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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: G-18

Last update of repository: 16 March 2020

Nauchnaia biblioteka Rossiiskoi Akademii khudozhestv (NB RAKh)


Previous names
1947–1991   Nauchnaia biblioteka Akademii khudozhestv SSSR (NB AKh SSSR)
[Scientific Library of the Academy of the Arts of the USSR]
1933–1947   Nauchnaia biblioteka Vserossiiskoi Akademii khudozhestv (NB VAKh)
[Scientific Library of the All-Russian Academy of Arts]
1932–1933   Biblioteka Leningradskogo instituta zhivopisi, arkhitektury i skul'ptury (Biblioteka LINZhAS)
[Library of the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Architecture, and Sculpture]
1930–1932   Biblioteka Instituta proletarskikh izobrazitel'nykh iskusstv (Biblioteka INPII)
[Library of the Institute of Proletarian Fine Arts]
1922–1930   Biblioteka Vysshego khudozhestvenno-tekhnicheskogo instituta (Biblioteka VKhUTEINa)
[Library of the Higher Technical Art Institute]
1921–1922   Biblioteka Vysshikh khudozhestvenno-tekhnicheskikh masterskikh (Biblioteka VKhUTEMAS)
[Library of the Higher Technical Art Studios]
1918–1921   Biblioteka Petrogradskikh gosudarstvennykh svobodnykh khudozhestvenno-uchebnykh masterskikh
[Library of the Petrograd State Free Art Training Studios]
1917–1918   Biblioteka Akademii khudozhestv
[Library of the Academy of Arts]
1764–1917   Biblioteka Imperatorskoi Akademii khudozhestv (Biblioteka IAKh)
[Library of the Imperial Academy of Arts]
1757–1764   Biblioteka Akademii trekh znatneishikh khudozhestv—zhivopisi, skul'ptury i arkhitektury
[Academy of the Three Distinguished Arts—Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture]
History
One of the oldest public libraries of St. Petersburg, the library was established in 1757 together with the Imperial Academy of Arts. Before 1917, the library had acquired an extensive collection of graphic materials, including over 16,000 original drawings; 44,000 engravings, etchings, and lithographs; and 18,000 photographs and negatives. Transferred to the authority of the People’s Commissariat of Education in 1918, its collections were partly scattered among various museums in Petrograd and other cities of the Soviet Union. In 1924 by order of Glavnauka, the majority of original drawings and xylographs that remained were transferred to the Russian Museum and the Hermitage—in exchange for which the Hermitage provided some luxury editions on architecture, and the Russian Museum provided architectural drawings from the S. Gagarin collection.
        After the All-Russian Academy of Arts (VAKh) was reestablished in 1933, as primarily an educational institution, the library was in a subordinate positition. In 1947 it became the independent research library of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (AKh SSSR)—since 1991, of the Russian Academy of Arts (RAKh).

N.B. See more details about the history of RAKh, its archival records and its Scientific Archive and under E–56.


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted