Handwritten miscellany «Potpourri» as the baron's A.S. Stroganov field of reading interests characteristic (following the Stroganov's book collection in Tomsk)

The Stroganov book collection, which is housed in Tomsk, comprises several dozens of manuscripts having different content and mainly written in foreign languages (French and German). All but one handwritten owner's catalogues belonged to G.A. Stroganov (1770-1857). Catalogues represent the valuable material on history of formation of the Stroganov book collection and in some cases they are the only source of information, for example, in such issues as attribution of certain copies. It deserves special mentioning that among manuscripts, which also belonged to G.A. Stroganov, there was a miscellany book of anecdotes about Napoleon Bonaparte having clearly defined Anti-Bonapartist orientation. However, manuscripts created by other Stroganov family members survived within the collection set. In the article, the content of the miscellany book of the beginning of the 19 century, which was written by the hand of G.A. Stroganov's paternal cousin- the baron Alexander Sergeevich Stroganov (1771-1815), is being analyzed. The full coincidence in the name, the patronymic name and the surname of the baron Alexander Stroganov and those of his famous uncle A.S. Stroganov (1733-1811) caused the fact that two relatives were confused in the works of some researchers, which was noticed by M.K. Azadovskiy. The baron A.S. Stroganov was famous as a literary-man, who was writing in French and published anonymously several works autobiographical in their nature. The «Potpourri» miscellany book has great value as a documental characteristic of the reading circle of the young Russian nobleman, who got the «French» education and lived according to the rules of the high aristocratic society. Reader's interests of the baron Alexander Stroganov were diverse and the preference was given to French authors. On the assumption of the miscellany book content, it is possible to make the conclusion that books were the place, where the baron Alexander Stroganov was looking for and was finding out answers to questions that were touching for him: friendship, love, faithfulness, choice of the worthy course of conduct in difficult real-life situations. The problems of death, its expectation, overcoming the fear of death are the central problems in the miscellany. The language of the miscellany book is French.

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