[1] Joseph P. Kahn, "A Bach Score: Accident and Adventure Lead to a Collection Long Thought Lost," Boston Globe 30 September 1999: E1, E7. See, also the account by Sarah Boxer, "International Sleuthing Adds Insight About Bach," The New York Times 16 August 1999: B1, B4, which appeared in slightly condensed form as "On the Bach Trail" in The International Herald Tribune 20 August 1999: 20.

[2] The discovery of the collection in Kyiv resulted from research for my book, Trophies of War and Empire: The Archival Heritage of Ukraine, World War II, and the International Politics of Restitution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, forthcoming, 2000).

[3] "Catalog musikalisch-literarischer und practischer Werke aus dem Nachlasse der Konigl. Professors Dr Zelter." A manuscript copy of the Zelter catalog, which established the initial provisional numeration of that portion of the Sing-Akademie holdings, survives in the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin. Christoph Wolff kindly showed me his xerox copy of this catalog, which is organized in several sections by type of materials.

[4] Although there has not yet been time for a full correlation with this catalog, most of the manuscripts we examined in Kyiv can be matched up with the Zelter catalog. Obviously, when a scholarly catalog is prepared, it will be important to include correlations with these earlier markings. The printed books on music theory covered by the "A" section of the Zelter catalog are not in Kyiv, so far as is known. Additional materials acquired by the Sing-Akademie between 1832 and 1850, and materials acquired earlier from other sources, to be sure, are not included in the catalog of the Zelter collection. The J.S. Bach materials sold to the Royal Library in 1854 were covered by a separate catalog.

[5] Friedrich Welter, "Die Musikbibliothek der Sing-Akademie zu Berlin," in Sing-Akademie zu Berlin: Festschrift zum 175 jährigen Bestehen, ed. Werner Bollert (Berlin: Rembrandt Verlag, 1966): 33-47. This posthumous memoir had been prepared before the war by an assistant in the Sing-Akademie, largely based on the Zelter catalog.

[6] The village of Ullersdorf (now Polish Oldzyechowiche-K¬odzkie) is 12 kilometers southeast of K¬ozko (German Glatz) on a tributory of the Nysa (Neisse) River. Confirmation of the shipment there comes from a report "Eigentum der Berliner-Sing-Akademie" (15.III.1945), signed by Georg Schumann, then director of the Sing-Akademie in Berlin. Christoph Wolff received a copy of this document and a 1930 picture of the castle from Berlin. As confirmed during my October 1999 visit, the castle where the collection was stored is now in ruins. Turned over to an agricultural cooperative for storage of machinery after the war, the building was not kept up. Since abandoned, it was seriously flooded in 1997.

[7] A copy of the shipping list for "Transport XVIII nach Schloss Ullersdorf i/Schlesien" (31.VIII.1943) also came recently from the Sing-Akademie in Berlin. In addition to the 14 crates from the Sing-Akademie other components with more than two crates were: Siemens "6 wooden crates and 2 packages"; v.d.Marwitz"5 crates"; Dr. Simon"3 crates"; Hartmann"3 crates"; Gerd Rosen"12 crates."

[8] See the survey of the evacuation operations for the Prussian State Library in Verlagert, Verschollen, Vernichtet: Das Schicksal der im 2. Weltkrieg ausgelagerten Bestände der Preussischen Staatsbibliothek (Berlin: Staatsbibliotheek zu Berlin- Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 1995). Gudrun Voigt provides capsule reports (with pictures) of all of the known evacuation sites for the Staatsbibliothek, Die kriegsbedingte Auslagerung von Beständen der Preussischen Staatsbibliothek und ihre Rückführung: Eine historische Skizze auf der Grundlage von Archivmaterialien (Hannover: Laurentius Verlag, 1995) [=Kleine historische Reihe, 8].

[9] See the latest report on the status of the Musicalia holdings of the Prussian State Library, a large part of which is now held in the Jagellonian Library in Cracow, in Verlagert, Verschollen, Vernichtet, especially pp. 9, 19-26. Regarding the thirty-five year search for the German music collections in Poland, see the intriguing account by Nigel Lewis, Paperchase: Mozart, Beethoven, Bach-: The Search for Their Lost Music (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1981). See also "Bestände aus der früheren Preussischen Staatsbibliothek in Polen," Jahrbuch für Preussischer Kulturbesitz 29 (1995): 339-64; and the earlier account by P.J.P Whitehead, "The Lost Berlin Manuscripts," Notes 33:1 (September 1976): 7-15.

