter from the Rostov region
Wanted: Information about Andrey Grazhdovtsev  Year and date of birth: 1900
Search geography (spr.): United States
“This is my great-grandfather's brother. My grandfather lost contact with him. I am interested in his fate - where he lived, how he died ...
Citizens (Grajdanzev) Andrey Ionovich (Andrew Jonah), 1898 or 1899 born. - Orientalist economist.
Since 1924 in Harbin. He graduated from the economic department of the RSUF. Private Associate Professor in the Department of Political Economy (1933-34). Then he taught at Nankai University in Tian. "
Application No. 2497373

7

Comment

Comments

• • Share

  25 Dec 2015 07:04

  NB

  Hello! Citizen Andrei Ionovich is a cousin of my great-grandfather Mikhail Ionovich Graditsev.
  My great-grandfather was born in 1892 in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Sayan District, the village of Usolye. Education received a secondary. He was one of the officers of Kolchak. After the defeat of Kolchak lived in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Sayan district, the village of Voznesenka. He taught Russian language and literature at school. September 8, 1937 was arrested. Sentenced: Troika at UNKVD of the Krasnoyarsk Territory on October 31, 1937. Shot on November 7, 1937, a week after the sentence was pronounced Verdict: VNS Rehabilitated on December 30, 1958 by the Krasnoyarsk Regional Court. Place of burial Krasnoyarsk. The Grazhdrantsevs had many brothers, two of them lived in Usolye. After the execution of my husband, my great-grandmother left Krasnoyarsk with children for one of the brothers in Usolye and lived there until the end of his days. Relatives of Andrei Ionovich currently reside in Usolye-Sibirskiy. This is his niece, Grantsevtseva Elena Mikhailovna, and many grandnephews. We know that Andrei Ionovich eventually emigrated from China to the USA. He lived there and taught. But where exactly is unknown. Still, at the time of the Soviet Union from
  The United States received a request for relatives of Andrei Ionovich living in the USSR about some kind of inheritance. But because of the repression
  Citizen Mikhail Ionovich
  relatives were denied the interest of the inheritance. Everybody knows this from the words of his niece Grazhdovtsena Elena Mikhailovna. Another of his niece Rudenko (by her husband) Tatyana Mikhailovna died in March 2014, this is my grandmother.
• • Share

  Jan 20, 2016 6:13 pm

  Marina Savostina (Rudenko)

  Call the author of the application
  2497373 from the group "Wait for me" to search for information on Andrew Ionovich Grazhtsevtsov. I would like to meet you. After all, we are relatives.
• • Share

  8 Feb 2016 08:30

  Alexander Fomin

  Hello! I found quite a lot of information about your relative. In America, he was a famous scientist. Read more - on the page "Wait for me" with the same application "In contact"
  https://vk.com/feed?section=comments
• • Share

  8 Feb 2016 08:56

  NB replied to Alexander Fomin

  Thank you very much! I saw the information you found, though I did not have time to read it! I will study tonight! It has long dreamed of finding at least some facts, but here such luck

I don't intend to join VK.com (a Russian social networking service) to find out more about Grajdanzev (this is sort of a hobby, after all), but if anyone reading this reads Russian and happens to be a member of VK, I'd appreciate any help you could give me!

[Update, 6//2/19)] Turns out I didn't need to join VK--I just Googled his name in Russian and came up with this website: https://vk.com/wall-96412344_1807.

Андрей Гражданцев, востоковед-экономист

Письмо из Ростовской области
Разыскивается:
Информация о Гражданцеве Андрее Ионовиче
Год и дата рождения: 1900
География поиска (спр.): США

«Это родной брат моего прадеда. Связь с ним потерял мой дедушка. Мне интересна его судьба - .где жил, как умер...
Гражданцев (Grajdanzev) Андрей Ионович (Andrew Jonah), 1898 или 1899 г.р. -  востоковед-экономист.
С 1924 г. в Харбине. Окончил экономическое отделение РЮФ. Приват-доцент по кафедре политэкономии (1933-34). Затем преподавал в Нанькайском университете в Тянь».
Заявка № 2497373

Жди Меня | Национальная служба взаимного поиска людейpoisk.vid.ru

5

LikeShow likes

ShareShow shared copies

Oldest

Now you can choose what order you want to see comments in

Marina Komarova

у семьи довольно много данных Можно попробовать(семье) запросить Международный Красный Крест Организация просит в запросе место рождения Если вот эти сведения о брате разыскиваемого то скорее всего место рождения одно Сайт Жертвы политического террора в СССР Копия Гражданцев Михаил Ионович
Родился в 1892 г., г. Усолье Иркутской губ.; образование среднее; Учитель в средней школе. Проживал: с. Вознесенка Саянского р-на КК.
Арестован 8 сентября 1937 г.
Приговорен: тройкой УНКВД КК 31 октября 1937 г., обв.: КРО.
Приговор: ВМН Расстрелян 7 ноября 1937 г. Место захоронения - в г. Красноярске. Реабилитирован 20 октября 1989 г. прокуратурой КК
Источник: Книга памяти Красноярского края

1

LikeShow likes

9 Oct 2015

Alexander Fomin

Здравствуйте! Ваш родственник - очень знаменитая личность, автор многих статей по Японии, Китаю, Корее, одну из которых я сейчас читаю по профессиональной необходимости (я историк). Во время второй мировой войны и после нее он был одним из ведущих американских экспертов по этому региону.

