saint petersburg

This presentation aims to share our practice using papiers and Japanese’s techniques to conserve and to restore library book collections, their materiality. Japanese papers and techniques are now widely used as preservation practices and as archival material around the world. They help extend the life of library artifacts. These papers added to the original materials prolonging the life of these documents.

This analysis serves the purpose of informing Japanese resource specialists of a Japanese language collection of literature in the All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature which is considered to be one of the most prominent and valuable libraries in Russia. 

In the 19th century Japan and Russia were facing many political and cultural changes: the restoration of imperial rule in Japan and the abolition of serfdom in Russia in the 60s of the 19th century. These events greatly influenced further development of libraries and reading. This paper analyzes the following aspects:
1. Appearance of first public libraries in Russia and Japan.
2. Development of private libraries in two countries.
3. Consideration of readers and published literature in the context of social and cultural situations in two countries.

In 1888, the Imperial University (present-day The University of Tokyo) history instructor Ludwig Riess (1861–1928) submitted an opinion statement to the university which stated, “In the national archives of the Netherlands at The Hague, there are many precious sources relating to Japanese history.” This led to the University subsequently engaging in the first ever overseas survey of Japan-related historical sources. In the 1920s, the Japan Academy began a Union Académique Internationale (UAI) overseas Japan-related historical sources survey project. In 1954, it was taken over by the Historiographical Institute.
In this report, I will cover this research project’s progress and ultimate aims, as well as discuss the results of an on-going historical sources survey and joint research in Russia.

In this presentation I would like to attract your attention to materials housed in GARF (State Archive of Russian Federation). The archive was created in 1992. Japan related materials may be found in the following depositories: Soviet-Japan and Japan-Soviet Friendship Societies, Soviet Committee for Peace, Soviet Committee for Solidarity with Asian and African Countries and materials of International Conferences for Prohibition of Nuclear and Hydrogen Weapons. So far this archive materials were used by some Russian and American scholars for the study of Soviet Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries in the interwar period, but postwar materials have not been much used, though they contain some useful information on how Japan and the Soviet Union perceived each other.