The Library of the Pulkovo Observatory

Elena Potter

Pulkovo Observatory Library

The history of the Pulkovo library as well as the history of the Observatory 
itself is closely connected with the name of their founder Friedrich 
Georg Wilhelm Struve. August 19, 1839 is considered to be the date 
of the Library's foundation and the birthday of the Pulkovo Astronomical 
Observatory, too.

F.W.Struve was the first director of the Observatory, and the first 
librarian and bibliographer at Pulkovo too. It was he who collected 
the stores of books which made this treasury the pride of the Library, 
making it the largest Observatory Library in the world.

Upon F.W.Struve's death, his son Otto became the director of the Observatory. 
The routine remained the same -- each astronomer had his own key 
to the library and was able to take books whenever he needed. As the 
number of readers increased, a librarian was engaged, whose duty 
was to supply the scholars with books five days a week. All the 
directors of the Observatory paid great attention to the 
library's stores and work.

The Library of the Pulkovo Observatory was world-famous not only for 
its remarkable stores of unique astronomical books of the XV--XVIII 
centuries, but also for its fine selection of XIX century editions, 
as well as for publications on practical astronomy and geodesy. And, as 
astronomy was not taught as a separate subject at Universities, the 
Pulkovo Observatory became a practical school for astronomers, topographers 
and geodesists. Its library provided literature on physics, mathematics, 
practical geodesy, theoretical and land and naval astronomy, and photography 
to many different readers, among them the students of the Nikolayev 
Naval Academy, the General Headquarters Academy, the Higher Courses 
for Women and the students of St.-Petersburg, Derpt and Krakov Universities.

Two new branches -- in Symeiz and Nikolaev -- were enriched 
by the stores of the Observatory Library in the years 1908--1910. 
Upon the tragic death of A.Gansky, a young and gifted astronomer, 
in Symeiz, his family transferred his private collection of books 
-- many valuable editions among them -- to the possession of 
the Symeiz Observatory, thus founding a new library in Symeiz. The 
Pulkovo Observatory Library, for its part, contributed to the branch 
libraries by transferring copies of their books and other editions 
that scholars needed.

At the very beginning of the October revolution the Observatory became 
a site of military conflict. A group of Red Army soldiers invaded 
Pulkovo on the 28th of October, 1917, and set up an artillery 
division near the park. Scientists were cut off from contact 
with Petrograd, and often starved, having neither bread nor 
flour for long periods of time. It is amazing that they keep on 
working under such circumstances.

As alarm and unrest spread towards the end of February, 1918, 881 
valuable editions had to be transferred to the basement. In June, 
when the situation seemed to be returning to normal, the books were 
returned. Military actions of October, 1919, however, necessitated 
another transfer of these unique books. By this time there was no 
fuel, and heating was kept low. In spite of these hardships, however, 
the librarians kept working and even managed ti stork the stores of 
books and 328 editions were transferred to the Observatory's library 
from Perevoschikov's private collection. Demand for books was met 
in addition to that for the Observatory's collection and as far as
it possible, books were mailed to other institutions and abroad. 
The card-index catalogue of periodicals was permanently refilled 
and the collections were examined. The third portion of the 
printed catalogue of books transferred to the Library's 
possession after 1880 was also under way.

In 1923, two more librarians were hired to talk an account of new 
editions and journals publications. The bulk of books and pamphlets 
were transferred to the Library in 1923, thanks to the American Council 
of the Russian Science Support. In spite of the Civil War, both the 
Observatory and its library survived, and even more -- they developed. 

In 1934 the Central Astronomical Observatory became an 
institution of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the year of 1937 
the Pulkovo Library was made a branch of Academy of Sciences 
Library.

During the terror of 1937, many Pulkovo astronomers were 
imprisoned. Some of them never returned. Their fate was shared 
by the Chief Librarian of the Observatory Peoter Ivanovich 
Yashnov. The Library's collections, however, were not damaged 
severely, but special commissions occupied every institution in 
the USSR, tearing excerpts from materials that were considered 
to be seditious. Fortunately, there were not many "seditious" 
editions of this kind in the Library, and the commission's work 
was not terribly scrupulous.

Elena Wintergalter became the first Chief Librarian of a new 
branch of the Academy of Sciences Library in Pulkovo. She 
maintained the original routine, wherein books were given to 
readers five days a week. In addition, many astronomers 
possessed keys to the library and borrowed books on their own. 
One could work round the clock in the reading-hall of the 
library without any librarians supervision. As E.Wintergalter 
put it, books were borrowed for a "short" period of time -- say, 
for 10 or 15 years.

All this time there were about 90 000 units in the library's 
collections, but there was still no alphabetical catalogue. 
Wintergalter and two of her assistants set about this vast work. 
They inventoried the "Struve Reserve" codified the books, and 
made an alphabetical index and card-index catalogue of the 
periodicals.

