Personal library as a historical source. On the problem of studying, analyzing, and cultural value of pre-revolutionary book collections

The features of noble estate libraries as a historical source about the era of their existence, from the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century, are considered. The issues of mutual influence of a personal library and a bibliophile, changes in the structure of readers’ interests during the study period are analyzed. The value and functional significance of the book heritage of noble estate library collections is determined. The influence of gift inscriptions and inscriptions on the specifics of relationships in the noble environment is characterized. This approach makes it possible to reconstruct the lifestyle and culture of the bibliophile’s everyday life, to understand the motives for acquiring new publications, to compare them with the peculiarities of the time and the specifics of the local cultural environment. It is noted that even in special second-hand literature devoted to certain issues of the history of personal libraries, the authors limited themselves to stating the existence of a book collection and cited only individual facts from the history of their contents without a detailed study of the history of the appearance of a particular book, the qualitative characteristics of the repertoire of significance for the owner. The most important issues in the history of the formation and development of information culture are highlighted, the role of literature in society is determined, conclusions are drawn about the specifics of the transfer and reception of book information.

noble libraries, home reading, Enlightenment, estates, book culture, Russian Empire, Central Chernozem region