The Richard Stites Memorial Historical Library
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Since 2015, the Center for Historical Researchis equipped with the Richard Stites Memorial Historical Library. Named after the influential historian of Russian culture and professor of history at Georgetown University, the library contains more than 1600 books on subjects such as International History; World History; History of Europe and Eurasia (pre-revolutionary Russia and the USSR); Women in History. |
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The Richard Stites Memorial Historical Library has been set up with the generous support from the American University Washington D.C. Carmel Institute of Russian Culture (Professor Eric Lohr) and History and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG),the latter having recently helped to expand the library’s holdings of literature in German.
In 2017, with the great support of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and with the help of the Department of History Associate Professor Dietmar Wulff more than 150 new books were added to the collection of the library. In addition to the classic editions of modern historiography of Germany and the fundamental works on all historical areas, the German collection corresponds to the main research directions of the Department of History, such as the history of the empire and nationalism, technological and environmental history.
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Director of the HSE in St. Petersburg Sergey Kadochnikov, director of DFG in Moscow Wilma Rethage, Deputy Director of HSE in St. Petersburg Daniil Aleksandrov, Chair of the Department of History Alexander Semyonov, Head of the Library Elena Kosareva and Director of the Center of the Organization of Science and Academic Development Natalia Alyoshina took part in the ceremony of the Historical Library.
In her speech Wilma Rethage noted that the event had a great symbolic meaning and was a tribute to the tradition started back in 1949. At that time one of the first initiatives of Deutsche Forshungsgemeinschaft was exactly the spreading of the German scientific literature among libraries worldwide. Moreover, the director of the Moscow office of DFG said that this gift emphasizes the top match status of the HSE School of Social Sciences and Humanities in St. Petersburg. Wilma Rethage also expressed the hope that further cooperation within Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the HSE St. Petersburg will continue in the administrative and other formats. In her eyes the gift has a philosophical idea, forcing scientists to ponder either their own work is focused on the new scientific knowledge production, or its impact on the society. This debatable topic opens up possibilities for developing of the social sciences and humanities, not only in Russia and Germany, but all over the world.
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Chair of the Department of History, Alexander Semyonov noted that the library is named after the American historian Richard Stites not only because he was the one who pioneered the comparative perspective of the gender issue in pre-revolutionary Russia and the Soviet history, but also because researchers from St. Petersburg History Department develop direction global comparative and transnational history.
2017 the Library expanded considerably due to a generous donation of rare Eastern-European journals and the Ab Imperio Quarterly archive for the years 2000 to 2017 by Ab Imperio co-editors Ilya Gearsimov and Marina Mogilner
The catalogue of the Richard Stites Memorial Historical Library: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/R._Stites_Library
The Richard Stites Memorial Historical Library in the HSE Library Catalogue
The Centre for Historical Research and the HSE in St Petersburg Bachelor's Programme 'History' present the students' project (2017/2018) on promoting the Richard Stites Memorial Historical Library:
Wikipedia Article on Richard Stites (in Russian)
95th Anniversary of the Creation of the USSR in the Richard Stites Memorial Historical Library
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