« Back       Bibliography

ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: G-2

Last update of repository: 16 March 2020

Nauchnaia biblioteka Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta im. M.V. Lomonosova (NB MGU)


Otdel redkikh knig i rukopisei
[Division of Rare Books and Manuscripts]

Address: 103073, Moscow, ul. Mokhovaia, 9

Telephone: +7 495 697-26-56

Fax: +7 495 697-25-67

Reading room: +7 495 697-66-45 (ul. Mokhovaia, 9); +7 495 939-37-45 (Lomonosovskii prosp., 27, A-3)

E-mail: [email protected]

Website: http://www.nbmgu.ru/about/structure/127/;  http://www.nbmgu.ru/catalogs/elcats/a...  (archival fonds)

Opening hours: RdngRms: (ul. Mokhovaia, 9): MTuF 11:00–17:00, WTh 13:00–19:00; (Lomonosovskii prosp., 27, sector A, 3rd floor): MThF 11:00–17:00
Transport: ul. Mokhovaia, 9: metro: Aleksandrovskii sad; Biblioteka im. Lenina; Lomonosovskii prosp., 27: metro: Universitet, Lomonosovskii prospekt

Head: Aleksandr L'vovich Lifshits (tel. +7 495 697-25-67)

Deputy Head: Irina Leonidovna Velikodnaia (tel. +7 495 697-26-56)

Head of the Sector of Archives: Sof'ia Efimovna Matlina (tel. +7 495 939-37-46)


Holdings

Total: over 350,000 units; 8th–21th cc.
Slavic MSS—over 2,400 units; Russian MS books—ca. 1,000 units (13th–20th cc.); Oriental MSS—455 units (16th–19th cc.); Greek and Latin MSS—11 units (10th–15th cc.); personal collections—49; posters—1,817 units; Western European MSS—15,000 units (15th–20th cc.); sound recordings—ca. 1,000 units

The Division of Rare Books and Manuscripts, in terms of archival materials, has extensive collections of manuscript books (over 2,000 units) in Greek, Latin, French, and German, in addition to Slavic languages; major collections of personal papers and libraries of professors and others associated with the university; a collection of documents relating to the history of the University; and major graphic collections.
        The important collections of Slavonic-Rus' manuscript books (14th–18th cc.), include many that were collected in the course of MGU archeographic expeditions throughout the former Soviet Union. Notable examples include an early thirteenth-century Gospel from Rostov the Great; a fourteenth-century Galician-Volhynian parchment Gospel-Aprakos imitating the text and miniatures of the Ostromir Gospel; lives of saints; annals and chronicles; a feudal military register book (razriadnaia kniga) (1500–1646) containing a chronicle of the “Moldavian Lands” (1509); and a seventeenth-century codex on the establishment of the patriarchate in Russia. The Moldavian and Ukrainian Collection contains early manuscripts of Moldavian origin. Among other manuscripts of ecclesiastic provenance are cadastral (pistsovye) and registration (zapisnye) books from the Bezhetsk Armenian Enclave (Bezhetskaia piatina) of the Beloozero region, economic documents from monasteries, and the founding charter of the Polotsk Brotherhood. There are also manuscripts from secular sources of a later period, which include letters of Peter the Great, an investigative report into the case of the Tsarevich Aleksei (1718), and materials relating to the history of Poland (1767–1792).
        The division has seventeen territorial collections and collections of Old Believer religious manuscript books, which were also acquired on MGU archeographic expeditions, such as those to the early villages of Vetka (Homel Oblast), Starodub (Briansk Oblast), Vereshchagin (Perm Oblast), and Samodurovka (now Belogorno). Of particular importance in extent and significance are the territorial collections from Vetka-Starodub, Kareliia, and Perm.
        MGU also holds a number of theological, historical, juridical, and literary manuscripts, incunabula, and paleotypes in Greek and Latin. These include a Greek chronicle of the Byzantinist Peter of Alexandria (10th c.), a Greek Gospel dated 1072, and a fifteenth-century manuscript convolute of the speeches of Attic orators. Latin manuscripts include a thirteenth-century illuminated Bible on parchment from France. The earliest incunabulum is the parchment fragments of the fourth-centuryLatin grammarian, Aelius Donatus, printed by Johannes Gutenberg between 1445 and 1450 in Mainz. There are a number of later manuscripts of West European origin in French and German, among other languages.
        Among the forty-one Oriental manuscripts in the division (fromseveral different collections), there are the works of Chinese philosophers, Chinese phrasebooks, and Manchu, Mongolian, and Tibetan dictionaries. A fifteenth-century Arabic dictionary by Firuzabadi is among the most valuable Arabic manuscripts. Persian manuscripts include accounts of pilgrimages toMecca in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. There are also literary and juridical works in Turkic, Tatar, and Arabic languages.
        The collection of documents devoted to the history of the University contains the first manuscript charter of the Imperial Moscow University and the charter of confirmation (Utverditel'naia gramota) (1804). It also includes a collection of university and secondary school course and study prospectuses, dissertations, and official speeches. Archival documents saved from the fire in 1812 include fifteen volumes of the minutes (protocols) of the university Conference (Konferentsiia [academic council]) during the eighteenth century.
        Then there are collections of more than fifty private libraries spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries thatformerly belonged to professors and staff of the University and to persons prominent in the world of culture. These include the libraries of several members of the Dmitriev, Murav'ev, and Turgenev families, among other important holdings from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Someof these collections contain literary manuscripts that were acquired by the library after the fire of 1812. There are also originals and copies of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary works, including the “Satire” of A. Kantemir, poetry of G.S. Skovoroda, 14 manuscript volumes by I.M. Dolgorukov, forbidden compositions of A.N. Radishchev, A.S. Griboedov, and K.F. Ryleev, and a manuscript of “A Hunter’s Sketches” by I.S. Turgenev with the censor’s corrections. Many of these were acquired from the censor’s office ofthe University press. Also of particular archival importance, these personal libraries contain many volumes with dedicatory autographs, inscriptions, and marginalia. (The list of personal libraries held in the Division of Rare Books and Manuscripts available electronically: http://www.nbmgu.ru/search/?cat=rare&...).
        Among the personal fonds of former university faculty are the papers of the logician A.S. Akhmanov; the linguistics specialist F.I. Buslaev; the philologist F.E. Korsh; the historians T.N. Granovskii, N.K. Gudzii, M.M. Kovalevskii, and F.F. Veselago; and the Kharusin brothers, who were ethnographers. The archive of the historian and university bibliographer E.I. Sokolov is rich in documents relating to the nineteenth-century Society for History and Antiquities. There are also the personal papers and manuscript collections of P.N. and M.N. Krechetnikov, who were active in government in the eighteenth century, and the literary figures D.Ia. and E.Ia. Kolbasin.
        The division holds significant cartographic and iconographic materials. These include a complete collection of the portraits of the Decembrists and an extensive collection of engravings and lithographs (3,123 units) brought together by F.F. Vigel', also known for his memoirs and other writings. The graphic materials in the division also include collections of posters from World War I, the Civil War, the War of Foreign Intervention, and World War II.
        During the 1990s the division acquired a collection of sound recordings collected by the faculty, staff, and students of the Moscow State University. Theseinclude recordings of the speeches made by the professors and lecturers of the University, by important Soviet scholars and scientists, and by persons prominent in the world of literature and the arts (including V.V. Maiakovskii).

N.B. Manuscripts and archival materials are also held in the MGU Archive (see E–65).


Working conditions:
Manuscripts can be consulted in a special reading room within a day after they are ordered. Advance orders can be made by telephone or personal visit.

Reference facilities:
For manuscripts and archival materials, there are inventory registers, inventory books for different fonds in the division, and opisi of the archival fonds. There are subject and topograhic catalogues. A separate catalogue covers books with inscriptions and dedicatory autographs, and there are separate catalogues for several of the private libraries held by the division, including those of the Murav'ev and Turgenev families, and of the Vigel' collection. There is also a separate catalogue covering the Slavonic-Rus' manuscript books, and a database is being compiled (in adapted MARC format) with descriptions of the manuscript books.

Library facilities:
There is a specialized reference library available to researchers, and readers may order books from the main university library collections.

Copy facilities:
Photographic and xerox copies can be prepared.


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted