New Temple of Enlightenment in St.-Petersburg (1814 - 1842)

The grand opening of the Public Library took place on 2 (14) January 1814. Noteworthy among the more than 200 people who attended the ceremony were the poet Gavrila Derzhavin, the painter Orest Kiprensky, the philologist Alexander Vostokov and the architect Vastly Stasov. There were quite a number of ladies present, including members of the Women's Patriotic Society whose activities Olenin encouraged. After a brief address by the Director, the secretary of the library Alexander Krasovsky read out "A Discourse on the Benefit of Human Knowledge and on the Need for Public Libraries in any Well-Ordered State". This speech (the outline of which had been drawn up by Olenin) was devoted to the brief history of the Public Library and pointed out the "originality" of this institution for Russia. Next to rise was the poet Nikolai Gnedich. A lively, emotional man who took an active stance in defence of the Russian language and Russian literature, he gave an impassioned speech on "the factors retarding the success of our literature". The celebrated Russian fabulist Ivan Krylov read out a fable entitled The Divers which he had written especially for the occasion.

The opening of the Public Library which coincided with what Pushkin called the time of "glory and delight" was recorded in all the St Petersburg newspapers. The poet and critic Piotr Pletnev wrote that all men and women whose "Russian hearts beat stronger on hearing the word Motherland" had perceived the event as "a glorious occurrence" important for the future of the country. The library remained a popular topic in subsequent years too. The papers described it as "a tmly national repository" and noted that any reader "had free entry to it, whatever title or rank he may have held."

The library was open for both "usage" and "viewing". From the outset it also functioned as a museum — the visiting public were introduced to its printed and handwritten treasures and shown the halls of the building, while the staff sought to enhance the tour with commentaries on the character, history and significance of the articles on display. In the early years between 500 and 600 people used the library annually. Those who applied to do so were a very mixed bag in terms of origin and social status: scholars, civil servants, military men, clergymen, merchants, members of the lower middle class and students of civil and military colleges. Raznochintsy (representatives of the legally undefined group of varied non-noble, non-peasant origin who mainly did "white-collar" work) and "free men" accounted for roughly 11 % of all the library users in 1816-19. The "new youth" came into the reading room with interests shaped, as has already been said, by the "social excitement after the Napoleonic Wars". Notable library users at this time included the future Decembrist Wilhelm Kiichelbecker, the mathematician Nikolai Lobachevsky and the explorer Fiodor Litke. In 1817 the library's records noted the appearance of the first female readers.

The Olenin years, in the course of which over 15,000 library cards were issued and some 100,000 volumes given out to readers, also saw the first attempts to analyse reading patterns, the range of subjects which interested users of the library and the demand for works by particular authors (Lomonosov, Karamzin, Derzhavin, Krylov, Zhukovsky, Gnedich, Batiushkov, and others). The same period was marked too by the inception of a reference and bibliographical service within the library as members of staff began to select literature systematically in response to readers' requests (books, for example, on the history of the 1812 War, Suvorov's campaigns in Italy and Switzerland, or public education in Russia).

It was said of Olenin that he divided his time and efforts between service and friends. Almost the whole of St Petersburg literary and artistic society gathered at his house on the Fontanka Embankment and at his country cottage in Priyutino. Olenin's "salon" was attended by poets and writers — Alexander Pushkin, Vastly Zhukovsky, Piotr Viazemsky, Nikolai Karamzin and Gavrila Derzhavin; painters and sculptors —Vladimir Borovikovsky, Karl Briullov, Alexei Venetsianov, Ivan Martos, Vastly Demuth-Malinovsky and Orest Kiprensky; the architect Vastly Stasov and many other creative people. It was through Olentn's network of friendship that the library acquired the services of the fabulist Ivan Krylov, the poets Nikolai Gnedich and Konstantin Batiushkov, the man of letters Mikhail Lobanov, the poet and schoolfriend of Pushkin Anton Delvig, and the novelist and playwright Mikhail Zagoskin. To work in the Manuscript Department, Olenin invited the outstanding Russian philologist and poet Alexander Vostokov and also Alexander Yermolaev, a pupil of the Academy of Arts then only beginning his career, but already a talented authority on Russian chronicle-writing and Russian manuscript books. Karamzin consulted Yermolayev when writing his monumental History of the Russian State. Both Pushkin and academician Piotr Keppen would turn to him for help in interpreting the text of The Lay of Igor's Host.

At the request of Stroganov and Olenin, the book-dealer Vastly Sopikov, a member of the merchant class, was taken into state service at the library. Sopikov had become famous for his knowledge in the field of Russian bibliography and the book trade. He was entmsted with managing the Russian stocks and the library saw to the publication of his major work An Essay in Russian Bibliography which the author per-spicaciously believed "will be a classic not only in Russia but also in foreign parts". Sopikov's work contained "an accurate and thorough description" of books published in Russia from the introduction of printing to the beginning of the nineteenth century and still remains a valuable handbook for librarians and bibliographers today.

Olenin had great respect for the staff of the library. He listened to their opinions and was convinced that those who served in this "temple of enlightenment" (as Piotr Pletnev called the Public Library) should be educated people well-versed in languages, literature, art and the sciences. In his choice of candidates for the post of librarian Olenin was motivated by his kindness and well-known generosity but also by commercial considerations. At his request appointments to the unpaid position of honorary librarian were offered to the bibliographer and book-expert Vasily Ana-stasevich, the journalist and publisher Nikolai Grech, the mining engineer Piotr Frolov — "a collector of Russian antiquities", Archimandrite loacinth (Nikita Bichurin) — the founding-father of Russian Sinology, and the historian and expert on Siberia Grigory Spassky.

Probably no other period in the history of the Public Library has produced such a quantity of stories and tall tales as Olenin's. There were, of course, some reasons for this, primarily the figure of the Director himself who managed to gather around him many talented, extraordinary people whose behaviour could at times give rise to talk. Thus, for example, in his memoirs Vasily Sobolshchikov (who entered the library as a scribe and was later transferred to sorting out the collection of prints) described the librarians of Olenin's time as "parasites". Yet one of those "parasites" — Ivan Krylov whose work at the library generated an especially large number of legends and anecdotes — kept track of the statutory copies coming into the Russian department. He compiled registers of the books which had not been delivered and prepared material from which Olenin made inquiries that were sent both to the "originators" and to the censorship authority.

Krylov sought to achieve a comprehensive collection of Russian books in the Public Library and to that end he carried out a bibliographic search exploiting his long-standing connections with book-dealers. Through his agency, for example, the publisher and bookseller Alexander Smirdin enriched the Russian Department with several rare editions. Krylov also made helpful suggestions regarding the arrangements for keeping books in the Russian Department and the method of serving library users. (Some of the slips of paper he inserted into the books sent out from stock to the reading room still survive today.) Together with Sopikov he compiled the first catalogue of Russian books, drew up bibliographies requested by ordinary readers and state institutions — on the War of 1812, Suvorov's campaigns, and St Petersburg, as well as lists of the books which users requested from the Russian Department for the printed reports of the Public Library. Yet in doing all this, Krylov nevertheless remained true to himself with an eccentric pattern of behaviour resulting from a disregard for accepted standards in public service and society generally and a lack of mobility caused by obesity and advancing years: by the time he left the library in 1841 he had celebrated his 73rd birthday.

