Marks of Ownership of Russian Far Eastern Book Collectors in the Late 19th — Early 20th Centuries

Abstract

The Russian pre-revolutionary book features many various provenance marks including marks of ownership. Such marks indicate that a particular item belongs to a particular owner. They can have forms of supralibros (or super ex-libris), ex-libris (or bookplates), book stamps, signatures and inscriptions. There are also “non-specific” ownership stamps and labels, which do not have indications of their book nature (such as phrases “from the books/library of...”, “ex-libris…”) and can be used on any objects. Usually these are word rubber stamps (rarely — labels) with a text consisting of a book owner’s name and occasionally some additional information (such as an owner’s address, title, etc.). In Russia, bibliophiles and bibliologists have been studying bookplates for about two centuries. However, there are still many blank spots in the history of the Russian bookplate. Regional book ownership marks are mostly unexplored. This article presents an attempt to describe and analyse book ownership marks of the Russian Far Eastern book owners. Studying of library holdings of 13 regional institutions and conducting bibliographic research allowed revealing 58 local marks of ownership (excluding signatures and inscriptions) that belonged to 23 local book collectors of the pre-revolutionary period. The study showed that they used all types of marks from supralibros to inscriptions, but mostly preferred the “non-specific” book stamps and super ex-libris. There was also established that the bookplate labels were particularly rare — the author discovered the only specimen in the Far Eastern State Research Library. The predominance of book stamps as marks of ownership can be explained by their multipurposeness, cheapness and easiness of manufacturing. Far Eastern book owners frequently used two or three different types of marks together on one book, for example, book stamp and supralibros, inscription and book stamp or supralibros and inscription, etc. Often one collector used several different stamps or supralibros: almost 40% of book collectors had two or three marks of ownership. At the same time, 11 of 23 book owners additionally marked their books with the inscriptions.