The collection of Church Slavonic books is one of the foundation collections of the Imperial Public Library. Cyrillic books originally formed part of the Manuscripts Department, but in 1946 they were arranged chronologically and removed. The early printed books issued between 1491 and 1800 were passed to the Rare Books Department, and all material published from 1801 to the begining of the 20th century were added to the Reserve Stock. In 1955 material from the Reserve Stock were transferred to the general Russian holdings.
The collection of Church Slavonic books, consisting approximately 10 000 titles, covers Church Slavonic, Russian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian languages. It contains Bibles, Gospels, Prayer Books, church calendars, scholarly literature for higher education within the disciplines of the theology.
All Church Slavonic books, printed after 1800, are available in the reading rooms of the Main Building and listed in the Library's catalogues.
Russian Books Collections
Russian Books. Brief Summary
Collections