Venturing through the lofty halls of the Russian National Library, you could be forgiven for failing to notice a tiny, elderly woman shuffling around in slippers.
Celia Iosifovich Green is no ordinary grandmother working in the library to dust off the ancient volumes within its walls or run the staff canteen. As one of the longest-serving members of staff and among the most highly respected, Mrs Green occupies a place as valued as some of the medieval manuscripts and books that surround her.
The 200th anniversary celebrations last week to mark the founding of this, one of the world's greatest libraries, were as much for her as anyone else. Mrs Green, 73, first came to the National Library of Russia in 1941 when she was a university student majoring in Byzantine history and literature. "I remember how in those days the reading halls were packed with students because people lived in communal apartments which were too noisy to study in," she recalled. "It was 1941 and the diligent silence of the students was broken by one of the librarians who rushed in and cried out that Hitler had invaded Russia. She had heard it announced by the then-foreign minister Molotov on the radio. We could hardly believe it and rushed out onto Nevsky Prospect in panic."
Mrs Green, a sprightly pensioner who vows to "work here until I haven't got the strength to get up the stairs," recalled how the library worked every day throughout the Blockade and that the only room in that vast building on Ulitsa Sadovaya which was heated throughout the long harsh winter was the director's office!
The National Library of Russia in St Petersburg is the fifth largest book repository in the world, after the French National Library, the British Museum's library, the US Library of Congress and the Lenin Library in Moscow. The library, which has more than 31 million books, has a fascinating history linking it with Russia's Imperial past and Empress Catherine the Great, who founded it in 1795.
Catherine, herself an enlightened and educated woman, had two thoughts in mind when she ordered a fine collection of books belonging to the Zaluski brothers to be brought from Warsaw to her capital in St Petersburg. The library has never deviated from its aims to be "a complete collection of Russian books" and "for general public usage."
Today more than 1.5 million readers and scholars pass through its doors anually free of charge. It was formally opened as a public library by Alexander II in 1814 and by that time it had already gained for itself the reputation as a seat of Russian enlightenment where prominent statesmen and scholars worked. It was men like Alexander Stroganov, Alexei Olenin, Alexander Yermolaev and Vladimir Stasov who boosted the library's authority, and by the end of the 19th century the library was considered by the Russian intelligentsia to be a "second university."
Such names as Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Mendeleev, Krilov, Akhmatova, Solzhenitsyn and Chernyshevsky all studied within these historic walls. It was here that many of Lenin's ideas, which would later shape the country's destiny, were hatched.
Today the National Library of Russia faces new challenges. It relies on government funding which each year stands at anything between 10-90 billion roubles (on average $1-2 million per year). But the problems are not only financial -- there is also a lack of space within the 13 old and inadequate buildings which presently house this vast collection. Plans drawn up for new premises in the 1920s were shelved, but now a new library complex is under construction on Moskovsky Prospect which meets all the latest requirements and computer technology that a modern library needs. Library director Vladimir Zaitsev said, "We stand among the greats, alongside the Paris and London libraries, and if we have enough money our new building will be completed by 1996, adding a further 700 spaces to the present capacity for 1,390 readers."
The library is celebrating its bicentenary through the end of this month with a round of lectures, conferences and meetings involving representatives from libraries from all over the world.
An exhibition displaying some of the library's most valuable books also opened at the Russian Museum on May 26 and will continue to the end of June. "The Public Library in the History of the Russian State" exhibition contains not only books from the National Library of Russia but also from the Russian Museum's own collection. The exhibition is backed up by an informative film about the library's history.
The National Library collection contains some of the most precious and oldest Russian manuscript books, including the Ostrimir Gospel (1056-7), the Lavrentyevskaya Chronicle (1377) and the beautifully illuminated Kievan Psalter (1397). The library expanded its stocks by purchases and donations, but new laws in 1810 gave the library the right to two free statutory copies of every publication produced in Russia.
There are other collections of rare manuscripts which are equally as valuable and include Greek papyruses from the 2nd and 4th centuries AD, fragments of the famous Codex Siniaticus, the Porfiry Gospel (835) and Psalter (862), and the 10th-century Gospel of Trebizond.
The stock of Western European manuscripts is absolutely unique with 6,000 codices from the 15th-20th centuries and more than 70,000 documents. There are manuscripts from St Augustine (5th century) and the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (746), which includes the sole surviving text of a hymn by Caedmon. The world-famous Grands Chroniques de France from the libraries of the French kings also found their way into the library, while its collection of Eastern manuscripts traces the entire development of writing in the East -- the birthplace of many ancient civilizations.
The library's stock of rare books was formed in the 19th century and today contains more than 70,000 volumes. Many of these are incunabula, which are the earliest forms of printing from the 15th century. They are impressive because of their high standard of technical execution, artistry and scholarship, and include works by the great humanist printer Aldus Manutius. There is a remarkable collection of Elseviers produced by the celebrated 17th-century Dutch family firm of printers with the same name. Apart from its unique book collections, the library has a vast array of letters and documents spanning a period from 1269-1700.
There are letters from French kings, documents concerning the construction of fortresses during the Hundred Years' War, charters issued by Ivan the Terrible and a copy of the edict Napoleon signed for the invasion of Russia in 1812. Keeping tabs on such a vast array of written material isn't easy, and the library employs a formidable army of 1,600 employees to look after its 31 million books. It's easy to imagine how much the library has grown when you consider that it only had a staff of seven when it was founded!
But old Mrs Green has seen enough changes for one lifetime. When she arrived there were no computers, half the workforce and a collection of books which only the privileged few had access to.
Now she can stand back and see that her library is once again free for all in every sense of the written word.
