Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Pokrovsky (2 [14] June 1879, Nizhny Novgorod — 29 August 1942, Chardzhou) — library scientist, bibliographer, and library figure, one of the founders of Soviet library science as an academic discipline. A native of Nizhny Novgorod, he was subsequently exiled there twice by the authorities for revolutionary activity.[1]
See also: Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Andronov — another native of Nizhny Novgorod sharing the same first name and patronymic, also mentioned in the Nizhny Novgorod Encyclopedia.
Early Years and Connection with Nizhny Novgorod
Pokrovsky enrolled at Moscow University in 1897, but was exiled for revolutionary activity back to Nizhny Novgorod — the first time in 1898–1900, the second time in 1905–1909. He graduated from St. Petersburg University in 1904. From 1909 onwards he lived permanently in Moscow.[1]
Library Activities
In Moscow, Pokrovsky devoted himself to organizing a library network, studying readers, cataloguing, acquisitions, and the problems of self-directed reading. In 1910–1911 he organized a circle of Social-Democratic librarians at the A. S. Griboyedov reading library. In 1912–1913 he served as secretary of the Library Science Commission of the Russian Bibliographic Society at Moscow University. In 1916 he took part in founding the Russian Library Society and joined its board.[1]
From 1916 to 1918 he headed the A. S. Pushkin municipal reading library. In 1919 he founded and led the N. A. Nekrasov Central Municipal Public Library in Moscow, directing it until 1936; at the same time he assisted in building the network of municipal reading libraries in Moscow and Petrograd, advocating the adoption of experience from the United States, Austria, Germany, and other countries.[1]
Pokrovsky participated in the First All-Russian Congress on Library Affairs (1911), in library and bibliographic congresses of the 1920s–1930s, and became one of the organizers of the Moscow Library Institute (1930). He organized library courses at A. L. Shanyavsky People's University (1913), taught there in 1916–1918, founded the Library Seminary (1919), and delivered lectures at the Academy of Communist Education and at library courses run by various institutions.[1]
Scholarly Views and Works
He authored more than 130 books and articles. In the early 1920s he wrote a series of works on the acquisition of popular libraries, defending the objectivity of librarians in that process. In 1924 he was the first to synthesize V. I. Lenin's views on library affairs in the article "Lenin's Directives." He regarded library science as a unified discipline concerned with library work within the framework of social science, and rejected the notion that cultural and educational institutions could be non-ideological or non-partisan.[1]
From 1927 to 1942 he worked successively at the Bureau of Central Cataloguing, the Research Institute of Library Science and Recommended Bibliography, and the library of the Moscow Institute of Chemical Engineering. He died in evacuation in Chardzhou in 1942.[1]
Legacy
Pokrovsky's work is the subject of a monograph by Yu. V. Grigoryev, "A. A. Pokrovsky (1879–1942)" (Moscow, 1965), and a book by O. V. Peskov, "A. A. Pokrovsky and His Library: The History of the Founding of the Nekrasov Central City Public Library" (Moscow, 2003). An article about him is included in the "Library Encyclopedia" (Moscow: Pashkov Dom, 2007).[1]
Namesakes
Andronov Alexander Alexandrovich — another well-known Alexander Alexandrovich mentioned in the Nizhny Novgorod Encyclopedia.
Bugrov Nikolay Alexandrovich — a Nizhny Novgorod merchant and patron of the arts, owner of an income-generating building housing a branch of the Volga-Kama Commercial Bank at Rozhdestvenskaya Street, 27 — an architectural monument from the late 19th century in the Historic Center of Nizhny Novgorod, built in the 1890s. The Bugrov family is also associated with the famous Millioshka — the Bugrov doss-house, mentioned in Nizhny Novgorod's literary and local-history tradition.
Alexander Vasilyevich Stupin (1776–1861) — artist and educator, a native of Arzamas who founded the first private art school in Russia outside St. Petersburg and Moscow in Arzamas in the early 19th century. The school played a significant role in art education across the Nizhny Novgorod region; among its alumni was the painter Vasily Grigoryevich Perov, whom Stupin allowed to work in oil paints earlier than the other pupils, recognizing his exceptional talent. To mark the 250th anniversary of Stupin's birth, the Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum opened an exhibition entitled "The Arzamas Academy."
Sources
- dates.gnpbu.ru — Alexander Alexandrovich Pokrovsky
- opentextnn.ru — List of holdings of the GKU TsANO as of 01.01.2019 — OPEN TEXT (archive)