On January 2, 1897 the zemstvo of Kirsanov District opened a library with a reading room named after Nikolay Ivanovich Krivtsov. Nikolay Ivanovich Krivtsov was a well-known educator and public figure, a hero of the Patriotic War of 1812.
Krivtsov (1791–1843) was born into a poor family of Oryol nobles, closely related to the father of the writer Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev. After retiring from service, he moved with his family to his wife’s estate Lyubichi in Kirsanov District (now Umyotsky District). At that time Nikolay Ivanovich became close to his neighbors, the Chicherins and the Boratynskys.
Well educated and talented landowners were in close contact with each other and exchanged literary and scientific news sent by Pushkin, Boratynsky and Pavlov.
The library’s founder and trustee was Sofja Nikolayevna, the daughter of Nikolay Krivtsov and the wife of Pompey Nikolayevich Batyushkov (the poet Konstantin Nikolayevich Batyushkov’s younger brother). Sergey Sergeyevich Bashmakov, the district leader of the nobility, was actively involved in establishing the library.
The readers (then subscribers) had to pay a subscription fee. Books from the Krivtsov library were available for a subscription fee, but were sent to all the volosts of Kirsanov district and back to the library for free, by the zemstvo mail. The library was managed by Konstantin Adamovich Kosimovsky, the town magistrate of Kirsanov, and the catalog was compiled by Ivan Illarionovich Nelyubov, the library’s subscriber, a veterinary surgeon.
In 1900, the library had a collection of about 2000 books and periodicals. The whole collection was divided into 11 sections. Two of them contained about half of the books: complete works of Y. A. Boratynsky, works of K. N. Batiushkov, I. I. Goncharov, D. V. Grigorovich, F. M. Dostoyevsky, A. F. Pisemsky, N. S. Leskov, M. V. Lomonosov, A. I. Odoyevsky, I. A. Krylov, N. V. Gogol, V. G. Korolenko and other authors. Among the Western European writers there were the works of O. de Balzac, G. Byron, J. Goethe, V. Hugo, G. Flaubert, W. Shakespeare, J. Schiller, and W. Scott. The periodicals were represented by a small number of magazines and a wide selection of newspapers. By 1913, the number of visitors to the library had increased sixfold compared to the year of its opening.
The Russian poet Aleksey Mikhailovich Zhemchuzhnikov was one of the famous visitors of the Kirsanov library and reading room at the turn of the 20th century. He often spent summers with his daughter Olga Alekseevna Boratynskaya in the village of Ilyinovka, Kirsanov District.
Krivtsov (1791–1843) was born into a poor family of Oryol nobles, closely related to the father of the writer Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev. After retiring from service, he moved with his family to his wife’s estate Lyubichi in Kirsanov District (now Umyotsky District). At that time Nikolay Ivanovich became close to his neighbors, the Chicherins and the Boratynskys.
Well educated and talented landowners were in close contact with each other and exchanged literary and scientific news sent by Pushkin, Boratynsky and Pavlov.
The library’s founder and trustee was Sofja Nikolayevna, the daughter of Nikolay Krivtsov and the wife of Pompey Nikolayevich Batyushkov (the poet Konstantin Nikolayevich Batyushkov’s younger brother). Sergey Sergeyevich Bashmakov, the district leader of the nobility, was actively involved in establishing the library.
The readers (then subscribers) had to pay a subscription fee. Books from the Krivtsov library were available for a subscription fee, but were sent to all the volosts of Kirsanov district and back to the library for free, by the zemstvo mail. The library was managed by Konstantin Adamovich Kosimovsky, the town magistrate of Kirsanov, and the catalog was compiled by Ivan Illarionovich Nelyubov, the library’s subscriber, a veterinary surgeon.
In 1900, the library had a collection of about 2000 books and periodicals. The whole collection was divided into 11 sections. Two of them contained about half of the books: complete works of Y. A. Boratynsky, works of K. N. Batiushkov, I. I. Goncharov, D. V. Grigorovich, F. M. Dostoyevsky, A. F. Pisemsky, N. S. Leskov, M. V. Lomonosov, A. I. Odoyevsky, I. A. Krylov, N. V. Gogol, V. G. Korolenko and other authors. Among the Western European writers there were the works of O. de Balzac, G. Byron, J. Goethe, V. Hugo, G. Flaubert, W. Shakespeare, J. Schiller, and W. Scott. The periodicals were represented by a small number of magazines and a wide selection of newspapers. By 1913, the number of visitors to the library had increased sixfold compared to the year of its opening.
The Russian poet Aleksey Mikhailovich Zhemchuzhnikov was one of the famous visitors of the Kirsanov library and reading room at the turn of the 20th century. He often spent summers with his daughter Olga Alekseevna Boratynskaya in the village of Ilyinovka, Kirsanov District.