LikeShow likes

8 Feb 2016

Alexander Fomin

Из биографических сведений о нем могу сообщить следующее (из предисловия к статье):
Dr A.J. Grajdantsev first studied Japanese agriculture in 1930 when he made his first visit to Japan. During World War II he was a member of research staff of the Institute of Pacific Relations. During the occupation of Japan he served as Chief of the Prefectural Branch of the Governmrnt Section in General Headquarters, SCAP.

Вот, кстати, ссылка на одну из его статей: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/north-korea/1..

Желаю успехов!
А.М.Фомин.

Korea in the Postwar Worldwww.foreignaffairs.com

1

LikeShow likes

8 Feb 2016

Alexander Fomin

Впоследствии он публиковал свои работы под именем Grad, Andrew Jonah,

Например вот эту: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015004987..

Land and peasant in Japan : an introductory survey / Andrew J. Grad.babel.hathitrust.org

1

LikeShow likes

8 Feb 2016

Alexander Fomin

Кроме Вас его разыскивают также коллеги - ученые:

http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_kore..

[KS] Inquiry about Andrew Jonah Grajdanzev (Andrew J. Grad)koreanstudies.com

1

LikeShow likes

8 Feb 2016

Alexander Fomin

В этом файле см. с. 5.

dinas.pdf

5.8 MB

1

LikeShow likes

8 Feb 2016

Alexander Fomin

Скачал здесь: http://www.uozima.ru/index.php/sovet-po-poiskovo-issl..

1

Andrew Grajdanzev and the McCarran IPR hearings

A few thoughts about Grajdanzev's "virtual" presence in the IPR hearings and comments on his scholarly abilities that came out of those hearings. Grad himself wasn't a witness at the hearings, but his name came up quite a few times, and some exhibits were entered that refer to his research and writing skills. But there are mixed impressions of his research abilities--some people praise them, while one other is quite critical of them.

I mentioned a while back that Andrew Grajdanzev's name came up along with George H. Kerr's during the 1951-52 Senate subcommittee hearings on the Institute of Pacific Relations (the "McCarran Committee" or the McCarran hearings). On April 2, 1942, Kerr (at the time, a military intelligence analyst in the War Department in D.C.) wrote to William Holland of the IPR regarding some galley sheets he had received of Grajdanzev's "extraordinarily good work"--Grad's Formosa Today (1942). Kerr calls the book "excellent" and comments that "[t]hat there are only a few very minor suggestions I might make, none of first importance." Holland replied on April 3 (from New York City! How did mail travel so fast back then!?). He sent along an advance copy of the book and again asked for any feedback from Kerr.

So here we have Kerr's words that show he was impressed by the quality of Grajdanzev's work. There's also an exchange between Edward Carter and Lt. Col. Frederick D. Sharp of Military Intelligence (plus an unknown "Mr. Thurber"). The first letter, from Carter to Sharp, is dated July 10, 1941 and concerns a request Sharp had made about the Siberian railways. Carter is sending along a "very tentative memorandum" based on some quick research. (Oddly, in Exhibit 89, the sentence reads, "With sources he has drafted the enclosed very tentative memorandum, a copy of which I enclose." But a few pages earlier in the testimony section, the sentence is written, "Without sources he has drafted the enclosed very tentative memorandum, a copy of which I enclose." So was the memorandum written with or without sources? Perhaps we'll never know...)

Later on (July 23), Carter sends to a Mr. Thurber (a colleague of Sharp's, it seems) a first draft of notes on the Tran-Siberian Railway. Lt. Col. Sharp writes back on the 24th (at least they're both in NYC), praising the report that was "drawn up so ably by your colleague, Mr. Andrew Grajdanzev." He goes on to write,

To thank both you and him in proportion to its value would be difficult. May it suffice to say that our own researches are at an end with such a reference source, and that Mr. Thurber, of my office, will be sorely tempted to draw on your knowledge of industries and raw materials east of the Urals, which is the next goal.

