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Humanities and Social Sciences Library > Collections & Reading Rooms > Slavic and Baltic Division Other Slavic Resources Available at NYPL
"View of the Square of
Kassan [sic] The Slavic and Baltic Division houses the single largest component of The Research Libraries' vernacular-language collection of materials relating to Russia, the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the various émigré communities outside the homelands. However, the Division also serves as a gateway to an institution-wide resource with few equals in the West. These collections are distributed through four physically disparate research libraries: Humanities and Social Sciences Library, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Science, Industry, and Business Library (SIBL). The three best available overviews of NYPL's holdings in all relevant languages and subjects are found in Robert A. Karlowich's A Guide to Scholarly Resources on the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union in the New York Metropolitan Area (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1990), a companion volume for East European resources, compiled by Robert Scott of Columbia University (now in typescript, available for consultation in the Slavic and Baltic Division, NYPL), and Steven A. Grant and John H. Brown's The Russian Empire and the Soviet Union: A Guide to Manuscripts and Archival Materials in the United States (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1981). Readers are advised to turn to these reference works for more information on materials available in specific units of the Research Libraries. In the capsule descriptions found below, many of the titles selected as examples are older, antiquarian items, which were selected to suggest the depth, breadth, and uniqueness of NYPL's Slavic, Baltic, and East European-related resources. However, it must be made clear to the reader at the outset that these examples do not suggest that other units of the NYPL hold merely scattered rarities and curiosities. On the contrary, these are living, growing collections, capable of sustaining advanced research on a broad array of topics, from ancient times up to the present day. Humanities and Social Sciences Library The General Research Division is also responsible for acquiring and servicing materials in Albanian, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, and Romanian. The Division's current collection-development responsibilities also include Western-language imprints on the histories, societies, politics, and governments of the Slavic and East European countries. Its Periodicals Section (Rm. 108, 212-930-0876) also subscribes to Western-language current newspapers and periodicals relating to Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs (Art and Architecture, Rm. 313, 212-930-0836; Print Collection, Rm. 308, 212-930-0818; Photography Collection, Rm. 308, 212-930-0837) houses an important collection for the study of the Slavic and East European fine, applied, and decorative arts. Particular strengths are its numerous Western-language folio volumes depicting the native costumes, military uniforms, cities, and natural beauty of Eastern Europe and the Russian Empire; original watercolors, lithographs, and other works on paper by important Polish, Russian, Estonian, and Ukrainian artists; and a large number of nineteenth-century Russian popular prints (imagerie populaire, or lubki). Also maintained by this Division is an inventory of art objects owned by the Library. Included in the art collection are works by the Hungarian artist Mihaly Munkacsy (1844-1900), among them the well-known "The Blind Milton Dictating `Paradise Lost' to His Daughters," which hangs in the Salomon Room of the Central Research Library. The Map Division (Rm. 117, 212-930-0587) holds large single-sheet maps of Russia and Eastern Europe, covering the period from the seventeenth century to the present, and atlases, produced both in the West and in the homelands. Examples include Cornelius Cruys's (1657-1727) map of the Don River valley, Nieuw pas-kaart boek, behelsende de groote rivier Don... (Amsterdam, [1703?]); Aleksandr Mikhailovich Wildbrecht's (d. ca. 1820) Rossiiskoi atlas... [Russian Atlas...] ([SPb.], 1792); the six-volume Monumenta cartographica Bohemiae (Prague, 1930-1936), and the rare Russian Academy of Science's Atlas Rvssicvs... (SPb., 1745). The Map Division regularly adds to its retrospective collection via gift and purchase, a recent acquisition being an edition of Roche Joseph Julien's (fl. 18th c.) Atlas topographique et militaire qui comprend les états de la couronne de Bohème et la Saxe electorale... (Paris, 1758). Another important recent acquisition is a series of 4,461-sheet 1:200,000-scale Soviet military (and hence "uncensored") topographic maps of the Soviet Union dating from the 1980s. The Rare Books Division (Rm. 324, 212-930-0801) is an outstanding resource for travel accounts from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century by Westerners to the Slavic lands. Included are numerous Western-language classics such as Sigmund Herberstein's (1486-1566) Comentari della Moscovia... (Venice, 1550); Paolo Giovio's (1483-1553) contribution to Richard Eden's (1521?