The Romanovs: Their Empire, Their
Books.
The Political, Religious, Cultural, and Social Life of Russia's Imperial House
The
Exhibition in Context
The New York Public Library's Slavic and Baltic
Division marks a century of service in 1998–1999.
It is the oldest organized department of its kind
in the United States, and the first to have its
librarians travel to Eastern Europe on a book-buying
trip. The division has served millions of on-site
readers, free of charge, without regard to place
of residence or academic affiliation.
The Library's Slavic, Baltic, East European, and Eurasian materials run the
gamut from early fourteenth-century illuminated manuscripts to the latest serial
titles. The Slavic and Baltic Division holds more than 387,000 volumes, 1,300
current serials, and 20,100 microform titles in Slavic and Baltic vernacular
languages. In addition, more than 200,000 volumes of Slavica and Baltica in
non-Slavic and non-Baltic languages are found in other divisions of the Library.
Particular strengths include old Cyrillic printed books, Futurist and Constructivist
works, Russian illustrated books of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
and publications produced by New York's many Slavic and Baltic ethnic communities.
A more extensive description of the Slavic, Baltic, and East European resources
of the Library is accessible via the Slavic and Baltic Division's home page.
The most extensive published description and history of the collections is
Robert H. Davis, Jr.'s Slavic and Baltic Library Resources at The New York
Public Library: A First History and Practical Guide (New York: The New
York Public Library, 1994).
An illustrated catalogue of the exhibition, featuring "The Romanovs and Their
Books: Perspectives on Imperial Rule in Russia," an essay by co-curator Marc
Raeff, and the complete checklist and text of the exhibition, appeared in the
Fall 1997 issue of Biblion: The Bulletin of The New York Public Library,
available in The Library Shop.
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Romanovs: Their Empire, Their Books
