Russian State Library

Founding the Rumyantsev Museum in St. Petersburg

The official history of one of the largest national libraries in the world begins in the middle of the 19th century and is closely associated with the name of Count Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev (1754-1826), a diplomat, prime minister, chairman of the State Council and founder of the National Library. He created a wonderful private museum in St. Petersburg, whose goal was to serve the Motherland "to gain good enlightenment".

Count Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev dreamed of a museum that would tell about Russian history, art, identity and nature. He collected historical books and manuscripts, compiled chronicles of ancient Russian cities, published ancient Russian textual monuments, and studied the customs and rituals of the Russian peoples. After Nikolai Petrovich's death, his brother Sergei Petrovich Rumyantsev donated to the state a huge library (more than 28,000 volumes), manuscripts, collections and a small collection of paintings - "for the benefit of the Fatherland and good enlightenment". Count Rumyantsev's collection formed the basis of the Rumyantsev Museum, which was established on March 22, 1828 by the personal decree of Nicholas I.

On November 23, 1831, the museum in the Rumyantsev house on the English Embankment in St. Petersburg opened to visitors. The article reads as follows:

"Every Monday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. the museum is open to all readers. On other days, except Sundays and holidays, visitors who intend to read and take excerpts are allowed to enter..."

Alexander Khristoforovich Vostokov (1781-1864) - poet, paleographer, archaeologist - was appointed senior librarian of the museum.

In 1845, the Rumyantsev Museum became part of the Imperial Public Library. The director of the museum was Prince Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky (1804-1869), writer, musicologist, philosopher, deputy director of the Imperial Public Library.

By 1853, the Rumyantsev Museum contained 966 manuscripts, 598 maps and illustrated books (atlases), 32,345 printed publications. 722 readers browsed his jewelry and ordered 1,094 items. 256 visitors visited the exhibition hall.

Move to Moscow

The state of the Rumyantsev Museum left much to be desired, the collections were barely replenished, and the director of the Imperial Public Library, Modest Andreevich Korf, instructed Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky to prepare a note on the possibility of moving the museum to Moscow. It was hoped that the collections there would be more popular. A note on the plight of the Rumyantsev Museum was sent to the Minister of Internal Affairs and fell into the hands of General Nikolai Vasilyevich Isakov, then trustee of the Moscow Educational District, who decided to give it a try.

On May 23, 1861, the Council of Ministers adopted a resolution to move the Rumyantsev Museum to Moscow. In the same year, with the collections moving to Moscow, the acquisition and systematization of the museum's funds began. Entire boxes with registers and catalog cards sent many Russian, foreign and first-printed books from the duplex of the Imperial Public Library in St. Petersburg to the library being formed in Moscow.

The Pashkov House on Vagankovsky Hill was one of the most famous buildings in Moscow, which was used to store the collections. This spacious building combined the collections of the Moscow Public Museum and the Rumyantsev Museum.

On June 19, 1862, Emperor Alexander II approved the “Regulations of the Moscow Public Museum and the Rumyantsev Museum”. The “Regulations…” became the first legal document, determining the management, structure, direction of activity, legal deposit receipts, staffing of the museum-library, which was the first public library created in Moscow, a part of this museum. In 1869, the Emperor approved the first and only “Charter of the Moscow Public Museum and the Rumyantsev Museum” until 1917. Nikolai Vasilyevich Isakov became the first director of the joint museum.

In addition to libraries, the Moscow Public Museum and the Rumyantsev Museum have departments of manuscripts, rare books, Christian and Russian antiquities, fine arts, ethnography, numismatics, archeology, and mineralogy.

Museum Funding

Moscow Governors-General Pavel Alexeevich Tuchkov and Nikolai Vasilyevich Isakov called on all Muscovites to participate in the replenishment and construction of the newly created "Museum of Science and Art". Thus, the collections of the Moscow Public Museum and the Rumyantsev Museum included more than 300 collections of books and manuscripts and personal priceless gifts.

Donations of money and goods became the most important source of fund replenishment. It is not without reason that the museum was created through private donations and public initiatives, they wrote. After a year and a half of construction, the library had 100,000 books. By January 1, 1917, the Rumyantsev Museum Library had 1.2 million items.

One of the main donors was Emperor Alexander II. He brought many books and a large number of prints from the Hermitage Museum, more than two hundred paintings and other treasures. The biggest gift was the famous painting "The Appearance of the Messiah" by the artist Alexander Andreevich Ivanov and its sketches, purchased specifically for the Rumyantsev Museum from the heirs.

The Regulations of the Moscow Public Museum and the Rumyantsev Museum stipulate that the director is obliged to "supervise" that all documents published in the country end up in the museum library. Since 1862, the library began to receive legal deposit copies. Before 1917, 80% of the funds came from legal deposit receipts.

