[Ibm Mainframe Handbook By Alexis
Kody Coste
Any overview of the Yudin Collection at the Library of Congress (LC) should begin with a reference to the work of Alexis Babine, who more than a hundred years ago, in 1905, published what seems to have been the first formal description of the collection, The Yudin Library, Krasnoiarsk (Eastern Siberia).1 The title and text of Babine's brief but detailed book are presented in Russian and English; the captions to the thirty-two illustrations appear in English only. Facing the English and Russian title pages are a now well-known standing photographic portrait of a white-bearded Yudin and a photograph of the exterior of Yudin's library in Krasnoiarsk or, more precisely, in Tarakanovo.2
Babine's book provides a brief biography of "Mr. Yudin," describes the Tarakanovo library building, Yudin's methods for acquiring his books and manuscripts, and their arrangement on the shelves (and elsewhere), and discusses briefly the subjects and genres that are the collection's strengths. These include, of course, virtually all areas of Russian history and geography, including much local history, especially of Siberia; bibliography; Russian literature; full runs of important or rare Russian serials; and an impressive selection of rare books and manuscripts. The arts and sciences, including archeology, and books in foreign languages are touched on as well. Babine cites and provides photographs of pages from a number of intriguing selections from the Yudin Library. He ends his discussion with mention of publications that Yudin himself produced or sponsored, including the first three volumes of Russkiia knigi [Russian books],3 which was intended as a comprehensive Russian bibliography but was discontinued for lack of funding.
Alexis Babine himself has become an almost mythic figure to the small circle of Library of Congress staff who have worked over the years with the Yudin Collection. Babine is first mentioned in The Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1902 under "Specialists": "The increased appropriation granted by Congress has enabled the Library to secure several additions to its corps of specialists . . . Such additions notably strengthen the judgment of the Library in departments of knowledge where it has been deficient . . . . Among these may be mentioned . . . Mr. Alexis Vassilyevich Babine, A.B. and A.M., a native Russian, especially versed in Slavic literature, experienced in American library methods as a cataloguer for six years at the library of Cornell University (of which he is a graduate), as librarian for two years of the University of Indiana, and as associate librarian for three years of Leland Stanford University . . . ."4 The next mention of Babine is in the Report of the Librarian of Congress for 1905 under "Service": "Mr. Alexis V. Babine, our specialist in Russian literature, resigned last spring to become a member of the Associated Press at St. Petersburg."5
Between the time of Babine's first arrival at the Library of Congress and his resignation three years later, Yudin had offered his library for sale, and in the fall of 1903 Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam asked Babine, already in Russia on other Library business, to travel to Krasnoiarsk to inspect Yudin's collection.6 It was Babine who negotiated the purchase of the Yudin library and then, in the winter of 1906 (despite his official resignation the previous year), oversaw the packing and shipping of Yudin's 80,000 volumes from Krasnoiarsk to Washington. Babine's correspondence with Herbert Putnam regarding the Yudin Collection and other matters is available to readers as part of the "Papers of Alexis Vasilevich Babine," a collection of 250 items in the Library of Congress's Manuscript Division.7
Babine's papers shed light as well on his work, adventures, and privations in Russia during the Revolution, as superintendent of schools for the Vologda Territory, as instructor at the Saratov State University, and as assistant to the American mission in Moscow.8 Babine was also the author of lectures and articles about the Bolsheviks, of a two-volume Russian-language history of the United States,9 and of translations of Russian short stories.
