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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: G-3Last update of repository: 15 February 2021Gosudarstvennaia publichnaia istoricheskaia biblioteka Rossii (GPIB)Previous names
The Historical Library dates its origin to the Moscow City Chertkov Public Library, which was opened to the public in 1863 on the basis of the personal library of Aleksandr Dmitrievich Chertkov (1789–1858), the historian, archeologist, and chairman of the Society of Russian History and Antiquities (Obshchestvo istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh). During his lifetime, Chertkov had assembled what was recognized as the richest library on Russian history at the time. The library came under the auspices of the Moscow City Duma in 1871 and subsequently became the basis of the library of the Historical Museum (now State Historical Museum—GIM). During the late nineteenth century the library acquired a number of important private libraries and historical collections, including those of M.D. Khmyrov, A.N. Golitsyn, and I.E. Zabelin, the Slavicist D.M. Shchepkin, A.P. Bakhrushin, and the bibliophile General Field-Marshal A.I. Bariatinskii, among others. After the Revolution, the library of the Historical Museum acquired the library holdings of many abolished institutions and organizations as well as nationalized collections from religious and private sources. In several cases, the library acquired the books from major private collectors, whose manuscript books and museum and documentary collections went to other divisions of the Historical Museum, such as those of the historian and archeologist A.A. Bobrinskii, A.S. Uvarov, and the genealogist L.M. Savelov. In 1922, the library holdings were reorganized with the status of the State Historical Library under what was then called the Russian Historical Museum—after 1929, the State Historical Museum (GIM). In 1938, the State Public Historical Library of the RSFSR (GPIB) was established as a separate institution, consolidating the bulk of the library holdings of the State Historical Museum, and the library of the abolished Institute of Red Professors (Institut Krasnoi professury), which was formed on the basis of the library of the Moscow Pedagogical Assembly (Moskovskoe pedagogicheskoe sobranie), together with the collections of several smaller libraries oriented to the humanities. During the 1930s and 1940s GPIB received a vast complex of library materials which had been confiscated by state security organs (OGPU and NKVD, and later KGB). After World War II the library also received a significant number of “trophy” books brought to Moscow from Germany and Eastern Europe. Since 1991, the library is known by its present name of the State Public Historical Library of Russia. The Division (now Fond) of Rare Books was established in 1976. The Sector for Nontraditional Imprints was created as a separate unit in 1996, on the basis of a large special collection of nontraditional press started in 1989, within the library Division of Basic Holdings. In 1997 GPIB acquired the important collection of the former private Library of Unpublished Manuscripts (Biblioteka neizdannykh rukopisei—BNR), thus further enriching this sector. Some archival materials are also found within the separate Russia Abroad Collection, including scattered historical documentation remaining from collection of the émigré White Army officer Ia.M. Lisovoi donated to the library, although most of the archival materials from that collection were unforunately scattered among several state archives. |
