The Leningrad Collection of Zemstvo Publications

Abstract

The collection of Zemstvo Publications (Kollektsiia zemskikh izdanii) in Leningrad is undoubtedly the most important source of materials for the study of the zemstvo institutions which existed in Russia from 1864 to 1917. Because the work of these institutions touched every phase of Russian society, the collection is valuable for countless other topics as well. Containing approximately 100,000 volumes, it was formed in the 1950s from the library of the former Free Economic Society. It is little publicized and has not been utilized, even by Soviet scholars, to the degree it deserves. As of June 1966 the collection had been used, according to the staff, by only two American scholars, although access to it is granted to almost any scholar who has a card for the Saltykov-Shchedrin Library, of which it is a branch.The collection is one of the fonds which make up the Fondy Vol'nogo Ekonomicheskogo Obshchestva (Fonds of the Free Economic Society), which are housed in a room of the Fontanka Embankment Library at 36 Fontanka Embankment, Leningrad, approximately three blocks from the Saltykov-Shchedrin Library. In the same building are the main library's newspaper collection and newspaper reading room and various other reading rooms for graduate and undergraduate students.