The Plekhanov House forms part of the

Russian National Library The National Library of Russia (NLR, , ''РНБ''), located in Saint Petersburg, is the first, and one of three national public libraries in Russia. The NLR is currently ranked among the world's major libraries. It has the second biggest libr ...

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

. It includes 72 archives of materials dating back to 1799. The materials include the archives and library of

Georgi Plekhanov Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov ( rus, Георгий Валентинович Плеханов, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj vəlʲɪnʲˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ plʲɪˈxanəf, a=Ru-Georgi Plekhanov-JermyRei.ogg; – 30 May 1918) was a Russian revolutionary, ...

, a prominent figure in the Russian political history as a propagandist of

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

and the founder of Russian social democratic movement. It also included the manuscripts of- and about numerous other figures in Russian history, politics and intellectual life. Plekhanov House contains a large collection of materials on Russian and foreign history, on the Russian and international revolutionary movements and social history, on education, culture, secular and religious education, and so on. It includes collections of a number of authors from Russian history and from theological sources. The heart of the collection, however, is the over 5,000 items of storage that include original materials from Plekhanov's own collection. Over the years, Plekhanov House has published a number of works including the 24 volumes of Plekhanov's ''Collected Works'', a 5 volume set of ''Selected Philosophical Works'', and other works.

History

After Georgi Plekhanov's death in 1918, the Soviet government, at the initiative of

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

, went to Rosalie Plekhanova with a proposal to start publishing the works of her late husband and set up an Archive. It was only in 1925 that Rosalie Plekhanova agreed to this proposal and presented the thinker's library of works and archive to the Soviet Union after refusing various individuals and research institutions, like

Musée Social The ''Musée social'' () was a private French institution founded in 1894. In the early twentieth century it became an important center of research into topics such as city planning, social housing and labor organization. For many years it played ...

and Institut des Études Slaves, that offered to acquire or temporary house his collections in Prague or in some West European archive institution. Plekhanov has resided in Switzerland and Italy from 1880 until 1917 and

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

, where he died in 1918, and parts of his collection, which included authentic manuscripts, extensive correspondence, and voluminous library, were temporarily accommodated by institutions in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

and San Remo. It is not clear if his wife's reticence was due to Plekhanov's differences with Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Rosalie Plekhanova maintained that she regarded the archives and library as relics of her husband's work but finally entrusted all his possessions to the state for purposes of the promotion and dissemination of his works. According to Plekhanov House:

Plekhanov had always considered the Petersburg Public Library as his "Alma Mater", a spiritual source of theoretical and practical knowledge he resorted to during the early stages of his scholarly and revolutionary activities. Plekhanov's heirs presented his archives and private library together with the furniture of his study in Geneva to the Soviet Union on the condition of integral hold in the Public Library in Leningrad as an organizational unit in a separate area with specialized research staff.

The opening ceremony of Plekhanov House took place on 11 June 1929, following the donation of the archives and library of

by his widow, Rosalie Plekhanova, to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

in 1925.

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Archives in Russia Marxism Biographical museums in Saint Petersburg