When Germany invaded Russia in June, 1941, nobody could know 
what would happen to the Observatory's library. The issue of 
evacuation was discussed, but where to and when? Elena 
Wintergalter, together with her assistant selected about 150 
valuable editions, incunabulas among them, and stored them in 
the safe of the Observatory's Round Hall wall. They hoped they 
would be able to transfer the books to the Academy of Science 
Library depositories, but the had no vehicles which to do this. 
The decision was made to transfer the books to the basement 
under the Round Hall. The work was carried on for about a month, 
as long as it was possible to stay in Pulkovo. It should be 
noted, however, that the geographical position of the Pulkovo 
Observatory made it a main line of resistance, Wintergalter's 
chief concern was nonetheless, how to save the books. 
Wintergalter was a little more than fifty at the time, and 
although her two sons were living in Leningrad, she remained in 
Pulkovo. Every  night  she went out to the highway to ask military men
in passing vehicles to take books to Leningrad. Thus a portion
of these valuable editions was saved. In September, Pulkovo 
found itself the lone civilian institution on the front line, 
surround by military encampments on its territory. A bomb hit the 
basement where the books were being stored. The Academician 
L.A.Orbely -- in charge of the Hermitage at the tome -- was 
inform of the fact by military officials. Five trucks were 
provided to evacuated the Observatory's library. A chief in 
charge of Observatory, professor A.Deutch, recalled the incident 
many years later: Professor V.Berg and I accompanied by 
battalion commander, reached the foot of the Pulkovo Hill in an 
open vehicle at the beginning of October, 1941. Upon ascending 
the hill, we saw the dim moonlight the ruins of the walls of the 
principal building of the Observatory -- there were no windows, 
just holes, no domes, no towers, no floors, no ceilings. We 
descended to the basement to discover a box of valuable books 
and incunabulas in a chaotic heap -- it wasn't easy to find it. 
The soldiers took the box and carried it to the truck. The rest 
of the books were removed within the next two nights. The 
alphabetic catalogue cards and the inventory of books had been 
already evacuated by Elena Wintergalter. The books were stored 
in the Hermitage basement, and a team of the staff worked there 
till the middle of January, 1942. They examined the books that 
had been evacuated and made an inventory of those that had been 
lost. The incunabulas and the unique books of the XVI--XVII 
cent. were packed and stored at the Hermitage, the rest were 
taken by sled by Wintergalter and the staff to the Academy of 
Sciences Library. Even during the hardest period of the siege, 
Elena Wintergalter regularly came to the Hermitage to air the 
books and examine their state.

About 1500 books were transferred from the apartments of staff 
of the Observatory who had died or been evacuated in the first 
half of 1942, and at the same time, 525 reviews of foreign 
observatories' publications were recorded. It took a great deal 
of courage to do this work at a time when the city was dying of 
hunger, cold, and relentless bombings.

The damage caused by the war was great, and about two thirds of 
the Observatory Library collection were lost. The entire section 
of maps and atlases was destroyed as well as the following 
incunabula: Thomas Murner. Practica and Domini. MCCCCLXXXXVIII, 
Freiburg, 1498.

The Observatory building was completely ruined, so the staff who 
came back were located at different institutes of Leningrad. The 
Library had no site of its own but it still managed to function! 
The original systematic catalogue was created under the 
supervision of N.Idelson.

Now the library's staff includes four people. The library itself 
occupies five levels of the central section of the Observatory's 
building and the main depository encircles the Main Tower.

There are more than 230 000 units in the library's collection, 
including alphabetical and systematic catalogues. The Library 
also has a catalogue-index of the world astronomical 
observatories editions.

Despite the damage caused by the war, the historical section of 
the library's depository is still world-famous, and many 
astronomers and historians pay tribute to it. The Rome 
Astronomical Observatory Library issued a "Union Catalogue of 
printed books of the XV and XVI cent. in Astronomical European 
Observatories", 1977, which incorrectly reports only 65 
(erroneously including into this list one incunabula that was 
lost during the war) of the existing 79 incunabulas. 
23 incunabulas and 90 valuable editions reported in this 
"Catalogue" can be found only in Pulkovo Library.

We wish we could be proud of the modern editions stored at the 
library, but unfortunately the latest collection is neither as 
full nor as valuable as the original. We lack the money to buy 
the most necessary editions, such as those of the IAU. The 
Pulkovo Library has been a member of the EGAL since 1990. With 
the help of colleagues abroad, 400 modern periodical editions on 
astronomy have been acquired by the Pulkovo Library in the 
period of 1989--1991. Many thanks especially to Brenda Corbin, 
the Chief of the Library of the Naval Observatory in Washington.

Annual additions to the Library are estimated at around 4000 
editions. We have about 15000 reader's enquiries annually.

At present the Library faced the problem of appropriate storage 
space for Struve's invaluable collection -- so far the 
conditions do not meet the requirements of maintenance. The 
task of the librarians as we see it is to open the unique stores 
of Pulkovo Library to as wide an audience as possible, and to 
maintain proper conditions for the storage of our collection.