kb/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavonic_Library_in_Prague-1.md

title	chunk	source	category	tags	date_saved	instance
Slavonic Library in Prague	2/4	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavonic_Library_in_Prague	reference	science, encyclopedia	2026-05-05T09:31:38.078618+00:00	kb-cron

== The Book Collection == The book collection of the Slavonic Library comprises more than 850,000 library units (as of June 2018). On average, it is augmented by 9,000 new volumes of books and several hundred titles of periodicals every year. It is a varied collection of Slavic Studies literature, complexly mapping the historical, literary, philological and cultural topics of all Slavic nations. The core of individual national sections is formed by personal libraries acquired through donation or purchase in the first decades of the library's existence. Since the early 1930s, the acquisitions were carried out systematically according to a thematic plan of acquisition. The Slavonic Library owns several hundred historical manuscript books and several thousand early printed books published before 1800, but most of the collection is formed by the production of the 19th‒21st centuries. The holdings are complemented by a number of collections of special non-library documents. Almost all catalogue records of books and periodicals are available in the electronic catalogue of the Slavonic Library. Likewise the scanned general card catalogue of the Slavonic Library, used until 1996, and the scanned card catalogue of the Russian Historical Archives Abroad from 1923 to 1945 are accessible. The inventory lists of available collections of special documents can be found in the catalogue Special Collections of the Slavonic Library.Important Collections The most valuable parts of the holdings include several thematically coherent collections. The Library of A. F. Smirdin contains more than 11,000 volumes of Russian literature published between the 1700s and the middle of the 19th century. The collection was created by the bookseller, publisher and cultural benefactor Alexandr Fillippovich Smirdin (1795‒1857) from Saint Petersburg. A unique collection related to Dubrovnik, Croatia, is the collection of Ragusan literature, created by the Croatian Slavist, Prof. Milan Rešetar (1860–1942). This thematically coherent collection contains nearly 2,500 printed books and 250 manuscripts. It comprises works by Dubrovnik writers, Dubrovnik printed books since the 16th century and publications about Dubrovnik issued in the world until the 1920s. The Russian manuscript tradition is demonstrated by the collection of manuscripts assembled in northern Russia by the folklorist, expert in Old Russian literature and linguist Aleksandr Dmitrievich Grigorʼev (1874–1945). It comprises 68 manuscripts of both sacred and secular character from the 17th–19th centuries written in the River Pinega basin in the Arkhangelsk Gubernia and in the southern shore of the White Sea. After the Second World War, the Slavonic Library was enriched by collections created by the Russian Historical Archives Abroad, an archival-documentary institution unique in the world, which existed in Prague in 1923‒1945. The archives collected archival and printed documents concerning the revolutionary movement in Russia at the turn of the 20th century, the First World War in Russia, the revolutionary events of 1917, the Civil War, the development in the USSR and the phenomenon of the Russian anti-Bolshevik emigration. In 1945, the archives were closed and the archival collections were handed over to the USSR, while the collections of books, magazines and newspapers became part of the Slavonic Library. The Slavonic Library is one of the central institutions that make it possible to study the phenomenon of the political emigration from the territory of the Russian Empire after 1917. The books and periodicals issued by Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian émigrés all over the world mainly in 1918–1945 form a collection that is unique in the world. Most of these documents were gathered by the Russian Historical Archives Abroad. The books and periodicals are complemented by several collections of archival character, a collection of the works of art by Ukrainian émigrés, and collections of invitations and posters documenting the public life in emigration. In 2007, UNESCO included the Slavonic Library's collection of periodicals issued by Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian émigrés in 1918–1945 in its Memory of the World International Register.