The Far Eastern Studies Seminar - Presentation by D.Mayatsky |
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28/12/2011 |
On December 21, 2011, at the Far Eastern Studies Seminar organized by the Department of Far Eastern Studies of the IOM RAS, Dr D.I. Mayatsky, St Petersburg State University, the Faculty of Oriental Studies, submitted his presentation, The Collection of Old Chinese Book Kept at the Oriental Department of the Academic Library of St Petersburg State University (the Vassiliev Collection) [Собрание старых китайских книг в Восточном отделе библиотеки СПбГУ (Васильевский фонд)], that concerned the project carried out by him and his colleague at the University, Dr E.A. Zavidovskaya. Dr D.I. Mayatsky told about the history of formation and current state of the Oriental collection of the library and presented the latest results of the cataloguing of the books from the collection of Acad. V.P. Vassiliev. At the moment, the library of the Faculty of Oriental Studies possesses about 295,000 items including 60,000 rare books printed or written in various Oriental languages by 1900. There are 29,869 Chinese block prints and mss acquired from various personal collections. Regrettably enough, they were never thoroughly processed. The collection of Acad. V.P. Vassiliev remains the only part that has so far been defined. Vassiliev gathered the major part of his collection of Chinese books while being in China as a participant of the 12th Orthodox Christian Spiritual Mission, during the 1840-50s. Later, it was constantly replenished from various sources and, in 1895, was offered to the library of the Faculty of Oriental Studies. The collection was first catalogued by Vassiliev himself in the 2nd half of the 19th century but at that time it was larger than now and consisted of more than 210 titles. At the moment there are 210 items only, out of 2045 old Chinese books kept at the library. In 2011, the books were described by Dr E.A. Zavidovskaya & D.I. Mayatsky, their catalogue is going to be issued soon, hopefully in spring of 2012. |
Last Updated ( 09/01/2012 )
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