Creating the collection of Russian books in the Library of the Warsaw educational district in 1832–1850

Abstract

The author discusses the process of creating the collection of Russian books in the first half of the 19th century in the contemporary Library of University in Warsaw. Three types of sources were used: 1) the reports of the superintendents of the Warsaw Education District prepared in 1841–1860 and stored as part of the archival collections of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Empire in Russian State Historical Archives in StPetersburg; 2) the printed catalog of A. F. Smirdin Library – a copy with annotations of Warsaw librarians held by the University Library in Warsaw; 3) a hand-written catalog of Russian books held by the Library of Warsaw Education District in 1850 stored in the Archives of the University Library in Warsaw. Their analysis allowed the author the following statements about the collection of the Russian books: 1) in 1850 the collection included 4055 titles in 6493 volumes; 2) this collection makes 9% of the whole Library collection; 3) the subject of the collection is humanities (Russian literature, Russian philology, history of Russia and world history, theology and religion nearly absent); 4) the collection is of a very high cultural value (it includes rare and valuable editions of books of most prominent Russian writers of the first half of the 19th century, for instance first editions of Pushkin’s works); 5) main trends in Russian books acquisition were the history of Russia, politics, fictions and analyses of these works.