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The Library of the Free Economic Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Dorothy Atkinson
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Extract

The first (and last) Soviet scholar to survey the history of the Imperial Free Economic Society (Imperatorskoe Vol'noe Ekonomicheskoe Obshchestvo, or VEO) arrived at the reasonable conclusion that this important organization deserves far greater notice than it has hitherto received. The same is true of the Society's remarkable and remarkably neglected library, barely mentioned even in the same scholar's monograph but preserved almost intact in Leningrad today. The later activities of the Free Economic Society—the oldest (1765-1919) and most influential economic society in Russia—will be pursued elsewhere as part of a broader inquiry, but a brief note on its library is offered here to alert researchers to the potential usefulness of this unique store of economic, social, technical, and statistical materials.

Type
Notes and Comment
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , March 1980 , pp. 97 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1980

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References

1. Oreshkin, V. V., Vol'noe ekonomicheskoe obshchestvo v Rossii, 1765-1917 (Moscow, 1963)Google Scholar.

2. Khodnev, A. I., Istoriia Imperatorskogo vol'nogo ekonomicheskogo obshchestvo s 1765 do 1865 goda (St. Petersburg, 1865), p. vi Google Scholar.

3. Ustavy Imperatorskogo vol'nogo ekonomicheskogo obshchestvo i Vysochaishie reskripty emu dannye, 1765-1898 (St. Petersburg, 1899).

4. When the Society was ordered to suspend activities on January 30, 1915, its library also was closed. It was able to loan out books again in the later part of the year, but only to members. Library acquisitions (including zemstvo publications) declined, and the receipt of foreign materials nearly came to a halt (Otchet o deiatel'nosti I.V.E.O. sa 1915 god [St. Petersburg, 1916]). Data on acquisitions are available in the annual Otchety.

5. It was in this building of the Free Economic Society, just around the corner from the present Dom Plekhanova, that the St. Petersburg soviet was meeting on December 3, 1905, when the government arrested all its members and brought the revolution to a close in the capital.

6. Iakovlev, G, “V Vol'nom ekonomicheskom obshchestve” in the newspaper Vechernii Leningrad, June 18, 1969.Google Scholar

7. Lenin, V. I., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5th ed., 55 vols. (Moscow, 1958-65), 51:149 Google Scholar.

8. Data as of December 1, 1977, provided by library staff.

9. Timberlake, Charles, “The Leningrad Collection of Zemstvo Publications” Slavic Review, 26, no. 3 (September 1967): 474–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Vsevolod, V. I., Alfavitnyi ukazatel’ statei napechatannykh v “Trudakh” i drugikh periodicheskikh izdanniiakh VEO (St. Petersburg, 1849 Google Scholar); Bibliograficheskoe opisanie pervykh 54 chastei “Trudov” VEO (St. Petersburg, 1874); Groman, F., Alfavitnyi ukazatel' statei pomeshchennykh v “Trudakh” i ekonomicheskikh zapisakh VEO s 1855 po 1875 g. (St. Petersburg, 1855 Google Scholar); Teodorovich, A. I., Ukazatel’ statei pomeshchennykh v “Trudakh” VEO s 1855 po 1875 g. (St. Petersburg, 1876Google Scholar); Belevich, A., Ukazatel’ statei pomeshchennykh v “Trudakh” VEO za 1876-1888 (St. Petersburg, 1889 Google Scholar).

11. Correspondence with the United States alone in the year 1910, for example, included exchanges with the U.S. Bureau of Statistics, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Boston Public Library, and Columbia University (Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv, fond 91, opis’ 2, delo 1556, 1910).

12. The new system of cataloging is described in detail in Trudy I.V.E.O., 1905, no. 4-6, pp. 95-106, which also contains a complete list of classification categories and subcategories. The system actually adopted introduced several minor modifications into the scheme projected there, but the plan is essentially the one embodied in the 1906-17 catalog.

13. In its description of the holdings of the Saltykov-Shchedrin State Public Library, the most important general directory of Soviet libraries (Biblioteki SSSR: Spravochnik, vol. 2: Biblioteki RSFSR [Moscow, 1974], pp. 14-16) fails even to mention the VEO collection, except for the zemstvo materials.