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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: G-15Last update of repository: 15 February 2021Rossiiskaia natsional'naia biblioteka (RNB)Otdel rukopisei [Division of Manuscripts] Address: 191069, St. Petersburg, ul. Sadovaia, 18 Telephone: +7 812 312-28-63 Fax: +7 812 310-61-48 E-mail: [email protected]Website: http://nlr.ru/manuscripts Opening hours: MWF 13:00–21:00; TuTh 9:00–21:00; SaSu 11:00–19:00Head: Aleksei Ivanovich Alekseev (tel. +7 812 718-86-10); e-mail [email protected] Head of Reading Room: Mikhail Alekseevich Shibaev (tel. +7 812 718-86-10); e-mail [email protected] Holdings Total: ca. 438,000 units; 5th c.–2000 (some documents 10th c. B.C.–th c.) early Slavic MS books—over 30,000 units; early Russian charters—over 20,000 units (13th–19th cc.); Russian archival fonds—over 1,300 fonds (over 220,000 units) (18th–21th cc.); Western MSS—ca. 50 fonds (ca. 80,000 units); Oriental MSS—28,000 units; Greek manuscripts—904 units The Division of Manuscripts houses one of the world’s richest collections of Slavic, Western, and Oriental manuscripts, together with over 1,000 modern institutional and personal archival fonds. An annotated list of fonds available electronically: http://nlr.ru/manuscripts/RA376/fondy.... The Slavonic-Rus' manuscript tradition is represented in the Basic Collection of Manuscript Books (Osnovnoe sobranie rukopisnoi knigi—OSRK), which was formed in the division from individual acquisitions from prerevolutionary collectors and scholars—Archimandrite Amfilokhii (P.I. Sergievskii), A.I. Artem'ev, P.D. Bogdanov, F.I. Buslaev, P.K. Frolov, the historian N.M. Karamzin, Bishop Porfirii (K.A. Uspenskii), the archeologist P.I. Savvaitov, and E.V. Trekhletov, to name only a few. A corresponding New Collection of Manuscript Books (Novoe sobranie rukopisnoi knigi—NSRK) includes manuscripts collected by the Manuscript Division after 1917. Many other manuscript books remain part of major private collections received by the library, some in the early nineteenth century—such as the collections of F.A. Tolstoi (1830—with over 1,300 manuscripts and early historical documents) and the so-called Repository of Antiquities (Drevlekhranilishche) of M.P. Pogodin (1852), which also included the Arkhangel'sk library of D.M. Golitsyn and part of the P.M. Stroev collection. The part of the Hermitage Collection transferred to the Public Library in the 1850s and 1860s also included part of the collection of M.M. Shcherbatov. Among the many other collections acquired later were those of Ivan Berchich, A.F. Gil'ferding, Iu.A. Iavors'kyi (Iavorskii—especially rich in materials from Ukrainian lands), and A.A. Titov (1902), which was the largest private manuscript collection in prerevolutionary Russia (ca. 5,000 units). Among Slavonic manuscript treasures are the earliest dated Church Slavonic manuscript, the illuminated “Ostromir Gospel” (1056–1057); the so-called Izbornik Sviatoslava (1076); the Laurentian Chronicle (Lavrent'evskaia letopis') of 1377, which is the oldest part of the so-called Russian (Rus') Primary Chronicle; the Kyivan (Kievan) Psalter (Kievskaia Psaltir') (1397); the illuminated Four Gospels (1508); and the earliest text of the Rus' law code, “Russkaia pravda.” There are many other famous legal, historical, and literary manuscripts of all types, as well as materials on the history of the Church and the Schism (Raskol), diplomatic documents, and genealogical books, in original and copies. Among important Slavic holdings from outside of Russia, is a collection of Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian manuscripts (11th–16th cc.), among which are Cyrillic and Glagolitic texts, including an eleventh-century Gospel from Mount Athos. There are a number of Czech materials, and the A.F. Gil'ferding collection includes some 100 manuscripts (13th–18th cc.) from Serbia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina. There are a number of later manuscript materials from Poland, including some from the P.P. Dubrovskii (Dubrowski) and other collections, along with some important materials from the Radziwill, family archive from Nesvizh (Pol. Nieśwież). Early Rus' and Moscovite charters (akty and gramoty) dating from the thirteenth through seventeenth centuries form a Basic Collection of Documents and Charters (Osnovnoe sobranie aktov i gramot—OSAG), whichcombines materials from many individual collections. There are also separate territorial collections of charters from Tavrensk, Ust'-Sysol'sk (Syktyvkar), and Iarensk, and several named collections, including those of I.K. Zinchenko, A.S. Orlov, and