Siberian Diocesan Book Collections of the Russian Orthodox Church: New Materials for the Bibliography of Synodal Cyrillic Editions
Authors:   State Public Scientific Technological Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Kovalenko Anton N. , Podoprigora Vasilii V. ,   State Public Scientific Technological Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Shilova Inna A. ,   State Public Scientific Technological Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yudin Aleksei A. ,   State Public Scientific Technological Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Published: December 2024

The article contains preliminary results of archaeographic research of Siberian diocesan (parish, seminary, and museum) libraries of the Russian Orthodox Church in Novosibirsk Oblast, Altai Krai, and Altai Republic. The object of study are the books of Cyrillic print of the 18th – 20th centuries published by the printing houses of Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kiev, Pochaiv and Chernigov and administered by the Holy Synod. The purpose of the research is to reveal, identify and characterize synodal editions of the 18th – 20th centuries located in the book collections of diocesan libraries in these regions.
The novelty of the study is due to the fact that the book collections of the libraries of churches and museums of the Russian Orthodox Church for a long time remained practically outside the archaeographic routes of Novosibirsk researchers. According to the established tradition, attention was paid mainly to manuscript and early printed booklore that existed in the Old Believers’ milieu.
During the archaeographic survey of the diocesan book storages of the Russian Orthodox Church, about 270 editions of the 18th–20th were identified: the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, liturgical, hymnographic, reading, polemical and educational literature. It was found that many of these books had not previously been taken into account in scientific publications and catalogues, which made it possible to significantly expand the idea of the repertoire and content of synodal editions stored in Novosibirsk Oblast and Altai.
The study identifies some rare and even unique examples of synodal editions. For example, an exemplar of the Euchologion (Moscow, Synodal Publishing House, 1770), discovered in Barnaul, was defined in the catalogue of A. Guseva as a “wanted edition”.
The study of provenance of book exemplars (records, stamps, bookplates) allowed us to obtain valuable information about their belonging to the church and monastery libraries of different provinces and cities of the Russian Empire, such as the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery, Minusinsk nunnery, Holy Trinity church in the city of Buzuluk of Samara diocese, etc.
The analysis of ownership signs revealed the main ways of forming diocesan libraries: gifts and contributions “to commemorate the souls” of clergy and parishioners; receipts from other church and monastery libraries, often lost their integrity due to the destruction of church buildings themselves; receipts from libraries of pre-revolutionary educational institutions, due to specifics of the repertoire of synodal editions not in demand after the revolution.