The "patronal haven for men of letters", as Dmitry Filosofov, a prominent figure in the cultural life of the turn of the twentieth century, described the library, was an inseparable part of Olenin's "salon". He encouraged the literary and scholarly endeavours of his staff and took a very active interest in them. Under Olenin particularly, the library generated a special cultural atmosphere which appealed to staff and users alike. When Gnedich conceived the idea of rendering Homer's Iliad into Russian, Olenin was the first to come to his assistance and he proved a subtle interpreter of the text. Gnedich's translation, which Pushkin called "a great feat", became the common cause of the library. Apart from Olenin, the librarian Dmitry Popov with his knowledge of Greek, Alexander Yermolaev with his grasp of the chronicle tradition and the genealogist Maxim Semiganovsky all contributed to the poet's work, and even the reputedly lazy Krylov learnt Greek in order to help. Assistant Director Sergei Uvarov gave useful advice regarding the metre of the translation. Something like tableaux vivants were staged in the hall of the library, with all those interested participating, in pursuit of the precise translation of Homer's text. Olenin's directorate also saw collective work to produce a commentary on the Lavrentyevskaya Chronicle and preparation for the publication of the Russian chronicle collections. From 1812 a society formed under the auspices of the library worked on the compilation of a concise Slavonic-Russian dictionary, a project which, sadly, never came to fruition.

Anton Delvig, while assistant librarian for the Russian stocks (a position which he had determinedly sought, working for over a year without remuneration), devoted his free time to gathering together in the library what his friend Pletnev termed "the most precious treasures for the demands of intellectual life". Delvig served here from September 1820 to May 1825, a period when he was almost constantly in fine creative spirits. The collective work on Homer's epic and the cult of the Ancient World which Olenin encouraged found reflection in his poetry. Delvig greatly valued his position at the library and would probably never himself have tendered his resignation. The true reasons for his departure, and also for Olenin's unexpectedly harsh attitude towards him, never became known to contemporaries.

The scope of a library's activity and its influence on society depend axiomatically on the state of society itself. This became obvious even in Olenin's time when conditions in the Public Library's "environment" were in almost constant flux. Before the second decade of Alexander's reign was out, the celebratory gatherings on 2 January to mark the anniversary of the library's opening had lost their sparkle. The court was no longer interested.

The enlightened part of Petersburg society was unhappy with the official character of the proceedings and the preponderance of members of the highest four classes of the Table of Ranks and not below. Printed reports of the library's activities ceased to be produced. The demand for annual catalogues of what had been read by the users of the Imperial Public Library and lists of visitors also disappeared. After the Decembrist Rebellion of 14 (26) December 1825 which accompanied the accession of Nicholas I, a monarch with a passionate belief in drill and military discipline, Olenin' s manner of living and of running the library were already quite clearly out of step with the court. Although the number of users continued to grow, albeit slowly, in the 1830s, the library's influence on society and indeed its own condition fell in some respects far short of the original plans and intentions.

Olenin was a product of Catherine's era and he had outlived his time. Already an old man, suffering from a number of ailments and in part also from lack of understanding, he continued to concern himself with the well-being of the Public Library. His small, frail body contained a heart that was kind, generous, and even courageous. At a time when the whole of St Petersburg stayed at home for fear of cholera, Olenin did not abandon the library, demonstrating an astonishing sang-froid. "Of all living beings," Vladimir Odoevsky wrote in 1831, "virtually the only one I saw was Olenin — with a huge greatcoat over his shoulders, port-wine in his hands, a cigar between his teeth, 'cholera' on his lips, and yet with calm in his heart... He acted splendidly and helped the sick with all his might; I have been twice as fond of him from that time onwards." In 1833 Olenin managed to bring a major construction project to completion. A splendid edifice was built onto the block on the comer, consolidating the library's prominent position on Nevsky Prospekt and the adjacent Alexandrinskaya Square.

Principal Book Repository in Russia (1795 - 1813)

New Temple of Enlightenment (1814 - 1842)

Arrival of Dmitry Buturlin as Director (1843 - 1849)

Political Spring in Russia (1850 - 1859)

"Modern Era" (1860 - 1899)

Pre-Revolutionary Years (1900 - 1917)

Civil War and Building a Socialist Economy (1918 - 1940)

WWII. Siege of Leningrad. (1941 - 1945)

Second Half of the 20th Century (1946 - 2000 )