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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: G-7Last update of repository: 16 March 2020Rossiiskaia gosudarstvennaia biblioteka iskusstv (RGBI)Previous names
The library was founded in 1922 as the State Central Theater Library, on the initiative of professor of literature and dean of the theater school of the Malyi Theater, A.A. Fomin, who served as its first director. From the start it was closely connected with the Malyi Theater, whose premises it occupied, and the associated Higher Theater Workshop. By 1925, it started to serve other theaters as well, and its holdings were considerably expanded. Among the early acquisitions was the library of the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers, books from the Theater Department of the State Academy of Arts, the library of E.S. Rassokhina, the collection of the actor A.P. Lenskii (pseud. of Vervitsiotti), and a large collection of lithographed and manuscript plays. In 1948 the library moved into the building it occupies today, which had been built in 1793 on the design of the Russian architect M.F. Kazakov. While owned by the Moscow deputy governor, N.E. Miasoedov, it housed a serf theater, and later in the nineteenth century, it housed a theater school. Starting in the 1960s the library acquired a number of important collections from the theater world of producers, actors, and theater historians and critics, including those of M.N. and A.P. Gaziev, S.S. Ignatov, S.S. Mokul'skii, Iu.I. Slonimskii, and N.D. Volkov. As the library grew, its holdings extended to a broad range of holdings in the humanities and the arts, totalling over 1,670,000 units. In 1992 it was renamed the Russian State Library for the Arts. Most particularly, the library holds extensive documentary and visual materials on the history of the theater, opera, ballet, the circus, and other performing arts in Russia and abroad. There are archival materials and manuscript music as part in the Sector of Manuscripts and Book Memorials (former Sector of Rare Books), which is administratively part of the Division for Storage of Library Fonds (Otdel khraneniia bibliotechnykh fondov), and significant archival materials in the Division of Iconographic Materials. The library also collects videocassettes of theater performances. |