P.N. Tikhanov, among others. These include original grand ducal and tsarist charters, petitions, interrogations, mercantile agreements, and testaments, among other types of early official documents. Russian fonds from the eighteenth through twenty first centuries contain documents on social-economic, political, and military history, the history of science, culture, and the fine arts. Among fonds and subject-oriented collections are those from the Commission of the Imperial Public Library director Baron M.A. Korf for collecting materials relating to the reign of Nicholas I, documents on the elections to the FirstState Duma, collected on the instructions of the then Prime Minister S.Iu. Witte (Vitte) (1905–1906, 15 vols.), a collection on finance in Russia (1900–1908), and a collection of censorship materials, among others. A significant number of sources for thehistory of Russian domestic and foreign policy are to be found among hundreds of personal fonds of government and society leaders of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries—A.D. Menshikov, chancellery secretary of Peter I A.V. Makarov, and Prince G.A. Potemkin-Tavricheskii; the ministers and high officials A.A. Arakcheev, M.M. Speranskii (with drafts and papers on administrative and legal reform), head of the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee V.A. Tsei (with extensive materials on censorship and the prison system), and Minister of Internal Affairs V.K. Pleve; diplomat D.P. Tatishchev,diplomat and minister N.P. Ignat'ev, and ambassador to Japan and the USA, R.R. Rozen; military commanders General A.V. Suvorov, Admirals S.K. and A.S. Greig, and World War I front Commander D.V. Balanin, to name only a few. Here also is a collection of autographs of representatives of the Romanov family, including original letters and documents of Peter I and Catherine II. Gentry estate and family fonds and collections include papers of the Mansyrov family (with 175 charters, 1572–1809), the Novgorod landowners Koshkarev and Elagin, the Riazan and Kashira landowners Protasov, the Polovtsev family archive (with materials on the inspection [reviziia] by Senator A.A. Polovtsev of Kyiv and Chernihiv guberniias in 1880–1881), and the family archive of the princes P.G. and A.P. Ol'denburg. The entire spectrum of nineteenth-century social and political thought is represented—from manuscripts of the Slavophile I.S. Aksakov to the populist A.A. Sleptsov, to the Cadet Party leader P.N. Miliukov, the economist, and politician P.B. Struve, and the populist A.V. Peshekhonov, among others. The documentary record of science and culture is represented by institutional collections from the Free Economic Society, the Russian Archeological Society, the Committee of the Society for Aid to Needy Men of Letters and Scholars (in part), and editorial offices of journals such as Novoe vremia, Russkoe slovo, Russkii bibliofil, among others. Among fonds and collections of personal origin, many with unpublished writings, mention should be made of papers of the historians K.F. Kalaidovich, N.I. Kostomarov (with extensive correspondence), A.I. Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii (with many of his diaries and journals), A.N. Olenin, P.P. Pekarskii (with extensive materials on the eighteenth century), S.F. Platonov (with 12,000 letters from 2,400 correspondents), S.N. Shubinskii (with 20,000 letters and parts of the archive of the journalsDrevniaia i novaia Rossiia and Istoricheskii vestnik), and N.K. Shil'der (Schilder) (with extensive notes and original documents from state and family archives). There are also fonds of the jurist A.F. Koni; the director of the Archeological Institute, N.V. Pokrovskii; and the specialist on church history, A.A. Dmitrievskii, among others. Among papers of Slavicists are those of I.I. Sreznevskii, A.N. Pypin, and A.A. Shakhmatov. Most of the great Russian writers of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries are represented by a significant number of literary manuscripts in well-known collections, and some with more extensive personal fonds. These include many materials of M.Iu. Lermontov, I.A. Goncharov, D.S. Merezhkovskii, and Z.N. Gippius, A. Belyi, V.V. Khlebnikov, and A.M. Remizov. Manuscript materials range from holographs of I.A. Krylov’s Fables, to the manuscripts of N.V. Gogol'’s Dead Souls and I.S. Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, to 207 autograph manuscripts of A.A. Blok, and samples of A.A. Akhmatova and S.A. Esenin (Yesenin), to give only a few examples. Among rich fonds of literary and artistic critics are those of V.G. Belinskii and the extensive documentary collections of N.A. Dobroliubov and V.V. Stasov. (Many of these are described in printed catalogues.) The library is one of the richest in Russia for musicology. It holds especially important manuscript materials for the Russian composers A.P. Borodin, A.K. Glazunov, M.I. Glinka, César Cui (Ts.A. Kiui), M.P. Musorgskii, S.S. Prokof'ev, and N.A. Rimskii-Korsakov. There are many letters and scores of many famous foreign composers from the seventeenth through nineteenth century. In 1938 it received many of the manuscript materials collected by the Leningrad Philharmonic after the Revolution (G–20), some that have been retained with specific collections, such as the V.V. Stasov collection, others arranged within individual fonds. The description of musical manuscripts available electronically: http://nlr.ru/manuscripts/RA1387/muzy.... Other fields of culture and the arts are likewise well represented. For example, the papers of the theater director V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, the architects N.L. Benois (Benua) and A.S. Nikol'skii, and those of many famous Russian artists, includingB.M. Kustodiev, G.S. Vereiskii, and A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva. Aside from personal papers there are other archival collections including those for theater plays, drawings and other documents of Leningrad artists, documents for the biobibliography of Soviet writers, and letters of Soviet scholars relating to bibliography. The most important collection of Greek manuscripts in the country—and one of the most important outside Greece (over 1,000)—includes, for example, the collections of the Leipzig professor Constantin von Tischendorf and the German archeographer Christian Friedrich von Matthaei (another part of the Matthaei collection is in RGADA—B–2); the collection of Bishop Porfirii (K.A. Uspenskii), who for eighteen years headed the Orthodox mission in Palestine and brought back close to 290 Greek manuscripts, including 34 on parchment (the earliest from the 9th c.); those of Archimandrite Antonin (A.V. Kapustin) and the historian-Byzantinist A.P. Papadopulo-Keramevs; several manuscripts from the library of the Byzantine emperors (4th–13th cc.); and manuscripts from the Nizhyn Greek Brotherhood (17th–18th cc. from the collection of A.A. Dmitrievskii). Most important among Greek manuscripts are early papyruses (2nd–4th cc. A.D.) and religious texts, including fragments of the sixth-century “Codex Sinaiticus,” the PorfiryGospel (835) and Psalter (862), and the tenth-century “Gospel of Trebizond.” There are also legal texts, dictionaries, copies of ancient and Byzantine authors dating from the fourth to the nineteenth centuries, including some important palimpsests, and a large collection of photographic copies of illuminated manuscripts from many repositories. Several Greek manuscripts are of Moldavian and Wallachian provenance. The description of Greek manuscripts available electronically: http://nlr.ru/manuscripts/RA1370/grec.... Almost a thousand Latin manuscripts, many of which are illuminated, represent monuments of medieval religious and lay literature, annals and chronicles, and legal codices, including a number in Gothic script (11th–17thcc.). Some of the most notable early manuscripts include texts of Cicero, a fifth-century parchment codex of writings of Saint Augustine, and an early text of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica (746). Historical documents from the Middle Ages and Italian Renaissance include papal bulls and municipal charters. There are charters of French kings, humanists, scholars, and writers. In terms of Western European manuscripts (6,000 codices of the 5th–20th cc. and over 70,000 documents) of particular importance is the collection of the diplomat P.P. Dubrovskii (Dubrowski), which includes documents of provenance in French monastic and royal libraries and other archives in France and other countries of Western Europe. Many of them were gathered in France during the revolutionary period, with a major segment from the archive of theBastille (400 documents), and materials from the monasteries of St. Germain des Près and St. Antoine des Champs. Many significant Western European manuscripts were acquired from the Hermitage, such as a famous French chronicle from the fifteenth century, “Grands chroniques de France.” Others came directly from the imperial family, such as the collection of Diderot’s personal papers, including manuscript writings with the author’s corrections, that was purchased for Catherine II. The collections of P.K. Sukhtelen (Suchtelen), P.L. Vaksel', and A.Ia. Lobanov-Rostovskii, are also especially rich in foreign autographs, along with many letters of statesmen, scholars, and literary figures and important texts from England, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Italy—in addition to France. Famous autographs from all over Europe include those of Richelieu, Mazarin, Mary Stuart, Napoleon, Bismarck, Simon Bolivar, Honorè de Balzac, Goethe, and Charles Dickens. The American presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are also represented. Closer to home, there are charters from gentry on theIsland of Ösel, and letters of French officers during the Crimean War. The collection of the Russian military engineer and diplomat P.K. Sukhtelen (Suchtelen) is particularly rich in materials from Scandinavia, in addition to 30,000 autographs (16th-mid–19th cc.). Historical materials in that collection especially relate to the Swedish involvement in the Baltic from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, to the 30 Years War, the Great Northern War, reports from the Swedish governors-general in Finland, diplomatic relations with Russia, official decrees of King Charles XII of Sweden, papers of eight Danish kings, and documents of many Scandinavian scholars. The description of Western European manuscripts available electronically: http://nlr.ru/manuscripts/RA1382/zapa... Oriental holdings in the Division of Manuscripts are among the richest in Russia. Ancient Egyptian papyruses from the Libyan Era of the tenth and ninth centuries B.C. are among its oldest manuscripts. There are Indian Buddhist textsin the Pali language on palm leaves, fifth-century Syriac manuscripts, and early inscriptions on stone and leather. Oriental holdings include religious, historical, legal, scientific, and literary texts—from the “Church History” of Eusebius of Caesaria (462), a manuscriptlife of Judas Iscariot (6th c.), the second earliest known copy (1332–1333) of the “Shakh Name” of the Persian epic poet Firdawsi, to a collection of documents from the field chancery of the Turkish commanding forces under Ali Pasha from the period of the Crimean War (1853–1856). Most of the Oriental holdings are arranged in collections by language groups, but some have been retained in the collections of their provenance, such as the Bakhchisarai collections, or those of their individual collector, such as those of ArchimandriteAntonin (A.I. Kapustin), the Arabist I.Iu. Krachkovskii, and the Orientalist N.V. Khanykov. The A.S. Firkovich (Firkowitsch) collection is particularly rich in early Hebrew, Hebrew-Arabic, and Samaritan manuscripts, including biblical and Talmud texts, many of which were acquired from the Cairo Geniza. It includes the earliest known copy of the Pentateuch in Hebrew (1010). Another important group of Hebrew manuscripts was transferred to the library in the nineteenth century from the Odessa Society for History and Antiquities. The largest number of manuscripts inany language group are those in Persian (ca. 1,000), followed by Arabic (ca. 800), Turkic languages (ca. 400), and Chinese manuscripts and xylographs (ca. 250). There are also representative early manuscripts in the Coptic and Chaldean languages, and some in Armenian, Georgian, Mongolian, Manchu, and Japanese, which indicates the extent, richness, and variety of the Oriental holdings. The archives of the Khanates of Khiva and Kokand that were earlier held and catalogued in the Division of Manuscripts were returned to Tashkent, although microfilms remain. The description of Oriental manuscripts available electronically: http://nlr.ru/manuscripts/RA1384/vost... Cartographic materials include maps of the fifteenth through twentieth centuries, including economic and topographic descriptions of Russia and other countries. There is a collection of architectural drawings which provide rich sources for construction projects and city planning in Russian cities, and include drawings and blueprints of Antonio Rinaldi, I.E. Starov, and Carlo (K.I.) Rossi, amongothers. The description of catrographic materials available electronically: http://nlr.ru/manuscripts/RA1386/kart.... History: The Division of Manuscripts was first established as the Depot of Manuscripts in 1805 on the basis of the P.P. Dubrovskii (Dubrowski) collection of manuscripts and historical documents, mostly gathered in France and other European countries in the course of thirty years by the Russian diplomat, and significantly increased during the upheavals of the French Revolution, and the library of the Zaluski brothers that had been brought from Warsaw to St. Petersburg