Readers’ Interest of Students of Pre-Revolutionary Russia

Abstract

The article considers the reading activity and book priorities of students of the Kiev Polytechnic Institute of Emperor Alexander II in 1904—1912. The author studied the readers’ interest using the analysis of student questionnaires and library loan books of the early twentieth century, as well as reports on the activities of the Institute and memoirs of students and teachers. The fundamental library was created at the establishment of the technical University in 1898. Professors and students used loan services and reading room of the Institute library. Since 1905, the library began to keep statistical records of the loan books and magazines. The article presents the data on the loan books and magazines in 1905—1909. Requests for reading of books significantly exceeded the library’s capacity, so students independently organized the library-reading room, where the books and magazines were purchased taking into account the needs of students. The work of the student library was aimed to help students in solving problems of cultural leisure and intellectual self-improvement; especially young people in extremely difficult financial situation were in urgent need of loan services. The most popular among students were books about history, love and travel. Politically active young people were interested in literature on philosophy, theology, economics, and to a lesser extent, on specialized technical subjects. To better characterize the reading activity of students, it is important to understand their social status, which largely determines the worldview and aesthetic interests of young people. The author presents statistical data on the social and education status of students of the Institute for 1905 and 1907. In the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, in comparison with the capital’s technical universities, there were many Jewish students actively participated in the anti-government movement. They preferred to read literature on social, legal and philosophical issues, including illegal ones. Priorities in choosing genres and authors of works in many ways help modern researchers to understand the literary interests and worldview of young students of the early twentieth century, as well as to recreate the socio-cultural portrait of pre-revolutionary students.