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Personal records of Gordon Skilling, Professor of Political Science and a specialist in East European (especially Czech) studies. Fonds consists of 18 accessions:

B1983-0013: Records of conferences and meetings attended; drafts of and correspondence regarding articles written; correspondence relating to the writing of "Communism, National and International" and "Governments of Communist East Europe"; personal files (1961-1979) and correspondence (1974-1983); lecture notes as visiting professor, Columbia University, 1952 (9 boxes, 1952-1983).

B1984-0044: Lecture notes on international politics and international organization, University of Wisconsin and Dartmouth College (1941-1959); files for courses on Soviet politics at Dartmouth College and the University of Toronto; lecture notes for courses on Eastern Europe and comparative communism at the University of Toronto; lecture notes by Hazard at Columbia University (1949-1950). (20 boxes, 1941-1984).

B1985-0029: Addresses, radio scripts, correspondence, lecture notes; files on the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (1980-1981); files relating to the publication of "Interest Groups in Soviet Politics" (1971). (6 boxes, 1937-1982).

B1987-0064: Correspondence, articles, reports, and related material on East European studies at the University of Toronto and elsewhere, including a study of the U.S. Helsinki Watch project prepared by the Ford Foundation (4 boxes, 1977-1986)

B1987-0083: Addresses; correspondence with students, 1970-1986, and on the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto, 1980; course outlines in political science, 1960-1980 (2 boxes, 1958-1986).

B1988-0007: Records documenting Skilling's expertise relating to East European studies with particular emphasis on Czechoslovakia [Czech Republic] and his role in the the Centre for Russian and East European Studies. Contains addresses and speeches; manuscripts and publications including related correspondence and reviews (books included are "Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution", "Charter 77 and Human Rights in Czechoslovakia", and "The Czech Renaissance in the Nineteenth Century"); lecture notes; subject files, mainly of associations; sound recording, video and photographs; University of Toronto administrative files including the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, the Department of Political Economy, Committee on International Studies as well as the Centre for International Studies (3 boxes, 1945-1986)

B1989-0030: Addresses, articles, correspondence, minutes of meetings and financial files documenting Gordon Skilling's activities as a specialist in East European studies, with particular emphasis on Czechoslovakia [Czech Republic] (4 boxes, 1965-1989).

B1989-0045: Bibliography on communism in Czechoslovakia and the history of the Czech Communist Party, 1918-1958; files pertaining to Gordon Skilling's publications, "Charter 77 Documents", "Socialist Opposition in Czechoslovakia" (proposed), and "Samidzat and Independent Society in Central and Eastern Europe" (1988), including correspondence with Jan Kavan (5 boxes, ca. 1958-1988).

B1991-0037: Manuscripts, correspondence, addresses, lectures, conference files, subject files, greeting cards and index cards documenting Gordon Skilling's teaching and research interests in East European affairs, with particular reference to events in Czechoslovakia [Czech Republic] (6 boxes, 1949-1991).

B1993-0028: Diaries, notebooks, personal and research correspondence, manuscripts, articles, press clippings and photoprints relating to Dr. Skillings trips to Eastern Europe, his personal life and his research and writings. Included is research material for: "Samizdat and Independent Society in Central and Eastern Europe" (20 boxes, 1934-1988).

B1994-0011: Correspondence, addresses, lecture notes, minutes of meetings, memoranda, reports, manuscripts, publications, notes and press clippings documenting Professor Skilling's interest in Eastern Europe, particularly Czechoslovakia [Czech Republic], and his association with the Commission on Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Royal Society of Canada. Also includes consultant files, foreign language clippings and collected papers on Czechoslovak [Czech] history and politics (7 boxes, 1927-1993).

B1999-0017: Personal records of Gordon Skilling, relating primarily to the Czech Republic, including professional and private correspondence with colleagues and friends, including Vilem Precan (1969-1996); drafts of his "Memoirs of a Canadian" and articles, with covering correspondence; addresses; conference papers, photographs (13 boxes, 1969-1997).

B2000-0027: Personal records of H.G. Skilling, relating primarily to his interest in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. Includes early correspondence with his wife Sally, correspondence with friends and associates in Czechoslovakia, grant applications, itineraries, subject files relating to human rights groups, publishers and the medal that he received from the Royal Society. The records also include a printout of Skilling's autobiography entitled "The Education of a Canadian: My Life as a Scholar and Activist" (5 boxes, 1936-1999).

B2001-0017: Records documenting the history of the family of Harold Gordon Skilling, including his wife, Sara (Sally) and his own life and career. Sous-fonds I: Skilling family. Documents Gordon's father, William Watt, his uncle, Ernest (a Shriner), and his brothers Donald and William, who fought in World War I (Donald was killed in action). Sous-fonds II: Sara (Sally) Bright Skilling. Her education in the United States, her travels with Gordon in eastern Europe in the 1960s and her skill in entertaining. Sous-fonds III: Harold Gordon Skilling. Focuses on his research and writing of books on T. G. Masaryk and Alice Masaryk, on his travels, especially in Eastern Europe, and on the seminars he held in his residence during the last years of his life. These records consist primarily of correspondence (personal and professional, including with Vilem Precan (1993-2000) and Vaclav Havel), diaries, drafts of books and articles, reviews, addresses, index cards, scrap books, and photo albums (64 boxes, 1828-2001).

B2002-0020: Bibliographic references and research notes on index cards, with some accompanying notes, compiled by Professor Gordon Skilling for his book, 'Czecholslovakia's Interrupted Revolution', along with three boxes of other notes and references relating to Samizdat and dissent, Charter '77, Czechoslovak history and Czech-German relations (14 boxes, n.d. - ca. 1985)

B2002-0024: Personal records of H. Gordon Skilling, consisting of: Masaryk medal awarded by the Czechoslovak Association of Canada, 1985; certificate, case and medallion relating to honorary degree awarded by Charles University, Prague, 1990; Komensky medal awarded by Komensky University, Bratislava, 1990; certificate and medal for the Order of the White Lion, Third Class, Czechoslovakia's highest honour for non-citizens, awarded by President Vaclav Havel on Professor Skilling's 80th birthday, 28 February 1992 (3 boxes and 1 folder, 1985-1992).

B2009-0032: Correspondence, research notes, manuscripts etc. of Prof. Gordon Skillling relating to his career as professor of political science. Includes files for Josef Pekar, Czech politics, etc. (1 box, 1985-1987).

B2012-0005: Further personal records of Gordon Skilling, Professor of Political Science and a specialist in East European (especially Czechoslovak) studies, consisting of research notes for and drafts of his doctoral thesis, 'The German-Czech national conflict in Bohemia, 1779-1873', with subsequent revisions; correspondence with scholars in East European studies, publishers, and editors. Also address books, 88th birthday greetings, slides and photographs, and medals. (12 boxes and medals, 1917-1997).

This series consists of personal correspondence between Professor Skilling and his family, friends and colleagues. Most of it is from the last 20 years of his life and relates primarily to his interest in central and east European affairs. Some of the correspondence is arranged chronologically – especially the letters covering the years 1991-2001. Also arranged chronologically and grouped separately are postcards and greeting cards with extensive messages for the years 1939-2001 (a few of the latter have photoprints attached). There are a few letters from Skilling to his parents and Sally from the 1940s, also correspondence with Derek Paton, a former student, and especially with his old Czech friends, Jelka and Olga Haningerova and Vilem Precan. There are also small files of correspondence on the Jan Hus Fund and the issue of public lending rights.

In August of 1941, as Gordon Skilling left United College in Winnipeg for his first academic appointment in the United States, he began to keep a detailed journal of his activities. This journal was continued for the next fifteen years, until June of 1956, and covers the crucial period during which he established himself academically and became recognized as an authority on the Soviet Union and countries behind the Iron Curtain, especially Czechoslovakia.