-1576) The Decades of the Newe Worlde... (London, 1555); John Milton's (1608-1674) A brief history of Moscovia... (London, 1682); Jan Janszoon Struys's (d. 1694) The Voyages and Travels of John Struys... (London, 1684); Jonas Hanway's (1712-1786) A Compendium of the Travels of Mr. Hanway... (Dublin, 1757); a contemporary account of Muscovy's "Time of Troubles" (1605-1613), Relacion de la señalada, y como milagrosa conqvista del paterno imperio consegvida del serenissimo principe Ivan Demetrio, gran duque de Moscouia, en el año de 1605... (Lisbon, 1606), attributed to Antonio Possevino (1533 or 4-1611); and Pavel Petrovich Svin'in's (1788-1839) Sketches of Russia... (London, 1814). The Rare Books Division's monuments of early Slavic and Baltic printed book culture, which include the only fully cataloged Cyrillic incunabulum in the United States, the Triod' Tsvetnaia [Pentecostal Triodion] (Cracow, ca. 1493), complement the extensive old-printed-book holdings of the Slavic and Baltic Division. Among other important early imprints are the Bohemian (Czech) Bible ([Kralice, 1579-1601]), a first edition of the version printed for the use of the Moravian Brethren at their private press; the first Bible printed in Latvian (Riga, 1689); a volume of verse by the Croatian poet Sabo Bobaljevic Misetic (1529 or 30-1585), Rime Amorose (Venice, 1589); a proclamation issued by the Protestant members of the three Bohemian estates on May 25, 1618; Polonicae historiae corpus (Basel, 1582), a collection edited by Johann Pistorius (1546-1608); and the famous Ostrog (Ostrih) Bible of 1581. The eclectic holdings of this Division range from an ornately bound eighteenth-century Altar Gospels, to original mid-nineteenth-century watercolors of peoples of the Russian Empire, to various medals of the Russian Empire. Relevant materials in the Manuscripts and Archives Division are equally diverse, including two illuminated northern Russian--possibly Novgorodian--fourteenth-century codexes; a 254-leaf manuscript containing holograph copies of sixteenth-century correspondence between Cardinal Giovanni Francesco Commendone (1524-1584), Papal Envoy to Poland, and Cardinal (later Saint) Charles Borromeo (1538-1584), relating to Eastern Europe; a suite of thirty original watercolors of Russia executed by Ivan Mikhailovich Belonogov (1800-1871), circa 1848-1856; a ship's log for the brig "Boxer" (owned by John Jacob Astor) that documents an 1818 port call in St. Petersburg, diaries kept by Richard Rogers Bowker (1848-1933) during a visit to Russia in the late 1890s, an ornate and colorful Imperial charter to Aleksandr Andreevich Lachinov, dated October 14, 1827 and signed by Emperor Nicholas I (1796-1855), papers relating to the United States mission to Russia in 1813 (led by John Quincy Adams); issues of a multilingual manuscript newspaper, Gazeta Ostrova slez' [Newspaper of the Isle of Tears], written by Ellis Island refugees denied admission to the United States in 1920; materials relating to the ethnographer and explorer Waldemar Jochelson (1855-1937); and a unique collection of antique legal seals dating from 1650 to 1840, including those used by many Polish and Russian noble families. The Manuscripts Division also contains files of correspondence penned by, and relating to, important twentieth-century Russian and Eastern European historical and cultural personalities, such as the radical Ekaterina Breshko-Breshkovskaia's (1844-1934) letters from exile in Czechoslovakia, the artist Mstislav V. Dobuzhinsky (1875-1957), Tolstoy's friend and translator, Isabel F. Hapgood (1850-1928), and the diplomat and humanitarian Jan Papánek (d. 1991). Posters from the early Soviet period are in the collection of the American Relief Administration inspector Harold M. Fleming (d. 1971). The Spencer Collection (Rm. 308, 212-930-0817) is devoted to all aspects of the art of the book: layout, typeface, illustration, and binding. Marked by diversity, the Collection ranges from printed and manuscript Church Slavonic liturgical books of the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries, to a significant number of Russian and Czech avant-garde publications of the first three decades of the twentieth century, many added only in recent years. Among earlier works are a hymnal of the Moravian Brethren, printed in Kralice in 1581, a fifteenth-century manuscript of Ulrich von Richenthal's (b. 15th c.) 1536 chronicle of the Council of Constance, and some ten Church Slavonic and Russian manuscripts dating from the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries. Engravings by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) of Bohemia are particularly well-represented. The Latin edition of Pallas's Flora Rossica (SPb., 1784), is accompanied by the actual sketchbook used by artist Karl Frederick Knappe (1745-1808) in preparing this compilation of botanical prints. The various