Conference: Books Have Their Own Destiny

On 13-15 March 2013, the scientific conference Books Have Their Own Destiny was held, dedicated to the 250th anniversary of the Hermitage Library. The conference brought together specialists from leading research libraries and book centres from Russia and former Soviet republics, as well as librarians, literary scholars and restorers from the National Library of Russia, Library of Academy of Sciences, libraries of Moscow State University and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, the National Library of Estonia and others. The topics discussed were no less diverse - beside manuscripts and books the participants paid attention to photo albums, cartographic documents, bookplates, librarians’ and bibliophiles’ biographies in their papers.

The basic topic, which united all speeches of the conference participants, was the heritage of the Hermitage libraries in collections of modern book depositories. The Hermitage Library was not only a collection of unique manuscripts and print publications, but also a kind of a “donor” for other libraries, both old ones existing for a long time and newly set-up libraries. For this reason many libraries around Russia have books from the Hermitage libraries in their collections which were received during the 19th-20th centuries and which were blended into already existing collections and have unique signs that they had been within the Hermitage: court covers, bookplates, marks made by the Emperor’s family and emperors themselves. Research issues connected with items from the Hermitage in other libraries were considered in E.V. Krushelnitskaya’s paper which was dedicated to the Old Russian manuscripts contained in the National Library of Russia; O.V. Vasilieva talked about research into Hermitage oriental manuscripts which are now a part of the collection of the Saltykov-Schedrin State Public Library and in paper delivered by N.V. Ramazanova an overview of music manuscripts was discussed. These manuscripts were once presented to the Emperor’s family members.

The Hermitage library itself was continuously growing and was enriched by new collections and private libraries from both Russian and foreign scientists. That is why issues, related to research of collections were included in the Hermitage libraries for the 250 years of their existence, retain their important. The speech dedicated to this issue was made by D.Yu. Ozerkov and S.V. Korolev who tried to reconstruct the content of Marquis Galiani’s library purchased by Catherine II.

A.B. Kuzmicheva’s speech is devoted to employees of the Hermitage Library who worked during the Soviet period; it bows to people who were pioneers of the modern museum library and who preserved it during the evacuation in World War II.

The aim of the conference was not just to discuss once again the most interesting and infinite historical issues related to libraries in Russia, but also to give an impulse to further research of such profound and comprehensive phenomenon as the Hermitage libraries.