Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2017 number

The formation and development of the regional literary culture have always been greatly determined by the reader. At the turn of the 20^th century most of the reading public in Tomsk, as well as in Russia in general, were children. To study this readership it is very important to use informal sources that give much information about the individual perception of childhood as well as the child’s reading interests and needs. Among such sources is the children’s home library. Tomsk Regional Local Lore Museum Archive contains two inventory lists of editions that, judging by reader’s marks, uniform underlining and the owner’s autograph note, belonged to the library collected in Tomsk in the 19th - early 20th centuries by Vadim Efimov, who apparently was an educated man, preoccupied with questions of home education and competent in matters of pedagogy and youth literature. The editorial and publishing preparation of books in Efimov’s library demonstrates his good taste and consistency. The selection of books for the youth readership indicates that the library was focused on both male and female adolescents. Much of the collection consisted of works by foreign or Russian authors. Foreign literature was represented by modern fiction that was popular among children of that time and was included in the recommendation lists for family reading. Russian literature was represented by series of sentimental, moralistic and realistic stories. Efimov paid special attention to the works by Lidia Charskaya, which emphasizes the non-regulatory character of the home library, the freedom of the collector who wants to please the young reader. Due to the lack of special literature for children in various branches, the works on history and military arts were to widen the young reader’s scope of knowledge in history, while travelogues and essays on travel - in geography. The belles-lettres department of the library also included the works of Russian “adult” classics (Pushkin, Lermontov) published for children, so the entertaining popular literature was complemented by classics, prose - by poetry. The library also contained many popular scientific-educational editions mainly on geography and natural science. The books were selected so that the reader could get encyclopedic knowledge about the world in its system and relationships. It is not by chance that Efimov’s collection included the children’s fundamental encyclopaedic edition published by I.D. Sytin, which was considered best for that time. Finally, the library contained a number of binders of illustrated magazines. The analysis of the children home library in Tomsk reveals the attitude of the intellectual collector to the problems of home education, as well as gives information about the adolescent’s range of reading interests in Tomsk in the late 19th - early 20th centuries.