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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: E-75

Last update of repository: 15 March 2020

Sankt-Peterburgskii gosudarstvennyi universitet (SPbGU)


Muzei-arkhiv D.I. Mendeleeva
[D.I. Mendeleev Museum-Archive]

Address: 199034, St. Petersburg, Universitetskaia nab., 7/9

Telephone: +7 812 328-97-44, +7 812 328-97-37

E-mail: [email protected]
Opening hours: by appointment

Director: Igor' Sergeevich Dmitriev (tel. +7 812 328-97-37)


Holdings

Total: over 14,000 units

The Scientific Archive of the D.I. Mendeleev Museum-Archive retains Mendeleev’s personal and scientific papers, along with those of members of his family and other relatives, as well as materials of biographers and others who have researched his work.
        Mendeleev’s vast manuscript legacy includes scientific studies and associated writings, working diaries and notebooks, biographical materials, and correspondence. Mendeleev’s art collection consists of photographic reproductions of great paintings by Russian and foreign artists, while his library consists of some 20,000 books, brochures, offprints of articles, and newspaper clippings. Many of the books have his personal marginalia.
        Fonds of Mendeleev’s relatives include personal papers of the family of E.I. Kapustina (née Mendeleeva, 1816–1901), the scientist’s elder sister; her children and relatives; the Smirnovs, including documents of Ia.I. Smirnov, a curator in the Hermitage and historian of Christian art and archeology; Mendelee’s first wife, F.N. Mendeleeva (née Leshcheva, 1828–1903) and his daughter from his first marriage, O.D. Trigorova (née Mendeleeva, 1868–1950); and Mendeleev’s second wife, A.I. Mendeleeva (née Popova, 1860–1942) and her children, I.D. Mendeleev (1883–1936) and M.D. Mendeleeva (married name Kuz'mina, 1886–1952). These fonds include family correspondence, diaries, recollections of D.I. Mendeleev, correspondence relating to the publication of Mendeleev’s manuscript legacy, and portraits of relatives and friends.
        A separate fond has been assigned for documents originating from Mendeleev’s students and colleagues, including B.P. Veinberg, V.I. Tishchenko, M.N. Mladentsev, and A.V. Skvortsov, and from contemporary researchers who have studied Mendeleev’s life and work. There is also a collection of biographical materials relating to Mendeleev.
        The museum has collected photocopies of documents relating to Mendeleev from other repositories in Russia and abroad.


History:
The Mendeleev Memorial Cabinet was opened in 1911 in the university apartment which the eminent chemist Dmitrii Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834–1907) occupied from 1866 to 1890. Initiative for the museum came from Mendeleev’s relatives, pupils, and colleagues—particularly A.E. Favorskii, V.E. Tishchenko, L.A. Chugaev, and V.N. Ipat'ev, who acquired the apartment from his widow, A.E. Mendeleeva, together with Mendeleev’s library, part of his archive, and furnishings from his study. In 1928 another Mendeleev Museum (Mendeleevskii muzei) was organized under the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Metrology and Standardization (VIMS), which included a large portion of Mendeleev’s manuscript legacy.
        In 1952, on the basis of a government resolution for the study of the scientific legacy of Mendeleev, Mendeleev’s study at LGU was reorganized into a formal museum and centralized archive, and it received a number of documents from other archival repositories throughout the country, including those earlier held in the VIMS museum. In 1963 the separate D.I. Mendeleev Museum, which then existed under the Main Chamber of Weights and Measures (now the D.I. Mendeleev Institute of Metrology) was abolished, and the Museum-Archive received the holdings which had been used for exhibits there. Today the Museum-Archive has the richest collection of documents in Russia on the life and work of Mendeleev and remains under the auspices of St. Petersburg State University.

Working conditions:
Researchers are accommodated in the museum offices, where materials are available the same day they are ordered.

Reference facilities:
There are inventory registers of the processed fonds, inventory catalogues of the main fonds, catalogues of correspondence by author, and inventory and subject catalogues of Mendeleev’s personal library. There are also subsidiary working catalogues of Mendeleev’s work.

Library facilities:
There is a working library of publications about D.I. Mendeleev, in addition to the personal library of Mendeleev, including many interesting marginalia (website: http://www.spbu.ru/culture/museums/me...).


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