The Slovanská knihovna in Prague and its RZIA Collection

Abstract

The period since 1960 has seen a significant increase in the size and diversity of the resource base for Russian, Soviet and eastern European studies in the west. Notable collections have been developed in a number of university libraries in the United States, major projects of microrepublication have been inaugurated and successfully brought to fruition and, finally, an extensive network of exchange and barter r elations has evolved between institutions in the west and their counterparts in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. Just as positive has been the increase in the number of professional book dealers whose primary concern is both antiquarian and current publications of the Soviet Union and eastern Europe.' All of these have provided North American Slavicists unprecedented access to materials-printed, archival and manuscript-for advanced teaching and research in the area of Russian, Soviet and eastern European studies. In addition to the resources which have been developed in the United States, American Slavicists also have had excellent opportunities to visit some of the great collections of Slavica in western Europe and in Slavic and eastern European countries themselves. Of western European collections, one might mention those in London and the Oxford and Cambridge communities, those in the Paris area, in Rome, Upsala, Berlin, Amsterdam and, of course, the collections of the Helsinki University Library.2 The recent political revolutions in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union also have had their impact on the book world and library structures. Some of the more significant manifestations are the development of professional library associations, the enlivenment of bibliographical work, the lifting of censorship and the opening of closed collections, often termed Spets-khrany. These have rnade the rich collections of Slavica in the Slavic homelands much more accessible. One