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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: E-28

Last update of repository: 15 March 2020

Institut russkoi literatury (Pushkinskii Dom) RAN (IRLI/PD)


Drevlekhranilishche im. V.I. Malysheva
[V.I. Malyshev Repository of Antiquities]

Telephone: +7 812 328-09-02

Website: http://www.pushkinskijdom.ru/Default....  (Rus); http://www.pushkinskijdom.ru/Default....  (Eng)

Opening hours: M–F 11:00–17:00

Head: Vladimir Pavlovich Budaragin


Holdings

Total: ca. 12,000 units; 12th–20th cc.

The Repository of Antiquities retains manuscripts and manuscript books dating from the twelfth to the twentieth century. Administratively a part of the Manuscript Division, it is now housed in a separate area. A large miscellaneous collection of manuscripts and early-printed books of the repository itself (Razriad IV, 7,574 units, 12th–20th cc.), there are four collections grouped by type of manuscripts. Many of the repository holdings originate in the North of European Russia and the Upper Volga River, as well as from the Urals, Siberia, and the Baltic countries.
        Fifteen collections are arranged on the basis of territorial provenance—from Belarus, the Chud Lake region (Prichudskoe), Guslitskoe, Karelia, Kerzhenets, Mezen, Krasnoborskoe, the Northern Dvina (Severodvinskoe) region, Novgorod-Pskov, Pechora, Pinega, Ust'-Tsil'ma (in the Komi region), and Vologda, as well as a collection from Leningrad Oblast. Latvia is represented by a collection from Latgalia. Personal collections of renown are represented in the repository by those of I.S. Abramov, P.S. Bogoslovskii, E.F. Budde, F.A. Kalikin, M.S. Lesman, V.V. Luk'ianov, I.S. Onatsevich (Onaszewicz), and V.N. Peretts, as well as those of the Khvostov and Murav'ev families, among many others. These collections, in addition to many different types of religious manuscripts, comprise literary, historical, and scientific works, and popular medicine of all genres (both original and in translation), together with various examples of early Russian written documents not to be found in other repositories. Among them are a number of illuminated and ornamented manuscripts, most especially in the Pomor'e northern coastal tradition, and many on parchment.
        Separate collections have been retained for manuscripts that were transferred from IMLI in Moscow and for “individual acquisitions,” and early printed books from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. There are parts of rare private ancestral libraries (seventeenth to eighteenth centuries) of Pinega peasants—such as those of the Rudakov, Popov, Val'kov, and Merzlykh families—and Pechora peasants, namely the Mikheev family.
        The repository is particularly rich in materials about history of culture and everyday life of the northern Russian population of the last century, most particularly Old Believer communities and their sects, including the priestless bespopovtsy (i.e. those who reject priests and some sacraments), and their Northern variety—vygovtsy. Some of these were collected from peasants, hunters and fishermen. Among examples of medieval culture from Ukraine is a fourteenth-centuryGospel in the Galician-Volhynian tradition.
        Among especially notable manuscripts are works of early literature, such as the “Song of the Ruin of Russian Lands” (Slovo o pogibeli Russkoi zemli), the “Arkhangel'sk City Chronicler” (Arkhangelogorodskii letopisets), the seventeenth-century illuminated Gospel copied in the hand of the tsar’s daughter Sofia and decorated with miniatures by masters of the Kremlin Armory (Oruzhenaia palata), the “Pinega Chronicler” (Pinezhskii letopisets, providing data about the Russian explorers in Siberia), and the Pustozersk Codex (Pustozerskii sbornik) written in the hand of the Archpriest Avvakum and the Monk (inok) Epifanii (a donation from the collection of I.N. Zavoloko). The repository also holds autograph manuscripts of Archpriest Avvakum, Patriarch Nikon, and Peter I, as well as compositions of Nestor the Chronicler, Daniil Zatochnik, Maksim Grek (Maximus Trivolis), Ivan the Terrible,Andrei Kurbskii, and Feofan Prokopovich, among other writers and government leaders of medieval Rus' and Muscovy.

N.B. Starting in 1994 a major preservation microfilming collaborative project was underway between IRLI and the Library of Congress, as a result of which copies of some manuscript materials from the Drevlekhranilishche are accessible now on microfilm in Washington, DC, as per the list on the European Division website (http://www.loc.gov/rr/european/orm.html).


Working conditions:
Researchers are received in one of the depository work areas, since there is no special reading room. Manuscripts are delivered immediately following order.

Reference facilities:
There are opisi, as well as name and subject card catalogues.

Copy facilities:
Facilities are available for photographic copying and microfilm.


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted