Fiction in the book collection of G.K. Tyumentsev (Article II)

The article considers the section of fiction in the private library of G.K. Tyumentsev, a bibliophile from Tomsk. Its analysis showed that Tyumentsev's library was certainly not a random collection of belles-lettres books. It is well-judged, with a good choice of books and authors. It has its own logic of compiling which primarily shows the love of the owner to publications of fiction as cultural phenomena of a certain epoch, to thoughts and feelings that the content and form of works, and books containing these works, arouse. Most likely, Tyumentsev purchased editions that he considered valuable, playing an important artistic and literary role in the development of Western and Russian literature and in his own self-education and self-development, rather than rare for his library. It seems he collected books that he, as their owner, found interesting, pleasing and good. Meanwhile, reflecting the dialectic of the personal interests of the bibliophile and his understanding of the social significance of his bibliophile activity, Tyumentsev's collection has unique artistic and literary editions of the 19th century which today can be considered both rare and valuable; and a unique set of literary works that show Tyumentsev's (and in his face, for all the subjectivity of personal preferences, Siberia and Tomsk intelligentsia's) ideas about the history of world literature, its functions, development paths, tops and brightest phenomena. Article II describes publications of Russian writers, from M.V. Lomonosov to the owner's contemporaries. Tyumentsev's interest not only to literature as such, but also to literary criticism and problems of Russian censorship is significant. Many books contain his reader's marks of various kinds: notes, underlining, icons, stamps between pages, dried flowers, etc. In general, editions of fiction that Tyumentsev collected open up interesting and indicative pages of the Russian book culture of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in Russian, Siberian in particular, reading culture of the period.

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