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Slavic and East European Unique Print Collections: Early Soviet Materials in Minority Languages

Early Soviet Materials in Minority Languages

In the 1920s and 1930s, the Library received hundreds of publications in many Indexlanguages of the Soviet Union dealing with historical and social issues, including indoctrination and economic collectivization; poetry and literary collections; politics, religion, school texts, etc. They were acquired by the Library as part of an exchange program with the Marx–Engels Institute (est. 1919, renamed Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute in 1931), a Soviet library and archive attached to the Communist Academy. The largest part of the collection was cataloged as Former Soviet republics; pamphlets on religion, machinery operating, education; communist propaganda materials, etc. published in the former Soviet Union in the twenties and thirties [520 pamphlets in 43 vols.]. There are also collections organized by particular language:

In 1999, the NYPL and Columbia University received a New York State Library preservation grant for the Soviet Central Asian Pamphlet Microfilming Project. 729 rare monographs bound as pamphlets, published between circa 1925 and 1965 in the Bashkir, Chuvash, Kazakh and Uzbek languages of former Soviet Central Asia from both institutions were microfilmed, the largest single concentration of such materials in the United States.

A Preliminary list of publications from the Former Soviet East by language group was prepared and various parts of these collections were discussed in several articles listed below.

  • Yarmolinsky, Avraham. "Soviet Literature in Minor Languages." The Bulletin of The New York Public Library 31, no. 1 (January 1927): 3-5.
  • Kruger, John R. “Directory of Buriat and Kalmyk Publications in the New York Public Library,” The Mongolia Society Bulletin 12, no. 1/2 [22] (1973): 14-31.
  • Eren, Nermin. "The Eurasian Nationalities Collection in Non-Slavic Languages Held by the Slavic and Baltic Division of The New York Public Library." Nationalities Papers 23, no. 4 (1995): 789-795.
  • Koressaar, Victor. "Finno-Ugric-Language Books and Periodicals in the 'Soviet Literature in Minor Languages' Collection of the Slavic and Baltic Division of The New York Public Library." Nationalities Papers 24, no. 2 (1996): [307]-12.
  • Allworth, Edward A. Central Asian publishing and the rise of nationalism; an essay and a list of publications in the New York Public Library (New York, New York Public Library, 1965).
  • Allworth, Edward A. “The Rediscovery of Central Asia: The Region Reflected in two Collections of The New York Public Library,” Biblion 4, no. 2 (Spring 1996): 95-124
  • Allworth, Edward A. "Misusing the Term 'Post-Soviet'- Understanding the 1990s in Central Asia by Studying the 1920s and 1930s." Central Asia Monitor 3 (1997): 34-37.
  • Guadagnolo, Gary. "Short-Term Research Fellows: A Closer Look at Tatar-Language Pamphlets," 2012.
  • Creech, Griffin. "Buryat-Language Materials at The New York Public Library," 2024.