N. S. and K. N. Derzhavin

Collection

Holding institution (official language):: Российская национальная библиотека. Отдел рукописей

Postal address:: 91069, Russia, St. Petersburg, ul. Sadovaia, д. 18, main building

Language:: Russian; Bulgarian; Spanish; Castilian; Polish; French; Arabic; English; Italian; German; Serbian; Croatian

Scope and content:: Particular files containing materials pertaining to Jewish history and culture are concentrated largely in the inventory’s third section: “Works by K. N. Derzhavin and materials toward same” (subsection 1: “Works on Spanish literature”). These include materials on Jewish history and culture, and in particular, an autograph manuscript of K. N. Derzhavin’s article “From the Folklore of Sephardic Jews in the Balkans” (undated); various materials on Sephardic Jews; sets of books and articles and a bibliography of literature on the history of Jews in the Iberian peninsula; excerpts; notes; etc. (1940s), including a summary of Max Aron Luria’s “A Study of the Monastir Dialect of Judeo-Spanish [Ladino] Based on Oral Material Collected in Monastir, Yugoslavia,” published in Revue Hispanique in 1930; and the sixth section (“Correspondence”) contains letters from the Jewish Research Institute of the city of Sofia, and in particular, a letter to K. N. Derzhavin in Bulgarian signed by Eli Kh. Eshkenazi and Simon Marcus (1947); etc.

Administrative/biographical history:: Nikolai Sevastianovich Derzhavin (1877-1953), historian, Slavist, philologist, and member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (from 1931 on); honorary member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (1945); professor (1917-53) and provost (1922-25) of Petrograd/Leningrad University; deputy director of the State Public Library (1929-31); director of the Slavic Studies Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad (1931-34); professor of Moscow State University (1941-49); director of the Leningrad branch of the Slavic Studies Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences (which had been reestablished in Moscow) (1947-53); and laureate of the USSR State Prize.

N. S. Derzhavin’s son, Konstantin Nikolaevich Derzhavin (1903-56), was a literary and theatre studies scholar, translator, and corresponding member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (from 1946 on); research associate of the Art History Institute (1931-33), the Russian Literature Institute (1940-40; 1955-56), and the Gor’kii Institute of World Literature (1950-56); and professor of Leningrad State University (1946-50).

Access points: persons/families:: Derzhavin, K. N. (Konstantin Nikolaevich); Derzhavin, N. S. (Nikolai Sevastianovich); Eshkenazi, Eli Kh.; Luria, Max Aron; Marcus, Simon

Subject terms:: Correspondence; Jewish languages; Jewish languages--Ladino; Manuscripts; Sephardi Jews

System of arrangement:: The fonds includes a single inventory systematised according to the structural principle, and in part alphabetically.