collections complement one another in a remarkable way. For example, the Spencer Collection holds the original watercolors of A. P. Bashutskii's Panorama Sanktpeterburga [Panorama of St. Petersburg] (1834), as well as a striking unpublished special presentation volume of the engravings, while the Slavic and Baltic Division holds a copy of the final published album (SPb., 1834). The Dorot Jewish Division (Rm. 84, 212-930-0601) includes current and retrospective books and periodicals published both in the homelands of Eastern Europe and in emigration. Among these are, for example, some eighty-five sixteenth-century Hebrew imprints from Poland, such as Perush le-midrash hamesh megilot rabah [Commentary to Midrash Rabba on the Five Scrolls] ([Cracow, 1569]) and the Sha`are Dura [Chapters (or Gates) of Dueren] ([Lublin, 1574]), the latter a Jewish code of dietary laws that is considered to be a fine example of Hebrew printing in Poland; and the first Hebrew title printed in Vilnius, in 1799. Nineteenth-century materials include Russian-language periodicals produced by the Jewish community, as well as belles-lettres and scholarly works, such as Isaac Goldman's (1839-1905) Hebrew translation of a Polish elegy on the death of Tsar Nicholas I (Warsaw, 1855) and Prospectus der Odessaer Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Alterthümer gehörenden ältesten hebräischen und rabbinischen Manuscripte (Odessa, 1845). Contemporary materials, among them current periodicals aimed at New York's large Russian Jewish émigré community, and vernacular-language Haggadahs, are acquired on a regular basis. The Asian and Middle Eastern Division (Rm. 219, 212-930-0716) collects and processes works produced by, or pertaining to, Armenian, Caucasian, Turkic, and Iranian cultures both in the vernacular and in Slavic languages. Also present are Slavic-language scholarly works dealing with North African, Near Eastern, Far Eastern, Central Asian, and Southeast Asian archaeology, ethnography, literature, and travel. Examples include Ibn-Foszlan's [i.e., Ahmed Ibn-Fadlan, fl. 922] und anderer Araber Berichte über die Russen älterer Zeit (SPb., 1823); Theophilus Siegfried Bayer's (1694-1738) Mvsevm sinicvm... (SPb., [1730]); Histoire généalogique des Tartars; traduite du manuscript tartare d'Abulgazi-Bayadur-Chan... (Leyden, 1726); Podvigi ispolnennago zaslug geroia Gogdy Gesser Khana... [Feats Performed in the Service of the Hero Gesser Khan] (SPb., 1836), with text in Mongolian; and a collection of Kalmuck titles from the library of Professor Arash Bormanshinov (b. 1922). The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Not surprisingly, the Dance Collection (212-870-1658) holds a vast number of items relating to Russia, including mid-eighteenth-century descriptions of ballet; nineteenth- and twentieth-century manuals of dance exercise and technique; original photographs; and archival materials on the Ballets Russes of the twentieth century, including the Gabriel Astruc Collection and a large file devoted to the correspondence and the multifaceted career of the cultural figure Sergei P. Diaghilev (1872-1929). Retrospective materials are acquired regularly. For example, in 1990 the Collection obtained Aleksandr Petrovich Sumarokov's (1717-1777) Céphale et Procris, Opéra Russe (Libretto) (SPb., 1755). This is the only known copy in a United States library. The Dance Collection is also rich in twentieth-century costume and stage design by the "World of Art" and avant-garde artists. There are extensive archival files of correspondence and original works of art by such figures as the costume and set designer Léon Bakst (1866-1924), the painter Alexandre Bénois (1870-1960), the choreographer Michel Fokine (1880-1942), and the ballerina Mathilde Ksessinska (1872-1971), among many others. The Collection also holds important motion picture materials, including the Jerome Robbins (1918-1998) Film Archive, which documents the work of the choreographer Léonide Massine (b. 1896). The Billy Rose Theatre Collection (212-870-1641) has research materials relating to Russian and East European theater of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including cinema posters from the former Soviet Union dating back to the 1930s, pictures, promptbooks, programs, costume sketches, scenery designs, caricatures, and scrapbooks. Iconographic materials in the Theater Collection include many original works executed by well-known artists both in the homelands and in emigration. Particular strengths are materials relating to the Moscow Art Theater (MKhAT) of the 1920s. The Music Division's (212-870-1653) retrospective holdings of Slavic, Baltic, and East European materials include a number of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century volumes, with printed and autographed manuscript musical scores and notes, as well as holograph letters and manuscripts by composers such as Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904), and Ignace Jan Paderewski (1860-1941). There are also compilations of music on specific themes, such as the Russian Revolution of 