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Contact information • History • Access & Facilities • Bibliography
ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: G-18Last update of repository: 16 March 2020Nauchnaia biblioteka Rossiiskoi Akademii khudozhestv (NB RAKh)Previous names
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. |
