Personal Libraries of Statesmen of the 19^th – early 20^th Century in the Book Collection of the Military Historical Library of the General Staff

Personal book collections (or their parts) in the funds of military scientific libraries either have not been studied before, or have been partially considered. The Military Historical Library of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is the example of the limited knowledge on its fund and the lack of information about the availability of books from personal libraries and their composition. Its fund mainly consists of libraries of military organizations nationalized after the October Revolution, as well as more than 100 personal collections of mostly statesmen. The majority of them are associated with military affairs, including representatives of the Romanov dynasty. Many owners systematized their collections, used artistic ex-libris for their design and fixation of possession. However, not all representatives of the military department were actively engaged in their libraries, as evidenced by the study of copies with proprietary marks. There are significantly fewer books by non–military statesmen in the fund: lawyers, literary critics, historians, etc. Nevertheless, books from their collections represent unexplored historical sources and objects of cultural heritage. Today, the Military Historical Library of the General Staff is in the process of identifying copies with the ownership characteristics of statesmen. 8 673 books have been studied, 1 663 of them have signs of belonging to private libraries. Information about the availability of books in the collection from personal libraries in the context of their possession by statesmen is provided for the first time. The purpose of the article is to introduce into scientific circulation information about the availability of copies from the personal collections of statesmen of the 19th and early 20th centuries in the Military Historical Library of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

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