1917, and genres, such as Imperial Russian marches, some of which were originally in the collections of the Russian Imperial house. Among the unusual and unique items in the Division is a typescript description of Native Musical Instruments of Kingdom of Yougoslavia ([1938]), with tipped-in photographs of the instruments in use. The volume documents a collection donated to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art by Dr. Viktor Ruzic. The Division is responsible for current collecting of Slavic and East European vernacular-language materials, although biographical and critical works of Slavic, Baltic, and East European composers and musicians whose impact transcended the world of music may also be held by the Slavic and Baltic Division. The Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound (212-870-1663) includes phonograph records produced by the major Russian and East European labels (such as Melodia, or the Czech labels Ultraophone and Supraphone, which date from the 1930s), as well as historical recordings produced by Radio Free Europe, documenting events and personalities in Poland during the period between 1918 and 1940. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture The Schomburg Center is one of the nation's premier collections of Afro-American historical and cultural materials. It holds items relating to the Slavic and East European area, including the papers of the actor, singer, and political activist Paul Robeson, Sr. (1898-1977), and the tragedian Ira F. Aldridge (1807-1867), who performed in various Russian cities during his career. Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL) SIBL possesses important early works in both Western and non-Western languages, on the economic history, laws (including official gazettes), and administration of Bohemia, Galicia, Poland, the Baltic countries, and the Russian Empire from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century. Included, for example, are works on commerce, such as Paul Jacob Marperger's (1656-1730) Ausführliche Beschreibung der Commercien, welche in Moscau... (Lübeck, 1705); Das livländische Creditsystem... (Riga, 1838); Versuch einer Geschichte des böhmischen Handels... (Prague, 1849); Discours académique sur les produits de Russie... (SPb., [1777?]); and a collection of some eighty-nine circular letters relating to commerce and trade issued by the Moravian-Silesian government in Brünn between 1703 and 1849. SIBL also holds publications by Slavic, Baltic, and Eastern European scholars on topics in economics and trade in other countries. The focus of SIBL's collection-development policies is on Western-language materials pertaining to the economic development and trade potential of the countries of the former Soviet bloc. In science, SIBL holds a number of important eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Western-language titles in the areas of Russian, Siberian, and Caucasian ethnology, as well as studies of the flora and fauna of the extensive territories of the Russian Empire. Examples include Johann Gottlieb Georgi's (1738-1802) Description de toutes les nations de l'empire de Russie... (SPb., 1776-1777), Jan Potocki's (1761-1815) Voyage dans les steps d'Astrakhan et du Caucase... (Paris: Merlin, 1829), Friedrich August Marschall von Bieberstein's (1768-1826) Centuria plantarum rariorum Rossiae... (SPb., 1832), and Fauna Caspio-Caucasia... (SPb., 1841). There are also a number of eighteenth-century works on astronomy, as well as Western-language catalogues, such as that of the Bohemian (i.e., Czech) section of London's 1906 Austrian Exhibition. Russian Academy of Sciences imprints include the works of important eighteenth- century figures such as Franz Ulrich Theodor Aepinus (1724-1802) and Leonard Euler (1707-1783). Some of these works were originally part of the Astor Library collection. The military sciences, as well as Western analyses of nineteenth-century Russian force capabilities, are also covered in the Division's retrospective collections. Today, SIBL maintains subscriptions to several important translation journals, and receives monographs on the sciences and the technological and natural resources of the countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Circulating Collections The two main circulating collections of The Branch Libraries of The New York Public Library are the Foreign Language Library, established 1955, and the Media Center at the Donnell Library Center, at 20 West 53rd Street (212-621-0641), and the Mid-Manhattan Library, at 455 Fifth Avenue at 40th Street (212-340-0833). The Media Center holds some 100 feature films and documentaries produced both in the constituent states of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and in emigration. They date from the immediate post-1917 period to the present. Donnell's Central Children's Room, established in 1911, has an extensive collection of Slavic-language (especially Russian) children's books, and the Mid-Manhattan Library includes the Picture Collection (212-340-0878), a classified clippings file useful for research. |
