Not to be confused with the Russian National Library

Russian National Library

The National Library of Russia in St Petersburg, known as the State Public Saltykov-Shchedrin Library from 1932 to 1992 , is the oldest public library in Russia...

, located in St Petersburg.

The Russian State Library is the national library

National library

A national library is a library specifically established by the government of a country to serve as the preeminent repository of information for that country. Unlike public libraries, these rarely allow citizens to borrow books...

 of Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, located in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. It is the largest in the country and the third largest in the world for its collection of books (17.5 million). It was named the V. I. Lenin State Library of the USSR from 1925 until it was renamed in 1992 as the Russian State Library.

The library has over 275 km of shelves with more than 43 million items, including over 17 million books and serial volumes, 13 million journals, 350 thousand music scores and sound records, 150,000 maps and others. There are items in 247 languages of the world, the foreign part representing about 29 percent of the entire collection.

Between 1922 and 1991 at least one copy of every book published in the USSR was deposited with the library, a practice which continues in a similar method today, with the library designated by law as a place to hold a "mandatory" copy of every publication issued in Russia.

History

The library was founded on July 1, 1862, as Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

's first free public library named The Library of the Moscow Public Museum and Rumiantsev

Nikolay Rumyantsev

Count Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev was Russia's Foreign Minister and Imperial Chancellor in the run-up to Napoleon's invasion of Russia...

 Museum, or The Rumiantsev Library. The Rumyantsev Museum

Rumyantsev Museum

The Rumyantsev Museum was Moscow's first public museum. It evolved from the personal art collection and library of Count Nikolay Rumyantsev , the last of his family.- History :...

 part of the complex was Moscow's first public museum, and housed the Art collection of count Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev, which had been given to the Russian people and transferred from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Its donation covered above all books and manuscripts as well as an extensive numismatic and an ethnographic collection. These, as well as approximately 200 paintings and more than 20,000 prints, which had been selected from the collection of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, could be seen in the so-called Pashkov House (a palace, established between 1784 and 1787, in the proximity of the Kremlin

Kremlin

A kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...

). Tsar

Tsar

Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

 Alexander II of Russia

Alexander II of Russia

Alexander II , also known as Alexander the Liberator was the Emperor of the Russian Empire from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881...

 donated the painting The Appearance of Christ before the People by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov

Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov

Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov , 1806 – July 15 , 1858) was a Russian painter who adhered to the waning tradition of Neoclassicism but found little sympathy with his contemporaries....

 for the opening of the museum.

The citizens of Moscow, deeply impressed by the count's altruistic donation, named the new museum after its founder and had the inscription "from count Rumyantsev for the good Enlightenment" carved above its entrance. In the subsequent years the collection of the museum grew by numerous further donations of objects and money, so that the museum soon housed a yet more important collection of Western European paintings, an extensive antique collection and a large collection of icons. Indeed, the collection grew so much that soon the premises of the Pashkov House became insufficient, and a second building was built beside the museum shortly after the turn of the century to house the paintings in particular.
After the October Revolution

October Revolution

The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...

 the contents again grew enormously, and again lack of space became an urgent problem. Acute financial problems also arose, for most of the money to finance the Museum flowed into the Pushkin Museum

Pushkin Museum

The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts is the largest museum of European art in Moscow, located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour....

, which had only been finished a few years before and was assuming the Rumyantsev Museum's role. Therefore it was decided in 1925 to dissolve the Rumyantsev Museum and to spread its collections over other museums and institutions in the country. Part of the collections, in particular the Western European art and antiques, were thus transferred to the Pushkin Museum. Pashkov House (at 3 Mokhovaya Street

Mokhovaya Street

Mokhovaya Street, is a one-way street in central Moscow, Russia, a part of Moscow's innermost ring road - Central Squares of Moscow. In 1961-1990 it formed part of Karl Marx Avenue...

) was renamed the Old Building of the Russian State Library. The old state archive building on the corner of Mokhovaya and Vozdvizhenka Streets was razed and replaced by the new buildings.

Construction of the first stage, designed by Vladimir Shchuko and Vladimir Gelfreikh in 1927-1929, was authorized in 1929 and commenced in 1930. The first stage was largely complete in 1941. In the process, the building acquired the modernized neoclassicism exterior features of the Palace of Soviets

Palace of Soviets

The Palace of the Soviets was a project to construct an administrative center and a congress hall in Moscow, Russia, near the Kremlin, on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour...

 (co-designed by Shchuko and Gelfreikh), departing from the stern modernism of the 1927 drafts. The last component of Shchuko's plan, a 250-seat reading hall, was opened in 1945; further additions continued until 1960. In 1968 the building reached its capacity, and the library launched construction of a new depository in Khimki

Khimki

Khimki is a city in Moscow Oblast, Russia, situated just northwest of Moscow, at the west bank of the Moscow Canal. Population: 207,125 ; 141,000 ; 106,000 ; 23,000 .-History:...

, earmarked for storing newspapers, scientific works and low-demand books from the main storage areas. The first stage of Khimki library was complete in 1975.

In 1925 the complex was renamed the V. I. Lenin State Library of the USSR, and remained so until 1992 when it was given its present name.

External links

• Official website
• Satellite image of the Russian State Library, centered on the main entrance