General fiction in the personal library of G.N. Potanin: on the material of Leo Tolstoy's works

In this article, the personal library of G.N. Potanin in its current state is investigated. A brief overview of its history and the composition of the book collection are given. Potanin's library was acquired by the Institute of Siberian Studies in 1919. After the closure of the institute, all of its property, including the library, was transferred to Tomsk State University. When the library was transferred to the Institute of Siberian Studies, it contained 3,210 books and periodicals. In the main and in the reserve-and-doublet funds, 783 of them were identified and concentrated in the Department of Manuscripts and Book Monuments. Among the books of his library, literature on folklore studies, ethnography and natural science, both in Russian and European languages, predominates: a preliminary survey revealed about one hundred and fifty volumes, of which more than half are German editions, followed by French and English. Also, the library contains periodicals and annual reports of various societies operating in Tomsk (for example, "Report on the activities of the Tomsk Society of Art Lovers", 1910), which shows the active civil life of the scientist and his interest not only in scientific, but also in social and cultural processes in the region. Fiction, both in Russian and foreign languages, is represented in the library in single copies; however, despite the small volume, this collection is a science-intensive material for the study of Potanin's social and spiritual views. This material is analyzed through the prism of Leo Tolstoy's works. Despite the lack of evidence of Potanin's attitude to Tolstoy's belles-lettres, the library contains a number of his works, both in Russian and Buryat languages. Research of Potanin's library is at the initial stage, the further stages of the study can confirm or disprove the information presented in the article, but one cannot underestimate the significance of the current study for modern Siberian studies and the research corpuses devoted to the private collections of the Research Library of Tomsk State University.

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