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| The National Library of Russia | |
|---|---|
| Российская национальная библиотека | |
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 The 18th-century building of the library facesNevsky Prospekt | |
| 59°56′01″N030°20′08″E / 59.93361°N 30.33556°E /59.93361; 30.33556 | |
| Location | Saint Petersburg, Russia |
| Type | National library |
| Established | 1795 (230 years ago) (1795) |
| Reference to legal mandate | Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation authorizing the Statute of the Federal State Institution "The National Library of Russia" (March 23, 2001) |
| Collection | |
| Items collected | Books,journals, newspapers, magazines,official publications, sheet music, sound and music recordings, databases, maps, postage stamps,prints, drawings, manuscripts and media. |
| Size | 36,475,000 items (15,000,000 books) |
| Criteria for collection | Legal deposit of materials published in Russia; "Rossika": materials about Russia or materials published by the people of Russia residing abroad; selected foreign scholarly publications and other materials. |
| Legal deposit | Yes (Legal Deposit Law[1]) |
| Access and use | |
| Access requirements | Reading rooms – free. Russian residents must be 14 or older. Foreign visitors are limited by the period of their visa. |
| Circulation | 8,880,000 (2007) |
| Population served | 1,150,000 (2007) |
| Other information | |
| Budget | 569,200,000 RUB ($23,400,000) |
| Director | Alexander Vershinin |
| Employees | 1,850 |
| Website | www |
Interactive map with main library buildings | |
TheNational Library of Russia (NLR,Russian:Российская национальная библиотека,РНБ), located inSaint Petersburg, is the oldest of Russia's three national public libraries.[2][3] The NLR is currently ranked among theworld's major libraries. It has the second biggest library collection in the Russian Federation, a treasury of national heritage, and is the All-Russian Information, Research and Cultural Center. Over the course of its history, the library has aimed for comprehensive acquisition of the national printed output and has provided free access to its collections.
It was known as theImperial Public Library from 1795 to 1917;Russian Public Library from 1917 to 1925;State Public Library from 1925 to 1992 (since 1932 named afterM.Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin); and since 1992 as the National Library of Russia (NLR).
The Imperial Public Library was established in 1795 byCatherine the Great. It was based on theZałuski Library, the famous Polish national library built by Bishop Załuski inWarsaw, which had been seized by the Russians in 1794 after thePartitions of Poland.[4]
The idea of a public library in Russia emerged in the early 18th century[5] but did not take shape until the arrival of theRussian Enlightenment. The plan of a Russian public library was submitted to Catherine in 1766 but the Empress did not approve the project for the imperial library until 27 May [O.S. 16 May] 1795, eighteen months before her death. A site for the building was found at the corner ofNevsky Avenue andSadovaya Street, right in the center of the Russian imperial capital. The construction work began immediately and lasted for almost fifteen years. The building was designed in aNeoclassical style by architectYegor Sokolov (built between 1796 and 1801).
The cornerstone of the foreign-language department came from thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the form ofZałuski's Library (420,000 volumes), seized in part by the Russian government at thetime of the partitions, though many volumes were lost en route to theft by Russian soldiers who sold them for profit.[6] The Polish-language books from the library (numbering some 55,000 titles) were returned toPoland by theRussian SFSR in 1921.[7]
For five years after its foundation, the library was run by ComteMarie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste de Choiseul-Gouffier. The stocks were arranged according to a specially compiled manual of library classification.[8] In 1810, EmperorAlexander I approved Russia's first library law stipulating, among other things, thattwo legal copies of all printed matter in Russia be deposited in the library.[9]
The library was to be opened for the public in 1812 but, as the more valuable collections had to be evacuated because ofNapoleon's invasion, the inauguration was postponed for two years.
Under CountAlexander Stroganov, who managed the library during the first decade of the 19th century, theRossica project was inaugurated, a vast collection of foreign books touching on Russia. It was Stroganov who secured for the library some of its most invaluable treasures, namely theOstromir Gospel, the earliest book written in theOld East Slavic dialect ofChurch Slavonic (which was to eventually develop into theRussian language), and theHypatian Codex of theRussian Primary Chronicle. He, along with other bibliophiles, also reviewed the collection of manuscripts and letters brought byPeter P. Dubrowsky (1754–1816) who had stayed in the diplomatic service for more than 20 years outside the fatherland. Based on the review, Stroganov recommended to Alexander I the creation of a manuscript depot. Alexander decreed the creation of such a department on February 27, 1805, and named Dubrowsky as the first keeper of the depot of manuscripts.[10]
The Imperial Public Library was inaugurated on 14 January [O.S. 2 January] 1814 in the presence ofGavrila Derzhavin andIvan Krylov. The library's third, and arguably most famous, director wasAleksey Olenin (1763–1843).
Librarianship progressed to a new level in the 1850s. The reader community grew several times, enlarged by common people. At the same time, many gifts of books were offered to the library. Consequently, collection growth rates in the 1850s were five times higher than the annual growth rate of five thousand new acquired during the first part of the century. In 1859,Vasily Sobolshchikov prepared the first national manual oflibrary science for the library entitledPublic Library Facilities and Cataloguing.[11]
The influx of new visitors required a largerreading room in the new building closing the library court along the perimeter (designed by Sobolshchikov, built in 1860–62).
From 1849 to 1861 the library was managed by CountModest von Korff (1800–76), who had beenAlexander Pushkin's school-fellow at theLyceum. Korff and his successor,Ivan Delyanov, added to the library's collections some of the earliest manuscripts of theNew Testament (theCodex Sinaiticus from the 340s), theOld Testament (the so-calledLeningrad Codex), and one of the earliestQur'ans (theUthman Qur'an from the mid-7th century).
In the aftermath of theRussian Revolution, the institution was placed under the management ofErnest Radlov andNicholas Marr, although its national preeminence was relinquished to theLenin State Library in Moscow. The library was awarded theOrder of the Red Banner of Labour in 1939 and remained open during theSiege of Leningrad.
The National Library began a large-scale digitization project at the end of the 20th century by taking part in theLibrary of Congress project Meeting on Frontiers.[12] By 2012 the library, along withits counterpart in Moscow, had around 80,000 titles available electronically.[13]
After the end of the Second World War, millions of German art objects, books and archival materials were brought to the Soviet Union. Some of these cultural assets were returned to the former GDR in the 1950s. However, to this day, among other things, there are still more than 200,000 works of art, three million books and archival material with a length of three shelf kilometers of German provenance in Russia.[14]
Russia has two additional national libraries:
