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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: G-2

Last update of repository: 16 March 2020

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


Previous names
1932–1933   Biblioteka im. A.M. Gor'kogo Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta
[A.M. Gor'kii Library of Moscow State University]
1917–1932   Biblioteka Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta (Biblioteka MGU)
[Library of Moscow State University]
1755–1917   Biblioteka Imperatorskogo Moskovskogo universiteta
[Library of Imperial Moscow University]
History
The library, one of the oldest in the country, was founded together with the University itself in 1755, on the basis of a project of M.V. Lomonosov. Almost all the manuscripts held by the library before 1812 were lost in the Moscow fire, because they had not been evacuated to Nizhnii Novgorod along with the University. But the new library that was formed subsequently acquired a large number of private libraries, many of which had been preserved intact. Unlike the MGU archive (see E–90), which now only retains documents from the postrevolutionary period, the manuscript fonds of the A.M. Gor'kii Library were never transferred to state archives.
        To mark the fortieth anniversary of the literary and public career of A.M. Gor'kii in 1932, the MGU library was renamed in honor of the writer. The following year it received the status of a “scientific library.”
        The organization of a special fond of rare books and manuscripts began in 1946, when the most valuable materials, including manuscripts, were removed from the general book collections and put into a separate Division of Rare Books and Manuscripts. In the aftermath of World War II, the library’s collections were enriched by a large number of “trophy” books brought to Moscow from Germany and Eastern Europe, although most of the materials received from Dresden were subsequently returned to East Germany in the late 1950s.


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted