The Oddity of the Russian Turgenev Library (Paris, France)

Abstract

The paper briefly describes a history of establishing Russian Public Library in Paris, 1875, by an initiative of Russian politician German Lopatin; now, the Library is considered as the oldest Russian language book collection formed outside Russia. Ivan Turgenev's personal library took as a basis of the memorial document collection that gradually became a center of cultural life for the first wave of Russian revolution emigration to France. The article discloses content of the document collection by type of issues, calls its sources until it was seized by Nazi occupational administration in 1940, outlines the history of its “travelling”. Also, the general description of several examples of books and magazines that previously belonged to Ivan Turgenev's Russian Public Library and now is stocked in Vyacheslav Shishkov Altai Regional Universal Scientific Library (Barnaul, Russia) is given.