So here is another example of praise of Grad's work. Grajdanzev's work is even used in an IPR letter asking for donations, as shown in Exhibit 88, a letter of November 26, 1941. The letter says that

Mr. Grajdanzev prepared a monograph [about the Trans-Siberian Railway] which has been hailed in three Government departments as far more accurate than anything which they themselves could have prepared. This is just a sample of the kind of work which the institute is able to do and explains why the governments in this and other countries are so eager to get the services of members of the institute staff.

All of the above exhibits were presented during the testimony of Major General Charles Willoughby, Chief of Intelligence, Far Eastern Command and United Nations Command, on August 9, 1951 (beginning on page 353 in this volume).

However, later testimony by Professor David Rowe of Yale University (from March 27, 1952) casts Grajdanzev's research abilities in a different light. When asked about Grad's time at Yale in 1947, Rowe states that Grad had come on a grant from the Ford Foundation that had been obtained for him by William Holland. Holland mentions this in his memoirs, too. Rowe states that Grad was originally supposed to work there for two years under supervision by several faculty members. However, Rowe says that Grad was asked to leave because "we disapproved of his work." As he puts it,

We considered his work not to have sound scholarly method in it. It was so bad from that point of view that we finally reported adversely to Mr. Holland in a letter signed by myself and at least four of my colleagues, everyone of whom, including an economist, a sociologist who specialized on Japan, the late John Embree, who was my colleague there at Yale; a geographer, Karl Pelzer, who is a great expert on Asiatic geography; Prof. Chitoshi Yanaga, who was associate professor of political science at Yale. And the general agreement was that the work simply did not stand up from a scholarly point of view.

Rowe stresses that while the work had a "left wing" bias, "that wasn't the fundamental basis of our objection to it. ... We raised objections from a methodology aspect, and we simply came to the conclusion that this man was not a sound scholar in the field." Rowe goes on to express displeasure with how Holland handled their advice--he says that Holland "proceeded to act as though our objections didn't cut any ice" and "went right back and got more money to keep on supporting him, and sent him up to Columbia and had him affiliated there."

It should be noted here that Rowe appeared as a "friendly" witness at the McCarran hearings. He had clear problems with the IPR and had actually quit the organization in 1950 because he was critical of its left-wing political stance. At one point he said of Owen Lattimore, "my subjective opinion for what it is worth, in light of my knowledge of the subject matter, my 20 years of study in the far eastern field, is that as of today among far eastern specialists in the United States Lattimore is probably the principal agent of Stalinism." (He sort of backtracks later on by (re)defining "agent": "When I said that he was an agent of Stalinism, I am talking about ideologies and ideas and that he is promoting these ideas and ideologies." As he admits, "I have no positive knowledge by which I could identify this man as a formal Communist affiliate. In other words, I can't prove one way or another whether he was ever an agent of the Russians.") But his primary criticism of Grajdanzev's work has to do with methodology, he says. It would be interesting to see the original letter he mentions--perhaps it's at Columbia University (there's correspondence between Rowe and Holland from 1947; there's also, by the way, correspondence between Grajdanzev and Holland from 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, and 1951). Maybe I need to get down there sometime...

No conclusion here yet, though I am curious about how some people could consider Grad's work to be of such high caliber and others could consider it unsound scholarship. It could very well be that Grajdanzev was better at researching and writing for some audiences (government organizations) than others (academics). I found a review of Grad's Land and Peasant in Japan (1952), which I previously (mis)understood to be an unpublished manuscript. The author of the review criticizes the book for being too ambitious in scope and not living up to that ambition, but at the same time praises the book for "the wealth of new information and pertinent insights they [Grad's efforts] afford in the agrarian scene in prewar, wartime, and postwar Japan at national and local levels" (187). The reviewer calls the book "a compendium of Japanese agriculture," which isn't exactly a compliment if Grad was expected to write a carefully argued academic discussion, but could be seen as a compliment if he meant to cover a lot of ground in a more general overview. Updated: I see that in another part of the McCarran hearing testimony, a witness named William W. Lockwood describes Grajdanzev's Formosa Today as "mainly a compilation of factual material." That description sounds a bit similar to the description of Land and Peasant in Japan that's in the review.

The slightly less mysterious Andrew J. Grajdanzev

When I was working on the previous post about Andrew Grad/Grajdanzev, I also wrote to Frank Joseph Shulman of the University of Maryland who (as I mentioned) had sent out an inquiry about Grad about 12 years ago. I also wrote an email to Mark Caprio of Rikkyo University, who had given a presentation on Grad at the University of Hawai'i' about 5 years ago. Both of them wrote back to me with some interesting information on this mysterious figure. I also talked with my brother, Chris Benda, who is a librarian at Vanderbilt University and master of figuring out ways to find information.

Chris and I talked about what I already knew and he gave me some ideas to find out what I didn't know. For instance, we found out a bit more about Grad's career (up to 1944) from the author bio in Korea Looks Ahead:

ANDREW J. GRAJDANZEV is on the international research staff of the Institute of Pacific Relations. Born in Siberia in 1899, he lived in the Far East for thirteen years, studying and teaching in Harbin, Manchuria, and in Tientsin, China. He has traveled in China, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Australia and other countries. Dr. Grajdanzev received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and has taught economics at Oregon State College and Far Eastern politics at Hunter College. His published works include Formosa Today, Statistics of Japanese Agriculture, Modern Korea, and numerous magazine articles.

Alfred Christian Oppler's 2015 book, Legal Reform in Occupied Japan: A Participant Looks Back, includes brief information about Grad. Oppler and Grad both worked as part of SCAP, so they met when Oppler arrived in Tokyo. Oppler briefly describes Grad:

Grajdanzev turned out to be a fanatic of decentralization and home rule. As a human being, he was a pleasant combination of kindness and intellectual sophistication. (16)

Oppler also mentions a meeting with Grad and some other people on Jan. 24, 1947, regarding the division of farmland, which was being affected by land reform.

Chris and I also found a folder of correspondence from 1942-1947 between Grad and the Nation. Chris also found this information about Grad from the Library of Congress Authorities database. We found several news articles from the Washington Post and the New York Times that mention the "adverse reports" and accusations of Communist leanings about Gradjanzev. (I suppose someone would have to do a FOIA request to find out more about that.)

But we hadn't found a death date for him (no obituaries as far as I can tell), so I couldn't test my hypothesis (a very weak one, admittedly) about Grad's death.Then Chris suggested using Find a Grave, which I think he had used earlier. Lo and Behold, there was the grave stone for Andrew J. Grajdanzev Grad, 1899-1960. He's buried at the Flushing Cemetery in NY. On the grave stone inscriptions, he's described as a "scholar," "author," and "humanist."

So that appears to disprove my thought that Grad had died in 1952, halting the publication of his book on postwar Japan. It still leaves some questions, though, like what he did between losing his job at the UN and his death.

The mysterious Andrew J. Grajdanzev, author of Formosa Today (1942)

I've been skimming through William L. Holland's Remembering the Institute of Pacific Relations: The Memoirs of William L. Holland for a project I'm working on. The book doesn't mention George H. Kerr, but it does mention one point of interest.

Holland mentions Andrew Grajdanzev (aka Andrew Grad), author of Formosa Today: An Analysis of the Economic Development and Strategic Importance of Japan's Tropical Colony (1942), which was published by the Institute of Pacific Relations (Kerr and Holland discussed his book in letters that were included in the McCarran hearings). Holland notes that Grajdanzev was working under the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) after the war, but also doing research on "a personal research project involving a social survey of the Japanese town of Fukaya, located some sixty miles northwest of Tokyo" (51). Holland goes on to describe something that got Grajdanzev kicked out of Japan:

In order to obtain funds to pay his research assistants, he bought liquor at the PX and then sold it on the black market. This activity was soon discovered by the military police, and he was summoned to explain himself. He did so quite candidly but was told that what he was doing was illegal. The upshot was that he was dismissed and sent back to the United States. Later I was able to get the Rockefeller Foundation to provide a substantial research grant for him to continue his work, and it eventually was completed. However, due to his untimely death, it was never fully revised and thus became one of the IPR's few unfinished projects. (51)

The bit about Grajdanzev's "untimely death" seems to add to the mystery of this already-mysterious figure. I've done some googling about him, but haven't really come up with anything besides citations of his writings and an unanswered request for information from 12 years ago on the Korean Studies email list. (I have written to Frank Shulman to see if he ever found out more about Grajdanzev--Grad--even the business of his last name is a bit mysterious.)

One thing to add, upon reading more in Holland's memoirs: an appendix listing the IPR's publications includes "Land and Peasant in Japan, by Andrew J. Grajdanzev. 1952. 275pp. Mimeo. IR." I'm assuming this is the research that he didn't have time to revise before his death--this places his death somewhere around 1952. (Nope. See my new post on Grad about this. See also this post on Grad and the McCarran committee in which I cite a review of Land and Peasant in Japan.)

[Update, May 25, 2019] Looking through my old email correspondence with my fellow Kerrologists, I see that we had broached this topic before. An article in the January 2, 1953 issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune entitled "List of Accused U.S. Employes [sic] on U.N. Payroll" discusses "38 past and present employes [sic, at least they're consistent] of the United Nations as persons 'believed to be Communists or under communist discipline.'" The list includes

Andrew Grad, hired Oct. 5, 1949, adverse comment Jan. 20, 1951; terminated June 30, 1952.

One wonders if his "untimely death" had anything to do with these accusations...