Alexey Alexandrovich Yudin,
Candidate of Philological Sciences, State Public Scientific Technical Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Composition and Fate of the Book Collection of the Old Believers of the Belokrinitsky Concord in the Diocesan Library of Novokuznetsk
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2026-2-13
An archeographic survey of the library of the Kuzbass Orthodox Theological Seminary of the Russian Orthodox Church in Novokuznetsk revealed, along with other rare books of the Cyrillic tradition, a number of books that had previously been in the possession of Old Believers who accepted the Belokrinitskaya hierarchy. This is indicated by the subject matter of the discovered publications, as well as the provenance of these books. The collection of 20 items includes both liturgical texts and polemical and apologetic works. In most cases, the authors of these works were well-known Old Believers of the Belokrinitsky concord: bishops Arseny (Shvetsov) and Innokenty (Usov), F.E. Melnikov; V.M. Karlovich; V.T. Zelenkov, and P.I. Vlasov. Many of the publications found in the seminary library are bibliographic rarities, some of which were published in secret Old Believer printing houses. A distinctive feature of this small collection is the predominance of сonvolutes, as well as numerous indications that the books were used in Old Believer circles. Some of the books have characteristic reader’s marks, possibly associated with the library of the Pokrovsky Cathedral in the Rogozhskoye Cemetery in Moscow. Two books bear the ex libris of the cathedral library’s curator, Archpriest Vasily Filippovich Korolev. One of them, Psalter with Three Canons (Uralsk, 1908), according to records, was miraculously preserved by Bishop Geronty (Lakomkin) and returned with him from ten years of imprisonment in camps in 1942. He mentions this book in his “Memoirs”. These 20 books ended up in the hands of I.K. Boriskin, a professor at the Siberian Metallurgical Institute, in the mid‑20th century. In 1990, he donated them to the Institute’s library, after which they ended up in the seminar’s book collection. It has been suggested that this book collection may have come into the possession of the Novokuznetsk teacher, who may also have been from an Old Believer background.
Publishing: 28/04/2026
The article has been received by the editor on 15/02/2026
How to cite: Yudin А.А. The Composition and Fate of the Book Collection of the Old Believers of the Belokrinitsky Concord in the Diocesan Library of Novokuznetsk // Historical Courier, 2026, No. 2 (46), pp. 182−196. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2026/ISTKURIER-2026-2-13.pdf]
The article was prepared according to the research plan of the SPSL SB RAS, project “Depository of Book Monuments of Siberia and the Far East: identification, Digital Storage System and Organization of Access for Research” (No. 122040600049-8).
Links: Issue 2 2026
Keywords: Kuzbass Orthodox Theological Seminary; archaeography; Cyrillic book collections; Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church; Arseny (Shvetsov); Geronty (Lakomkin); V.F. Korolev; F.E. Melnikov; I.K. Boriskin