It was an exciting and challenging time for him; the University of Wisconsin had a reputation as a dynamic liberal institution of higher learning. He arrived, however, just as the United States’ entered World War II amid a rising fear of communism (in spite of the need for co-operation with the Soviet Union, which Skilling advocated), both of which had an impact on the university and on him. From May 1943 until the end of the War, he was back in Canada as director of the CBC’s European short-wave radio broadcasts in its new International Service. On returning to Madison, he discovered a university in decline and his own position in doubt – he was denied promotion to associate professorship and tenure. So, in 1947 he left to accept an assistant
professorship at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. He spent the summer of 1948 in Czechoslovakia, his first visit since 1939, where he witnessed first-hand the establishment of communist rule in the country and which he described in detail in his journal. Back in the United States a fellowship enabled him to study and research at Columbia. In 1950 he returned to Czechoslovakia to research the emerging system of communist rule there and to experience it through the new bureaucracy, the political show trials, and the constant stream of propaganda. In 1951 he was promoted to full professor in his department and was also given leave to return to the Russian Institute at Columbia for the 1952-1953 academic year. He found, however, that the anti-communist hysteria of the McCarthy era had an impact on his scholarly activities – two of his books were turned down – and on him personally. In 1955 he was questioned by an agent of the US immigration service, had to appear before a state anti-subversive committee. Shortly after the journal ends, Skilling’s green card was cancelled and he
was not permitted to leave the country, even for his brother Andy’s funeral, until he was issued a new visa in June 1958.

The remainder of the series consists of a broken run of appointment books and calendars for the following years (with number of copies in brackets): 1961, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1989, 1991 (2), 1992 (2), 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 (2), 2000 (2), and 2001. The entries, though cryptic, provide the researcher with an overview of Professor Skilling’s activities at any one point or over a period of time.

Professor Skilling began writing at an early age; his first attempt at publication, a short story 'Trapping in the Rockies’, was submitted to the Toronto Evening Telegram in 1923. While this series documents his prodigious output over a period of almost 80 years, the focus is on his youth and his early career (before 1960) and from the early 1980s until his death.

The series begins with a file of correspondence regarding offprints (1984-1985), followed by three files of book notices and reviews (1940-1999). Professor Skillings writings are arranged by the title of the manuscript or publication and are filed chronologically. The files contain drafts of manuscripts, sometimes with notes and often with covering correspondence, reviews and offprints. Much material relating to Skilling’s writings may be found in other accessions in this fonds.

The earliest entries were written while a public, high school and university student. Skilling managed one publication from his trip across the United States and Canada in 1933, an article in the local paper in The Danforth region of Toronto where he lived. What may be is his first ‘academic’ article, “The Marxian dips into the future”, was published in University College’s student periodical, The Undergraduate, in March 1933. At Oxford, he really began to find his footing. His reported in the New Statesman on the British Labour Party’s annual conference in 1936; this was followed shortly by a series of articles in the Canadian Forum (1937-1939), most of which discussed the evolving political situation in Czechoslovakia. During World War II, he wrote on a variety of topics, ranging from the political situation in the Balkans to Canadian-American relations.

After his retirement, Professor Skilling had more time to write. Some of his projects, including a selection of essays under the title, ‘The riddle of Communist politics’, and a proposed book on the Velvet Revolution, did not materialize. His observations of the changing political landscape in Czechoslovakia and Eastern Europe, especially on Charter 77 and samizdat, rapidly found their way into print. In the late 1980s and the 1990s Skilling turned his attention to historical figures in Czech history, especially the Masaryks – Tomas, Charlotte, and Alice, and to his own memoirs. His book, T. G. Masaryk: Against the current [see box 042], appeared in English in 1994 and Czech in 1995. He prepared two long articles on Charlotte and Alice for Komas, and Gender Studies in Prague published his Mother and daughter: Charlotte and Alice Masaryk in 2001 [see box 044]. His translation of Alice’s correspondence with Josip Plecnik, the architect of Prague Castle [see boxes 045-047], appeared just before his death.

Professor Skilling’s memoirs, The education of a Canadian, appeared in English and Czech in 2001 [see boxes 047-049], a few weeks before he died. The numerous delays in publication, caused in part by the collapse of Carleton University Press, are well documented.

Oversized material has been removed from /040(25) to folder .(03).

Photoprints relating to Professor Skilling’s research on and writing about Charlotte Masaryk have been removed from /044(03) to /009P(13); from /044(04) to /009P(14), from /044(06) to /009P(15), and from /044(07) to /009P(16).

Slides of the portrait of Gordon Skilling by Maria Gabanhova have been removed from /048(07) to /009P(17).

Records documenting the history of the family of Harold Gordon Skilling, including his father, William Watt Skilling; his uncle, Ernest John Skilling; his brothers, William John, Andrew Douglas and Edward Donald; and his wife, Sara (Sally) Bright Skilling.

Sous-fonds I: Skilling family. The emphasis is on William Watt, a shoemaker who emigrated from England to Canada in 1907; on Ernest, who was a very active member of the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine; on Donald, who was killed in action during World War I, and on his brother, William, who was wounded but survived.

Sous-fonds II: Sara (Sally) Bright Skilling. The records focus on Sally’s education in the United States, her travels with Gordon in Eastern Europe in the 1960s, and on her love of entertaining. They document the crucial support, intellectual and otherwise, that she provided to Gordon as he pursued his career.

Sous-fonds III: Harold Gordon Skilling. The documentation here is primarily on Gordon’s education and early career and his later years as an expert on Russian and East European politics and on Czechoslovakia, in particular. An extensive combination of correspondence, journals, lectures, writings and photographs reveal much about Skilling’s ideas and his relationships with the principal figures in recent Czech history.

The records in this series are divided into two sections. The first consists of a few files relating to Professor Skilling’s appointment to the University of Toronto and his activities as an administrator and professor in the Centre for Russian and East European Studies and as professor emeritus. Included are appointment files (1959, 1979-1994); correspondence, notes, and memoranda on various administrative issues, lecture notes (1968-1973), and correspondence with graduate students and other researchers (1985-2001). The files are grouped by type.

The second section contains correspondence files relating to the seminar variously known as the Living Room Seminar, the Flying Seminar, and the Czech Seminar. This seminar, which Skilling described in his autobiography as “the most exciting and stimulating development in my life” in his last years, was conducted informally in his living room, beginning in 1996. Meetings were held every month or so, initially with graduate students in Toronto working on Czech(oslovak) history and politics, but later
including other interested parties, and usually with a guest-speaker on a Czech subject. The seminar continues to take place and is now known as the Skilling Seminar. The files are arranged chronologically and by author.

Photoprints of the retirement party for the secretary of the Department of Political Science are filed as /009P(18).

This sous-fonds documents the life and career of Gordon Skilling, especially his family, his formative years as a student, and his later years as an internationally recognized expert on Russia, Eastern Europe and, especially, Czechoslovakia. Researchers seeking to fill the obvious gaps in this accession should refer to the earlier accessions in the Skilling fonds in the University Archives that were donated by Professor Skilling over a period of almost two decades, beginning in 1983.

The photographs in this series document the life of Professor Gordon Skilling and members of his family over most of the 20th century. Included are images to Eastern Europe and specifically Czechoslovakia taken during Skilling's trips over six decades. These are mainly contained in albums and show many of Skilling's colleagues in Eastern Europe, including Vilem Precan and Vaclav Havel, along with many organized meetings and events.
Notebooks with entries about lists of slides taken on trips to England and Europe between 1961 and 1973 are filed in /050(23).

Researchers may wish to look at these albums in conjunction with the journals in series 5 and 7 in Sous-fonds 3.

Over the years, Professor Skilling assembled a large number of research files which contained a great variety of material, including notes, correspondence, press clippings (especially from Czechoslovak, other Eastern European newspapers, and Canadian newspapers written in Czech), photocopies of articles, pamphlets, and books.

A selection of these research files has been retained in this series; the material not kept was turned over to members of the Skilling Seminar for their use. The files are grouped into several subject areas, following Professor Skilling’s arrangement and, for the most part, his file descriptions. The emphasis in selection was on original notes, heavily annotated items, correspondence, memoranda, drafts of papers and addresses, and material from conferences and seminars.

The first research area is on Czechoslovakia generally (1966-2000), with its files on the country’s political culture and political reform, political activists, and conferences [box 031]. The latter include the International Political Science Association roundtable in Zagreb in 1985, ‘Ten years after’ conference in Prague (1999), and the Forum 2000 conference in the same city. There is also material on the breakup of Czechoslovakia. Accompanying these files are two boxes [036, 037] of index card notes – one on Czech politics and one a bibliography of Czech politics.

The second category of files [boxes 033-034] consists of material gathered by Professor Skilling for his numerous writings about Tomas Masaryk, including his T. G. Masaryk: Against the current, published in English and Czech in 1994. The first part consists primarily of general writings about Masaryk, along with accompanying notes, correspondence, etc. The arrangement in the latter portion is by subject areas, of which the principal ones are: ‘the Slovak questions’, ‘the Jewish question’, ‘religion’, ‘the women’s question’ and ‘foreign policy’. Accompanying these files is a index card box of entries on Masaryk generally, on his writings, on works about him and on searches to be carried out [box 038, 038a and 038b].

The final category [box 035] relates to Vaclav Havel. In it is correspondence between him and Professor Skilling and copies of letters to Vilem Precan, along with files of interviews, addresses, and honours bestowed; Havel’s visits abroad (including the University of Toronto in 1990); his writings (with notes by Skilling), and material documenting his involvement with Charter 77.

Oversized material has been removed from /034(10) and (12) to /003(04), and from box 034(27) to box 003(05).

A poster has been removed from /035(23) to folder .(02).

Photoprints have been removed from /032(04) and (05) to box 009P(12).

The addresses in this series date from Professor Skilling’s return to Canada in 1959. Most were delivered at conferences, with those from 1986 on dealing primarily with Tomas Masaryk. The principal Masaryk conferences represented are those at the University of London (1986) and in Prague (1994 and 2000). Included also is Skilling’s address on Masaryk given on the occasion of his receiving an honorary degree from Charles University in 1990, and the series of lectures he delivered on Masaryk in Prague in 1992. Other conferences represented include the Conference on the Prague Spring in Paris and the Institute for Slovene Emigration Studies in Ljubljana, Slovenia (both in 1998).

An audiotape of a lecture given by Professor Skilling in Prague in April, 1994 is filed as /06S

This series contains biographical information, address books, business cards, correspondence, greeting cards, notes and passports relating primarily to personal activities, including Gordon and Sally’s friendship with many people in Czechoslovakia, and honours bestowed on him over his lifetime. Included are files relating to the Skilling family generally, biographical sketches and curriculum vitae, and files relating to his 70th and 88th birthday parties (1982 and 2000). There is also a scrapbook of greeting cards and postcards received from friends in Czechoslovakia between 1964 and 1982, and files on honours bestowed – including his festschrift, and Czech awards – Order of the White Lion (1992), Czech Academy of Sciences (1994), and the T. G. Masaryk honorary medal (1999).

In 1933 Gordon hitchhiked and rode freight trains across North America, first to the founding convention of the CCF in Regina, writing letters back to his parents along the way and also describing activities at that famous gathering itself, and then on to the West Coast. His correspondence and the pamphlets, brochures and press coverage he collected survive in this series. He later attributed these experiences as being the seminal event that shaped the evolution of his political views.

Other files in this series provide glimpses of his activities late in the 1930s and in the 1940s, and of his return to Toronto in 1959. They also document of his extra-curricular activities, first as a teenager with the West United Church Club (1926-1927), then as an alumnus of Clinton Street Public School and of Harbord Collegiate in Toronto, and finally as a member of the Canadian Association of Rhodes Scholars. The series ends with selected messages of sympathy and other items relating to the death of his beloved wife, Sally, in 1990.