in 1795 by Catherine II to become one of the founding collections of the new library. (Most of the Zaluski collection was returned to Poland after the Treaty of Riga in 1921 and perished in World War II.) The manuscript holdings were expanded with the accession of many private collections during the nineteenth century, such as those of P.K. Frolov (1817), F.A. Tolstoi (1830), and the Repository of Antiquities (Drevlekhranilishche) of M.P. Pogodin (1852), and a major part of the library from the Imperial Hermitage (1852&mndash; 1861). It acquired the collection of Western European books and documents of General P.K. Sukhtelen (Suchtelen), and the collections of Oriental manuscripts of A.S. Firkovich and Archimandrite Porfirii (K.A. Uspenskii), to name only a few. By 1917 it ranked second to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris among world libraries in terms of the extent and value of its manuscript holdings. With the nationalization of imperial, religious, and private collections after the October Revolution, the Division of Manuscripts was expanded extensively. It acquired an additional part of the library from the Imperial Hermitage (1920s) and manuscript materials from a number of other imperial and high gentry palace collections. It received the extensive manuscript collections from the libraries of the Petersburg Theological Academy (along with part of the archive), the Novgorod Theological Seminary and the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod, the Alexander-Nevskii Lavra, and the Kirillo-Belozerskii and Solovetskii Monasteries (1928). Among secular organizations, it acquired the collection of the Society of Friends of Early Written Texts (Obshchestvo liubitelei drevnei pis'mennosti) (1932), part of the manuscript book collection from the Russian Archeological Society, the editorial records of a number of prerevolutionary journals, and other nationalized and donated private collections, archives from other institutions, and personal papers and manuscript collections of a number of important families and individuals. Working conditions: Manuscript materials are delivered to the reading room the day after order (except for Friday and Saturday orders). Regulations for work in reading room of the Division of Manuscripts available on the website: http://nlr.ru/nlr_visit/dep/artupload.... For more details of working conditions see British guide: Russian & Ukrainian Archives Guide available electronically available electronically: https://research.reading.ac.uk/archiv.... Reference facilities: There are typewritten or manuscript opisi of all processed fonds and a card catalogue of existing opisi. There is a short card catalogue listing all fonds in the division. There is a more extensive card catalogue of names for many of the processed manuscript fonds in Russian and foreign languages. For those institutional fonds and personal papers included (the catalogue is far from complete or comprehensive), there are cross-references to correspondents whose letters may be found in various fonds. There are separate catalogues for manuscript music scores (alphabetically by composer), graphic materials, and preservation microfilms, as well as for Russian-related microfilms received from abroad. The Manuscript Division has issued many limited pressrun in-house published finding aids, including catalogues, manuscript descriptions, surveys, and other indexes, some oriented to individual fonds or collections, others oriented by subject or type of materials. These are all listed in the latest Manuscript Division bibliography (g–343) and in a catalogue in the reading room, where copies of most of them are housed on open shelves. In addition there are many additional internal catalogues available in typescript form, such as a two-volume guide to memoir literature in the MS Division. There is also a card catalogue of printed catalogues and directories, and a name index to the published library reports. Library facilities: Researchers have open access to the extensive reference collection, which is covered by a card catalogue, and most of which is on open shelves in the reading room. Copy facilities: Microfilms and photographic copies can be ordered in extremely limited quantities—the current limit is 20 folios. Xeroxing is not normally permitted from manuscript materials. In recent years the library has been charging high license or “right to copy” fees for copies from unique manuscripts. Foreigners can often negotiate barter arrangements for foreign manuscript materials of which the library may want copies, but the net cost per frame is exceedingly high. |