[10] See more details about this operation in my report, "New Clues in the Records of Archival and Library Plunder: The ERR Ratibor Center and the RSHA VII Amt Operations in Silesia," in "The Return of Looted Collections (1946–1946). An Unfinished Chapter": Proceedings of an International Symposium to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Return of Dutch Collections from Germany, ed. F.J. Hoogewoud, E.P. Kwaadgras et al. (Amsterdam, 1997), pp. 52-67. A more detailed version is in preparation. None of the Soviet documentation found so far regarding the Habelschwerdt/Wölfelsdorf cache mentions the Sing-Akademie or other materials from Ullersdorf.

[11] See more details about these operations in my Trophies of War and Empire.

[12] Efforts to locate additional documentation about the retrieval of the collection from Ullersdorf have hitherto been unsuccessful. Military reports relating to trophy operations remain classified in Russia.

[13] Viktor Luhovyk, "Ukraine to Study Its Bach Archives," Associated Press file, Kyiv, 10 August 1999. Olena Diachkova, "Unique Documents Shelved for 54 Years," Den'/Day Weekly Digest 17 August 1999: 6.

[14] Following our Harvard press release in August 1999, I received a fax from the conductor Igor Blazhkov, who directs the Perpetuum Mobile Orchestra in Kyiv, claiming that we had not "discovered" the collection, because he was using music scores from the collection already in May of 1969. However, in so far as we have been able to determine, what scores he used and recorded were never identified as to their source. The flute concerto score itself was never published, nor was there ever published mention of the music score collection from the Sing-Akademie in Kyiv. Christoph Wolff mentioned the Leipzig copy in his reply to Blazhkov (25 August 1999).

[15]That report was corroborated from other sources in preparation of my directory of archival holdings in Ukraine: Grimsted, Archives and Manuscript Collections in the USSR: Ukraine and Moldavia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 400-401. Since one of Christoph Wolff’s graduate students had contacted me regarding possible Bach manuscripts in Kyiv, I made numerous inquiries during several visits to Kyiv in the late 1970s and 1980s, but the results were all negative.

[16]In response to inquiries by Boriak and others, as well as my own, the Kyiv Conservatory and other Kyiv music repositories reported no trophy music holdings.

[17] Die Trophäenkommissionen der Roten Armee: Eine Dokumentensammlung zur Verschleppung von Büchern aus deutschen Bibliotheken, comp. and ed. Klaus-Dieter Lehmann and Ingo Kolasa (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1996), doc. no. 46, p. 245 [=Zeitschrift für Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie, Sonderheft 64]. A large part of one of the documents is also published in Kolassa’s earlier article, "Sag mir wo die Bücher sind...: Ein Beitrag zu ‘Beutekulturgütern’ und ‘Trophäenkommissionen’," Zeitschrift für Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie 42(4) 1995: 357-60.

[18] The German published version identifies the documents as having come from the CP Central Committee Secretariat (fond 4) in TsKhSD (in March 1999 TsKhSD was renamed the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History RGANI [Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishii istorii]). Kyiv archival officials were refused a copy, when they inquired in April and May of 1999. I was refused access in Moscow in June/July 1999. Reportedly, the copies from which the German translations were prepared had been acquired in TsKhSD, although neither the copies themselves, nor their publication, had been authorized.

[19] The Institute of Ukrainian Archeography sent him a formal invitation, and the Archival Administration took care of the necessary arrangements for his visit. The research party also included his wife Barbara, a music cataloger at Harvard’s Houghton Library, and me. (I had arrived earlier from Moscow.)

[20] The inventories were prepared after the war by Liubov' Favndovna Fainshtein, who had served as a music librarian in the late 1940s and early 1950s. She is now no longer living. Fainshtein’s signature appears on the final page of each of the five bound inventory volumes, only one copy of which are now held in TsDAMLM.

[21] This meant that, according to Soviet-period rules still in effect in Ukrainian archives, for every file we wanted to see, an archivist had to undertake the laborious task of adding folio numbers in pencil and preparing the necessary accompanying papers, before it could be sent to the reading room.

[22] "Doruchennia," 27.VII.1973, and TsDAMLM Director V.P. Koba to Conservatory Rector I.F. Liashenko, 31.VII.1973. Both documents were the official copies held by the Conservatory library, copies of which were kindly furnished me by the librarian in charge. In the official act of transfer, however, the collection had been renamed as noted above, with no mention of music "Akt No 2 o peredache dokumental'nykh materialov," 14.III.1973, indicating transfer from the Conservatory to TsDAMLM.

