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

In the 1920s and 1930s, the Library received hundreds of publications in many languages 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:

• Pamphlets in Armenian language [17 vols.], also included are materials in Avar, Circassian, Chuvash, Finnish, Lezgin, Laks, Latvian & Tadjik.
• Pamphlets in Azerbaijani languages [166 pamphlets in 13 vols.]
• Pamphlets in Bashkir language [223 pamphlets in 17 vols.]
• Pamphlets in Buriat language [78 pamphlets in 8 vols].
• Pamphlets in Chechen [50 pamphlets in 5 vols.]
• Pamphlets in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages published in Russia [2 vols.]
• Pamphlets in Chuvash language [322 pamphlets in 28 vols.]
• Pamphlets in Circassian [32 pamphlets in 3 vols.]
• Pamphlets in Daghestan languages [8 pamphlets in 1 vol.]
• Pamphlets in Finnish and Estonian languages on history, political and social ideology of communism, textbooks, etc. published in Russia in the twenties and thirties [62 pamphlets in 6 vols.]
• Pamphlets in Finno-Ugric languages [630 pamphlets in 49 vols.]
• Pamphlets in Georgian language [32 vols.]
• German-speaking people in Former Soviet republics [180 pamphlets in 16 v.]
• Kazakh pamphlets, group 1: a collection of 21 pamphlets.
• Kazakh pamphlets, group 2 a collection of 7 pamphlets
• Kazakh pamphlets, group 3: a collection of 20 pamphlets
• Kazakh pamphlets, group 4 a collection of 14 pamphlets
• Latvia; pamphlets on history, communism, religion, politics; poetry collections, plays, publisher's catalogs, etc. in Latvia and Russia in the twenties [156 pamphlets in 19 vols.]
• Polish language pamphlets [174 pamphlets in 16 v.]
• Publications in Kabardian, Kalmyk, Karachay-Balkar, Karaim, and Kara-Kalpak languages [73 pamphlets in 6 vols.]
• Tajik pamphlets, group 1 [12 pamphlets]
• Tatar-language pamphlets on history, communism, economy, religion, politics, poetry, and literature [723 pamphlets in 68 v.ols.]
• Tatar pamphlets, group 1 [4 pamphlets]
• Tatar pamphlets, group 1 a collection of 17 pamphlets
• Uzbek-language pamphlets [201 pamphlets in 21 vols.]
• Yakut-language pamphlets [59 pamphlets in 5 vols.]

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, Uzbek and Kazakh languages of former Soviet Central Asia from both institutions were microfilmed, the largest single concentration of such materials in the United States.