CHARITY IN LIBRARY CONSTRUCTION IN WESTERN SIBERIA (Late XIX - Early XX Century)
Yu.V. Timofeeva
State Public Scientific Technical Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPSTL SB RAS), Russia, 630200, Novosibirsk, Voshod str., 15
Keywords: library, national library, charity, the scope of charity, forms of charity, metropolitan philanthropists, local philanthropists, financing, generosity, bequeathed capital, book-publishers, booksellers
Abstract
The article is aimed at revealing concrete-historical features of charitable activities in the sphere of library construction in Western Siberia in the late XIX - early XX century. The main objectives include analysis and generalization of the facts revealed by the author and other researchers of charity actions in the specified area; introduction of new sources revealing to the researchers new facts about the previously unknown examples of such activities as well as discovering new names of philanthropists who were active in the sphere of libraries. The author characterizes scale and forms of charity, identifies the names of metropolitan and local philanthropists, who provided material support for the creation and maintenance of libraries; determines their actual contribution to the development of the library network. Based on the analysis of archival and published sources, the author stated that the philanthropy became wide-spread in the region at the turn of XIX-XX centuries. The largest-scale charity was noted for the Tomsk province, mainly due to the activities of an outstanding Siberian educator, publisher and bookseller P.I. Makushin. He was a generous contributor to the creation of libraries and managed to attract metropolitan and local philanthropists to this very important activity. It became possible owing to the establishment of the Society of assistance to creation of rural free libraries and reading-rooms. Four dozens of village libraries were created with the capital left under the will of F.F. Pavlenkov. The well-stocked libraries were established with the money left by D.D. Poluboyarinov. N.M. Chukmaldin, A.I. Tekutiev, V.A. Gorokhov and many others helped to create one or more free libraries, assisting in book acquisition. Sources used by the author convincingly demonstrate that metropolitan and local philanthropists participated in library construction in Western Siberia. The author points to an interesting feature of the professional composition of major philanthropists - many of them were book publishers and booksellers.
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