[23] The official signed and sealed act of transfer clearly indicates that the card catalog had been turned over to the archive with the collection in 1973, although it recorded that 1,025 of the 5,170 numbered cards were missing. TsDAMLM and the Archival Administration promised to investigate the disappearance of the card catalog, but as of this writing it has not yet been found. The official act of transfer also itemizes the 13 missing items from the catalog numbered entries.

[24] As of yet, there is no trace of them in any major Kyiv library with music holdings. Some of the early holdings relating to music theory were included in the ca. 1832 Zelter catalog (see fn. 3). There is no evidence that they were delivered to the Kyiv Conservatory after the war, as librarians in the Academy of Music showed us the postwar accession registers for printed books. The only copy of the registers they had prepared covering the manuscripts had been transferred to the archive with the music score collection.

[25] In July 1999, Christoph Wolff was shown the three books returned from Moscow to Berlin, now on deposit in the Staatsbibliothek (State Library). German colleagues suspected the books came from the Glinka Central Museum of Musical Culture in Moscow, but during my October 1999 visit, that museum denied it has any trophy German music publications in its library.

[26] Elena Cherednichenko, "V Ukraine 54 goda khranilas' unikal'naia kollektsiia Bakha. Sovetskie tankisty okazalis' smyshlenee nashikh uchenykh: Sensatsiia," Kievskie vedomosti 12 August 1999: 3.

[27] Ibid.

[28]See, for example, the statement at a press conference in Kyiv (10 August 1999) by Chief of the Main Archival Administration of Ukraine, Ruslan Pyrih, as quoted by Olena Nikolayenko, "Enigma of Bach’s Musical Archive Solved by Harvard Professor in Kyiv," Kyiv Post 32 (12 August 1999) and an editorial in the same issue (p. 10).

[29] Nelia Pasichnyk, "Chy zakhustyt' Ukraïna pravo na beztsinnu kolektsiiu. Amerykans'kyi profesor ‘vidkryvae’ davno vidkryte v Ukraïni Skandal" (interview with Ihor Blazhko, and insert direct comments by Blazhko), Politika i kul'tura 23 (1-7 October 1999): 42-44. Another article along the same line appeared more recently erroneously accusing the Archival Administration of trying to see the rights to the collection Nataliia Balandiuk, "Komu distanut'sia prava na kolektsiiu syniv Bakha?" Den' 217 (24 November 1999): 1, and in the English weekly edition, "Who Will Get Rights to the Collection of Bach’s Sons?" The Day 44 (30 November 1999): 6. Wolff since prepared a reply explaining the scholarly purposes of the project, the importance of preservation microfilming and cataloguing, and noting the lack of any published reference to the collection as being held in Kyiv, before the Harvard University press release at the beginning of August.

[30] See more details in my forthcoming Trophies of War and Empire, Ch. 12.

[31] As quoted from Reuters by Olena Nikolayenko, "Enigma of Bach’s Musical Archive."

[32] See the statement by a representative of the National Commission for the Restitution of Cultural Treasures to Ukraine, as quoted in a Kyiv story by Agence France Presse (10.8.1999). That point of view was also expressed during our visit to Kyiv when the collection was discovered. See more about the context of Ukrainian restitution policy and recent mutual acts of restitution with Germany in the forthcoming Grimsted study, Trophies of War and Empire, ch. 12. See one immediate Russian reaction signed by Mikhail' Maus (Mickey Mouse?), "Tikhaia restitutsiia? Germaniia pytaetsia vernut' sebe rukopisi Bakha, naidennye na Ukraine, i nadeetsia na uspekh ‘zakulisnykh’ peregovorov v Moskve," Nezavisimaia gazeta 17 August 1999: 7.

[33] "Return Bach to Germany," Kyiv Post 32 (12 August 1999).

[34] "Pro vyvezennia, vvezennia ta povernennia kul'turnykh tsinnostei," Law of Ukraine, 1068-14, 21.IX.1999. I cite the text as it appeared on the official website of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada (http://alpha.rada.kiev.ua/sgi-bin/putfile.cgi).

[35] As quoted by Philippe Ricard, "Des archives Bach retrouvées à Kiev," Le Monde 9 August 1999: 14.