Importancia de la colección personal de la biblioteca de Michael Z.

Vinokouroff como recurso de investigación

Importance of the personal collection of the Michael Z. Vinokouroff library as a resource of

research

Elena Stepanovna Rufova

North-Eastern Federal University, Yakutsk, Russia

Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1276-7087

Recibido: 15 de marzo de 2020 Aceptado: 01 de octubre de 2020

Resumen

En el marco de este artículo, se intenta estudiar el potencial de información de los documentos de

la colección personal de Mikhail Z. Vinokouroff, almacenados en la Biblioteca Estatal de Alaska,

su análisis de fuentes determinará las direcciones de su uso científico posterior. Numerosos

documentos y diarios, cartas y notas, libros y fotografías del fondo de archivo del bibliófilo son

objeto de atención de científicos e investigadores de los problemas de la Iglesia Ortodoxa Rusa,

historiadores, bibliógrafos, lingüistas, eruditos literarios. Como resultado del estudio, las

principales direcciones del uso científico efectivo de los documentos del archivo personal de M.Z.

Vinokouroff. Además de estudiar los diarios inéditos y las notas de un bibliófilo, la colección

contiene cartas de San Innokentii Veniaminov, así como documentos que reflejan la vida política

y literaria de Yakutia en el primer tercio del siglo XX.

Palabras clave: archivo, texto, fuente, recurso de información, fondo de archivo, manuscritos.

Abstract

Within the framework of this article, an attempt is made to study the information potential of

documents from the personal collection of Mikhail Z. Vinokouroff, stored in the Alaska State

Library, their source analysis will determine the directions of their further scientific use.

Numerous documents and diaries, letters and notes, books and photographs of the archival fund

of the bibliophile are the objects of attention of scientists and researchers of the issues of the

Russian Orthodox Church, historians, bibliographers, linguists, literary scholars. As a result of

the study, the main directions of the effective scientific use of documents from the personal

archive of M.Z. Vinokouroff. In addition to studying unpublished diaries and notes of a

Correspondencia a la autora

E-mail: el.rufova@yandex.ru

Apuntes Universitarios, 2021: 11(1), enero-marzo

ISSN: 2304-0335 DOI: https://doi.org/10.17162/au.v11i1.548

apuntesuniversitarios.upeu.edu.pe

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bibliophile, the collection contains letters from St. Innokentii Veniaminov, as well as documents

reflecting the political and literary life of Yakutia in the first third of the 20th century.

Keywords: archive, text, source, information resource, archive fund, manuscripts.

Introduction

The scientific problem associated with the Russian Church in Yakutia is considered both

in the context of the political, church, intellectual, and cultural history of the region, as well as

in terms of Russian history in general. In the framework of the present article, the issues of the

Russian Orthodox Church in Yakutia are considered in the context of the historical, cultural and

scientific heritage of the Russian émigré community. Émigrés’ archives and archive funds

contain a number of private documents that reflect the perception of historical events and

phenomena, which are scientifically and informationally valuable for Russian researchers.

Nowadays, there are many works that reveal the importance of studying archival funds

as information sources. Archival materials that fall into the open information space can be used

to implement not only scientific, but also political, social and educational projects (Petrov &

Egorova, 2020; Yumasheva, 2017). In addition, the speed with which the globalization of society

is taking place today suggests that very soon the idea of creating such archives that will go

beyond the boundaries of one state will be realized (Bryukhanova, 2019).

One of the most fundamental electronic catalogs among the world's libraries is the

archive of the Alaska State Library (USA). In this library is located the documental collection

of Michael Z. Vinokouroff, a native of Yakutia, bibliographer, bibliophile, who devoted his

activities to the study of Russian literature and the Russian Orthodox Church. The archival fund

of the emigrant contains a large number of private documents reflecting the perception of

historical events and phenomena of the late 19th - first third of the 20th centuries, and are also

of scientific and informational value for Russian researchers.

Materials and methods

The purpose of the study is to identify the information potential of the archival documents

of the Michael Z. Vinokouroff fund, stored in the Alaska State Library (Louise, 1986). Their

source analysis will determine the directions of their further scientific use. The research

objectives are studying the life path of Michael Z. Vinokouroff and the history of his archive;

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source analysis of documents from the bibliographer's personal collection.

The methodological basis of the research was the principles of historicism and scientific

objectivity (Bryukhanova, 2019; Yumasheva, 2017). And also, source analysis and descriptive

method were used, which made it possible to determine the information potential of the fund's

documents.

The source base of the study was a set of archival materials that make up the personal

fund of a bibliophile in the Alaska State Library. Namely, the numerous and varied materials of

the “Vinokouroff diaries” fund (diaries, letters, notes, books, photos, etc.) are presented on the

library's website in the "Historical Collections" section. Likewise, the authors conducted the

source study to determine the information potential and the significance of the documents of the

fund. In addition, the scientific method of classification and description was applied.

Michael Z. Vinokouroff: the history of the personal archive

and historiography

Michael Z. Vinokouroff was born in Yakutsk in 1894 into a family of priests who served in

Russian America. His paternal grandfather was from Yakutsk and had been working in Alaska for

about 20 years prior to his birth. Michael Vinokouroff followed in his father’s and grandfather’s

footsteps, both of whom were clergymen, and graduated from the Yakut Theological Seminary. At

the age of 18, he became a psalmist and conducted services in the Yakut language in St. Nicholas

Church in Kyllakh, and then in Nyurba, Russia

In 1919, he moved to Japan and later to America, where he got a job at the U.S. Library of

Congress and worked there for more than 30 years. For his long life, Vinokouroff amassed a

comprehensive collection of books, manuscripts, periodicals, photographs, and other documents

relating to Eastern Siberia and Russian America, the Russian Orthodox Church, and emigrant

literature. Vinokouroff bequeathed all the materials to the state of Alaska, which were transferred

in 1983 and are currently stored in the Historical Library in Juneau. After long negotiations between

the Republic of Sakha’s (Yakutia’s) government and The Northern Forum international

organization, a trip was organized for a working group of Yakut bibliographers to study the

Vinokouroff collection. Thus, according to the order of the President of the Republic of Sakha

(Yakutia) on January 10, 2008, the project was initiated to return the cultural heritage of the Sakha

people, namely the preservation and return of the Vinokouroff archival fund from Juneau, Alaska

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to his homeland. As a result, the scientists and researchers of Yakutia history and literature were

given the opportunity to explore new, previously unknown information.

Foreign and Russian scholars studied both the historical and literary aspects of the

biography and heritage of Michael Z. Vinokouroff. Foreign historiography on the study of the

personality and heritage of M. Z. Vinokouroff is mainly presented with the works of the libraries

staff. Antoinette Shalkop, who knew M. Z. Vinokouroff personally, was one of the first who “made

an initial sorting and produced a preliminary inventory in 1984. Dr. Lydia Black, Professor of

Anthropology at the University of Alaska/Fairbanks, arranged and described the Russian Orthodox

Church series as well as those publications listed under ethnology, Alaska native languages, and

the Russian Orthodox Church. Dr. Richard A. Pierce, a historian and specialist on Russian

America, helped with sorting and prepared finding-aid descriptions for the personal papers,

systematized and registered circulars and brochures. Abbot Herman from the New Valaam

Monastery arranged and described the Father Gerasim Schmaltz correspondence on a volunteer

basis” (Samsonova, 2002, pp. 51-52).

Russian historiography on the study of Vinokouroff’s personality and heritage is not

extensive, though three main directions can be distinguished among the relevant scientific works.

The scientific works of the first group are the most numerous and are devoted to the study of

Vinokouroff’s life and the documents from his personal collection. It is worth highlighting an

advanced study of the bibliophile’s personality conducted by Oleg Dmitrievich Yakimov, Doctor

of Historical Sciences, Professor of the Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University (Yakimov,

1995, 2005). In the monograph “A Man from Nothingness”, the author reveals the biography of

M. Z. Vinokouroff along with the events related to the history of the Orthodox Church in Yakutia

and Alaska, and to the political life of Yakutsk in the first quarter of the 20th century. In the context

of the research related to the history of the periodical press in Yakutia, Yakimov explored the

Vinokouroff archive, which comprises not only the newspapers of the Yakut period, but also rather

late publications.

Direct participants in the present project implementation revealed the study of the

Vinokouroff collection by the researchers from the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) at the Alaska

Historical Library. Great scientific contribution to the study of archival materials of the

Vinokouroff collection was introduced by the chief librarian of the National Library of the Republic

of Sakha (Yakutia): Valentina Andreevna Samsonova (Samsonova, 2019) and the researcher and

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National Writer of Yakutia Vasiliy Egorovich Vasiliev (Kharyskhal, 2004). Samsonova

emphasizes the contribution of M.Z. Vinokouroff in preserving the archives of the Russian

Orthodox Church and introduces the main sections of the bibliographic index “Michael Z.

Vinokouroff. In the Alaska Historical Library (A profile and inventory of his papers (MS81) and

photographs (PCA 243)”. In the periodicals, Vasiliev (Kharyskhal) shares his impressions of

working in the archive of the Alaska Historical Library and describes the biography of M. Z.

Vinokouroff.

The second group includes works on the Yakut emigration. The head of the Yakutia History

Sector of the Institute of Humanitarian Studies and Problems of the Indigenous Peoples of the

North of the SB RAS (Yakutsk), E. P. Antonov, in his research mentions M. Z. Vinokouroff as the

first émigré to Yakutia (Antonov, 2004). The works of this group also contain some of V. E.

