His life story was as thrilling as his concerts. Serge Jaroff, Russian emigre composer and founder of the legendary Don Cossack Chorus, escaped both Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany in his astonishing career.

Two decades after his death, his remarkable saga goes on, now with two Scottish academics at its centre.

Glasgow-based husband-and-wife team Dr Stuart Campbell and Dr Svetlana Zvereva have become embroiled in a bitter trans-Atlantic row over the future of Jaroff's archive, an extensive record of his life spanning six decades and several countries.

The couple this summer went to America to photograph and catalogue the archive after it was discovered dumped outside Jaroff's derelict home in New Jersey.

By the time they arrived back in Glasgow last month, they were being accused of being part of an elaborate and unlikely international conspiracy to rob the archive, believed to be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, and to defraud its finder, 49-year-old US antique dealer Lisa Myer.

Dr Campbell, formerly of Glasgow University, last night vigorously dismissed the allegation, which has been reported to US police.

He said: "These allegations are absurd and defamatory. We are deeply concerned about the fate of the bulk of the archive, which, as far as we know, is still in New Jersey."

Ms Myer yesterday said large parts of the archive were missing. She believes papers, photographs and other records were removed by a group that, aside from the Glasgow scholars, among others, supposedly included a retired Swiss judge, a very senior Russian diplomat and at least one priest.

The archive was made up of tens of thousands of papers and artefacts, including records, costumes and concert posters, documenting how Jaroff, an officer in the losing side of Russia's Civil War, turned a ragtag group of his Cossack fellow officers into one of the most popular choruses in pre-war Germany and post-war America.

Ms Myer said whole boxes of material had disappeared and also said she believed a box of material she donated to a respected Moscow museum, via a Russian vice-consul in New York, also contained stolen items.

The Herald, however, yesterday confirmed that the museum, the Glinka, is expecting to take delivery of that box soon through diplomatic bags.

For two years, Dr Campbell and Dr Zvereva, an expert in Russian church music, have been unsuccessfully trying to find a new home for the Jaroff Archive in a museum or library of the Glinka's stature.

Ms Myer, meanwhile, has made tens of thousands of dollars by selling parts of the archive on eBay.