Imperial and Rumyantsev Museums in Moscow

In 1913, the 300th anniversary of the Romanov family was celebrated. The celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Moscow Public Museum and the Rumyantsev Museum also coincided with this time. The role of the imperial family as a patron of museums cannot be overestimated. Since 1913, the Moscow Public Museum and the Rumyantsev Museum, by the Supreme Decision, began to be called the "Imperial Moscow and Rumyantsev Museum".

From that time on, for the first time, the library began to receive not only donations and legal deposits for publications, but also funds for the establishment of funds. An opportunity arose to create a new library. In 1915, the new art gallery Ivanovo Hall was opened, named after the artist who created the most valuable painting in the museum's collection. The gallery was arranged in such a way that visitors could admire "The Appearance of the Messiah" - a painting with dimensions of 540 × 750 cm.

State Rumyantsev Museum

By 1917, the museum library had 1,200,000 books.

From the first days of the February Revolution, many cultural institutions began the process of democratization of the leadership structure and relations between the leadership and ordinary employees. In March 1917, the Rumyantsev Museum changed the previous system, with the director becoming the head of the institution. At the meeting of the museum's council, the new democratic order was approved, and the decision-making power was transferred from the director to the council.

The last director in the history of the Imperial Museum and the first Soviet director of the State Rumyantsev Museum was Prince Vasily Dmitrievich Golitsyn (1857-1926). Vasily Dmitrievich was an artist, soldier, public figure and museum figure who took office as director on July 19, 1910. The main burden fell on his shoulders: to preserve the fund.

Museum and library staff managed not only to preserve valuables, but also to protect private collections from destruction. The fund included collections of entrepreneur Lev Konstantinovich Zubarov, businessman Yegor Yegorovich Yegorov and others. From 1917 to 1922, during the period of mass nationalization of private collections, including book collections, the library collection received more than 500,000 books from 96 private libraries. Among them are the collections of Count Sheremetyev (4 thousand volumes), the collection of Count Dmitry Nikolayevich Mavros (25 thousand volumes), the collection of the famous antiquarian bookseller Pavel Petrovich Shibanov (more than 190 thousand volumes), the library of Prince Baryatinsky, Korsakov, Count Orlov-Davydov, Count Vorontsov-Dashkov, etc. As the collections were transferred, abandoned and nationalized, the museum's funding increased from 1 million 200 thousand items to 4 million items.

In 1918, the State Rumyantsev Museum-Library established the Interlibrary Loan and Bibliographic Reference Bureau. In 1921, the library became a state book depository.

Since 1922, the library has received two original copies of all printed publications in the country, including the timely provision of documents in the languages ​​of the Soviet peoples and their Russian translations to thousands of readers.

The State Library of the USSR named after Lenin

In the early 1920s, all non-book collections - paintings, graphics, coins, porcelain, minerals, etc. - began to be transferred to other museums. They were collected by the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin, the State Historical Museum, etc. In July 1925, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR adopted a resolution to liquidate the Rumyantsev Museum and to establish the State Library of the USSR named after Lenin on the basis of the Rumyantsev Museum-Library.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the State Library of the USSR named after V.I. Lenin was a leading scientific institution. First of all, it was the largest repository of scientific information. On May 3, 1932, by the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the library was included in the list of research institutions of republican significance.

The library stood at the forefront of one of the important branches of science - librarianship. Since 1922, it included the Cabinet, and since 1924, the Institute of Library Science. One of his tasks was staff training. Two-year, nine-month and six-month courses were held for librarians, and a postgraduate school was opened (since 1930). In 1930, the first library university was established here, which was separated from the Lenin Library and became independent in 1934.

"Leninka" during the war

By the beginning of 1941, the collection of the Lenin Library exceeded 9 million volumes. The six reading rooms of the Lenin Library served thousands of readers every day. 1,200 employees were responsible for all areas of library activity. The move to the new building, which was built according to the design of Academician Vladimir Alekseevich Shchuko and could accommodate 20 million storage units, began.

During the Great Patriotic War, the library continued its work: acquiring and storing funds.

The re-evacuated funds (layers) were returned to the library, and the books were moved to the 18-story book depository (right) by manual conveyor belts, 1944.

In the first two years of the war, more than 1,000 books and 20% of periodicals that were not legally deposited in the bookstore were purchased. Library management realized the transfer of publications such as newspapers, magazines, brochures, posters, leaflets, slogans, etc. produced by military publishing houses and political departments of various fronts. The library of antique dealer Pavel Petrovich Shibanov (more than 5,000 volumes), with documentary treasures, Nikolai Ivanovich Birukov's collection, Russian folk song collections, medical history books, Russian drama history books, etc. became a valuable acquisition.

In 1942, the library established book exchange relations with 16 countries and 189 organizations. Since 1944, the problem of transferring graduate and doctoral dissertations to the library has been solved.

The service to readers has not stopped for a day. In 1942, the children's reading room was opened.

For the benefit of the general readers, itinerant exhibitions were organized, interlibrary loan services continued to be provided to readers, and books were donated to front-line and hospital libraries.

The library carried out a lot of scientific work: held scientific conferences and meetings, wrote monographs, defended dissertations, resumed postgraduate studies, and continued the library and bibliographic classification work started before the war. . An academic committee was formed, whose members included famous scientists (including 5 academicians and corresponding members), writers, cultural celebrities, leading experts in the field of library and bibliography.

In recognition of outstanding contributions to the collection and storage of collections and the provision of books to the public on March 29, 1945 (in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the transformation of the Rumyantsev Museum-Library into the State Library of the USSR named after Lenin), the library was awarded the Order of Lenin (the only one of its kind).

Lenin State Library: Restoration and Development

After the war, the library faced difficult tasks: development of new buildings, technical equipment (conveyor belts, electric trains, conveyor belts, etc.), organization of new forms of document storage and services (microfilm, photocopying), functional activities - acquisition, processing, organization and storage of funds, formation of reference and retrieval devices. Special attention was paid to serving readers.

On April 18, 1946, the first reading club in the history of the library was held in the conference hall.

In 1947, a 50-meter-long vertical conveyor for transporting books was put into use, and electric trains and conveyor belts were started to transport books from the reading room to the book depository.

In 1947, works began to be served to readers in the form of photocopies.

In 1947, a small microfilm reading room was established, equipped with two Soviet machines and one American machine.

In 1955, the library resumed international subscription services.

From 1957 to 1958, reading rooms 1, 2, 3, and 4 were opened in the new building.

In 1959-1960, the industrial reading room system was formed, and the auxiliary funds of the science room were transferred to the open access system.

In the mid-1960s, the library had 22 reading rooms with 2,330 seats.

The status of the library as a national book depository is being strengthened. Since 1960, Leninka has ceased to serve children and young people: a library specifically for children and young people has appeared. In early 1960, the reading room of the Department of Music was opened. In 1962, people could listen to recordings there; in 1969, a room with piano music appeared.

In October 1970, the Thesis Hall was opened. Since 1978, a permanent exhibition of abstracts of doctoral dissertations in the pre-defense period has been held here.

1970s - the dominant direction of the library's information activities is the service of state administration agencies. In 1971-1972, the Bibliographic Department tried out the Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) system. In 1974, the Lenin State Library developed a new procedure for registration of reading rooms, which limited the influx of readers. Now only researchers or specialists with higher education can register in the library.

In 1983, the permanent exhibition of the Book Museum was opened.

Since 1987, the service has been trying to implement an unlimited temporary registration of all those who want to visit the library in the summer. In 1990, the requirement to apply for a work location when registering the library was abolished, and the scope of student registration was expanded.

In order to solve the new tasks of organizing and storing funds, including new media, serving readers, science, methods and research issues, the number of departments increased by nearly one and a half times (music, technical departments, graphics, art publishing departments, exhibition work departments, Russian literature abroad departments, thesis library, library and bibliographic classification research departments, library museums and other departments were established.

The changes in the country could not but affect the country's main libraries. In 1992, the Soviet State Library named after Lenin was transformed into the Russian State Library. However, most readers still call her "Leninka".

Since 1993, the library reading room has been open to all citizens over the age of 18 again after a 20-year hiatus. Since 2016, anyone over the age of 14 can get a library card.

In 1998, the Legal Information Center was established at the RSL Opening.

In 2000, the State Program for the Preservation of Russian Library Collections was adopted. Within its framework, a special sub-program "Book Monuments of the Russian Federation" is being implemented. The functions of the Federal Center for Research, Scientific, Methodological and Coordination of Book Monuments are assigned to the Russian State Library.

At the end of 2016, the RSL fund had a volume of about 47 million copies. There are 36 reading rooms for visitors to read. Every minute, five visitors open the doors of the library. About one hundred thousand new users are added every year.

In December 2016, the new Ivanovo Hall was opened on the basis of the Rumyantsev Museum-Gallery, which became the main exhibition space of the Russian State Library.

Since January 1, 2017, the Russian State Library has begun to receive legal copies in electronic form of all printed publications published in our country. A system for receiving, processing, storing and recording mandatory electronic copies has been created on the RSL portal.