Babine left Russia in 1922, after the death of his parents, and returned to the United States and work at the Cornell University library. In 1927 he appeared again in the Report of the Librarian of Congress, under "Slavic Section": "Dr. Peter A. Speek, for some years past in charge of the Slavic section, retired from our service on October 1 . . . . His place has been taken by Alexis V. Babine, at an earlier period a member of our staff, who returned to it last June, after a long residence in Russia . . . . As it was he who 20 years ago, in visits to Krasnoiarsk (Siberia), carried through our negotiations for the Yudin collection, and finally directed the packing and shipment of it, he will now be assuming a responsibility distinctly appropriate."10
But this new tenure, like the first, was to last only three years. Babine passed away in May 1930, at the age of sixty-four, at a sanitarium in Rockville, Maryland. The typescript of a somewhat affectionate obituary tribute to Babine by Frederick E. Brasch, then chief of science collections at the Library of Congress, is preserved in the Library of Congress's General Collections.11 The obituary includes a number of interesting biographical details, including mention of Babine's idealistic views on education and democracy in the United States, as well as his purported struggles with the English language and, in contrast, his mastery of Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Brasch refers to Babine at the time of his death as "chief of the Slavic Division of the Library of Congress, scholar and librarian."12
Edward Kasinec published an insightful biographical essay on Babine in his collection Slavic Books and Bookmen.13 The essay fills a number of gaps, particularly relating to Babine's professional life, and includes a striking full-page photographic portrait of Babine from the collection in the Manuscript Division in the Library of Congress.14 Kasinec discusses the roles of Herbert Putnam and Babine in the acquisition of the Yudin Collection and concludes his essay with notes on mostly unpublished sources on Babine.
In 2002, Evgenii G. Pivovarov, a young scholar associated with St. Petersburg State University and sponsored by the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), published a full-length Russian-language biography of Babine.15 Pivovarov's biography is based in large part on research he conducted during several months in the European Division of the Library of Congress. His study includes a photographic portrait of a young Babine, many details about Babine's travels on behalf of the Library of Congress and his work with the Yudin library, some English-language notes, and extensive bibliographies in Russian and English, including many Library of Congress sources. It includes as well a copy of the finding aid to the "Papers of Alexis Vasilevich Babine" prepared by the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress.
In his 1905 description of the Yudin Library, Babine had written, "This collection is so remarkable, both for its size and its quality, and is so little known even in Russia, that a professional librarian who had occasion to spend a few days among its treasures feels justified in briefly introducing it to the literary and the library world."16 As a cataloger and librarian at the Library of Congress a hundred years later, I feel compelled to echo Babine's assertion. I shall attempt not to duplicate his descriptions or selections but to provide my own impressions of the small part of the Yudin Collection with which I've had occasion to work. Part of what is remarkable about the Yudin Collection, besides its size and variety, is the evident care that was taken in choosing many items of quality, both in terms of the editions selected, including often more than one edition or variant of a title, and the rarity of many of the books.
From Yudin's copy of Ritratto di Roma Antica by Filippo de' Rossi, Italian architect (Rome, 1654/1655), 110-111. (Yudin Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress). Thomas Jefferson owned the same edition, which he entered in his manuscript catalog and which is described in E. Millicent Sowerby's Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 4, item 4192.
A good number of titles from Yudin's library already were listed as rare in Sopikov's 1904 bibliography.17 In my experience at the Library of Congress, a "Yudin book" has several times turned out to be the only copy held at LC, or even in the United States, of a work sought by a researcher. Of course, this is the case for many Russian-language titles, but it has been true also for books in other languages. Of the fifteen items from the Yudin Collection that Andrew Rogalski examined in his paper, he could locate only one at another U.S. library.
One wonders if Yudin, who did not receive a formal education, was responsible for so many incisive selections and how much he was aided by the judgment of his primary book dealer, V. I. Klochkov, and other agents. According to D. D. Tuneeff, who wrote a biographical sketch of Yudin in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Library of Congress's acquisition of the Yudin Collection,19 Yudin's passion for book collecting began in childhood, as did his amassing of the funds to spend on books. (In his youth he twice won the lottery.) Yudin was guided too by scholars like Vengerov and other bibliophiles of his day. Tuneeff wrote, "This contact with the most educated and famous men of his time helped to develop his own judgment when selecting books, especially where new editions were concerned. Consequently, his collection includes many copies of books which, at the time of their issue, did not attract public attention and were soon out of print."20
Illustrations must have been of interest to Yudin, as his library had so many fine examples of portraits, caricatures, architectural drawings, landscapes, and maps. The illustrations are woodcuts, engravings and etchings, hand-colored plates, lithographs, and even photographs. His collection would be an excellent source for studies of Russian illustrators and the development of illustration techniques in Russia.
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