The scrapbook of greeting cards from friends in Czechoslovakia is filed in box 051.

Oversized material has been removed from /007 (11) to file .(01).

Photoprints taken in the 1980s and 1990s of Professor Skilling, Helen Hogg, Czech friends and the Jazz Section, a semi-official agency under the Union of Musicians in Prague, are filed in /009(07)-(11).

An audiotape of the presentation of the Order of the White Lion to Professor Skilling on 8 May 1992 and of the Stefanik medal ceremony is filed as /02S. An audiotape relating to Professor Skilling’s birthday (which one?) is filed as /03S; audiotapes documenting the 75th anniversary celebrations of Harbord Collegiate Institute are filed as /04S and 05S.

Personal records of Gordon Skilling, relating primarily to the Czech Republic, including professional and private correspondence with colleagues and friends, including Vilem Precan (1969-1996); drafts of his "Memoirs of a Canadian" and articles, with covering correspondence; addresses; conference papers, photographs.

Gordon Skilling began keeping diaries when he was a boy; the earliest includes accounts of trips to New York City and Montreal respectively in February and October 1921. These diaries, which described later trips to the United States and to Muskoka, continued until 1932, the entries between 1928 and 1932 being intermittent.

There is a gap of 36 years before the next journal begins. Between 1958 and the end of his life, Professor Skilling kept travel journals, relating especially to Czechoslovakia and other destinations in Eastern Europe. These are arranged chronologically, are often accompanied by supporting correspondence, programs and other items picked up along the way, and by photographs (see Series XI). The journals are usually described as ‘notebooks’, though many are in diary format. Professor Skilling often combined the diary format, with dated entries, with notes on what he had seen and with whom he had met, either in the same notebook or separately. These journals should be consulted in conjunction with the relevant chapters in his autobiography, The education of a Canadian, which helps put them in perspective.

Personal records of H.G. Skilling, relating primarily to his interest in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. Includes early correspondence with his wife Sally, correspondence with friends and associates in Czechoslovakia, grant applications, itineraries, subject files relating to human rights groups, publishers and the medal that he received from the Royal Society. The records also include a printout of Skilling's autobiography entitled "The Education of a Canadian: My Life as a Scholar and Activist".

The material consists of the personal records of Professor Skilling and focuses primarily of Skilling’s academic work, and includes research notes and drafts of his doctoral thesis, The German-Czech National Conflict in Bohemia, 1779-1873, as well as notes and drafts supporting the revision of this thesis, which Skilling worked on for several years. There is also some correspondence with other scholars in the field of Eastern European studies, as well as publishers and editors.

The accession also contains some of Professor Skilling’s personal belongings and awards, such as medals, honorary degrees, and photographs and slides of his personal and professional life.

This series consists of personal items belonging to Professor Skilling, including address books, photographs and slides, an identification card, and his marriage certificate issued in Czechoslovakia (with corresponding Canadian documentation).

The photographs have been organized according to portraits, personal and family life, early school, professional life, and slides. The majority of the photographs are annotated and dated on the verso, and the slides are numbered and dated. Two photographs in “Professional life” [B2012-0005/001P(04)] that are not annotated or dated show Professor Skilling receiving an honorary degree (LL.D) from the University of Toronto in 1982. He is flanked by President James Ham and Chancellor George Ignatieff.

There are four newspaper clippings related to Professor Skilling. The first is a congratulatory message, possibly published in a newsletter issued by the West United Church, about Skilling having won The Gundy-Doran scholarship [dated between 1929-1934]. The second clipping is a photograph of Skilling and his Harbord Collegiate institute junior basketball team [ca. 1928-29]. The third clipping is an article entitled “Viet Nam situation called threat to unity” [1966]. Skilling is quoted and discussed at length in the article. The final clipping is a profile (in English) on H. Gordon Skilling, published in The Prague Post in 1994.