More than 15 000 books in the Russian stock bear autograph inscriptions by major writers and cultural figures, prominent state figures and scholars. They include Gavrila Derzhavin, Alexander Sumarokov, Dostoevsky, Blok, Alexander I's favourite Arakcheev, the historian Nikolai Kostomarov, the library's director Modest Korff and the pioneer in space travel Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, to name just a very few.
An inscribed book that once belonged to someone the author knew or to a well-known individual becomes doubly important. It enables us to learn about the relation between the author of the work and contemporary readers. Many books bear presentation inscriptions from authors who have kindly donated their works to us.
Inscribed books have no separate reader catalogue. Since the 1950s, our research staff have been working to seek out such books and copies with owners' bookplates from among the Library's holdings. All found items are listed in indexes "for official use", which are the intellectual property of the Russian Book Department.
Russian Books Collections
Russian Books. Brief Summary
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