Vasiliev (Kharyskhal), who was engaged in the history of the Yakut intelligentsia and emigration

(Borisova, 2001; Samsonova, 2014).

The third group of works is rather fragmentary, although it reveals materials from the

archive fund of M. Z. Vinokouroff in the context of the literary process in Yakutia in the first third

of the 20th century. In this aspect, the author of the present article considers the personality of M.

Z. Vinokouroff as a novice poet, an active participant in the first periodicals in Yakutia, as well as

in terms of his friendship with the poet P. N. Chernykh-Yakutsky.

Discussion

Analysis of the archival fund of M.Z. Vinokouroff, his manuscripts and documents allow

us to draw a conclusion about the significance and scale of the archive, about the huge bibliographic

and research work of the bibliographer Mikhail Vinokouroff, who devoted his entire life during the

emigration period to collecting and studying a large number of materials and documents on the

history of the development of Eastern Siberia and Russian America.

The main description of the M. Z. Vinokouroff is presented in the bibliographic index of

archival documents and photographs by M. Z. Vinokouroff, prepared by Louis Martin (Louise,

1986). Moreover, the main materials are available for viewing on the website of the Alaska State

Library.

The National Library of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) also contains copies of materials

from the archive of M. Z. Vinokouroff, brought by the working group within the framework of the

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project for the return of the cultural heritage of the Sakha people: the preservation and return to the

homeland of the archival fund of M. Z. Vinokouroff (Samsonova, 2012).

Among all the materials and papers, there are quite rare items. Thus, Samsonova notes that

“the reviewed archival papers relating to the activity of the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska

have no analogue in our archives and libraries and therefore the following documents are of the

most interest to the researchers, namely:

- The Decree of the Tsar and the Holy Synod on Cossack service in Kamchatka to the

Bishop of Irkutsk and Nerchinsk Sofroniy of February 18, 1764;

- Genuine spiritual instruction compiled by the priest I. Veniaminov;

- Instructions for a priest Ioann Veniaminov sent to North America on the island of Unashka

(the document has a personal seal of Veniaminov, who later became the Metropolitan of

Moscow);

- Diaries of St. Innokentii (Veniaminov);

- Instruction to missionaries, compiled by the Archbishop of Kamchatka, Kuril and Aleutian

Innokentii in 1840 with corrections by Metropolitan of Moscow Filaret, published in

Beijing in 1905;

- Archival documents about the Vinokouroffs, and M. Z. Vinokouroff’s relatives, namely

the religious clerics who served in the churches of Alaska in the first half of the 19th

century;

- Rules of conduct for the students of the Yakut Theological Seminary and theological

school;

- Directory of the Yakutsk diocese for the year 1889;

- The reports on the condition of the Yakut second-class parish school, headed by Zinovy

Vinokouroff, M. Z. Vinokouroff’s father;

- Personal papers of Michael Vinokouroff, the psalmist of the Kyllakh Church;

- A torn paper sheet signed by the regional commissar G. N Petrovsky, for conducting

missionary sermons in the settlements situated on the other side of the river district, etc.

In addition to the introduced papers, there is an extensive correspondence of Vinokouroff

with clergymen and Russian émigrés on the issues of the Russian Orthodox Church in America

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from the 20s to the 60s of the 20th century, which is also significant for the researchers”

(Samsonova, 2012, p.102).

Vasiliev (Kharyskhal) mentioned a unique document that was found in the Vinokouroff

Collection, namely, “the testimony of the 2nd rank captain Peshchurov, Russian government

commissioner for the assignment of North American territories to the United States of America,

on the transfer of Spruse Island, which is two miles from the Kodiak Island, for the eternal use of

the Russian Orthodox Church in 1868. The documents read as follows: “Spruce Island is neither

for sale nor for rent; it is a holy island, which belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church”

(Kharyskhal, 2008).

Additionally to the documents and diaries of St. Innokentii (Veniaminov), the archive also

contains his linguistic work “An experimental grammar of the Aleutian-Fox Islander language”

(1846). St. Innokentii (Veniaminov), Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna, went down in the

history of the Russian Orthodox Church as the saint of Alaska and Yakutia. Moreover, he was the

author of the numerous works on the grammar of indigenous languages, which are the subject of

many interdisciplinary studies. Subsequently, due to the missionary activity of St. Innokentii in

Yakutia, the first translations of church literature in the Yakut language appeared as the

prerequisites for the development of the Yakut writing system and literature in the Yakut language.

The works on the Yakut language, stored in the Vinokouroff fund, are scientifically

valuable. It is worth highlighting “Alphabet Primer for Yakuts” (1897), which is in a Cyrillic-based

script published in Kazan, and “Suruk-bichik” (1917), based on the Roman alphabet by S. A

Novgorodov, which have already become a bibliographic rarity. The Vinokouroff Collection also

contains one of the first books published in the Yakutsk regional printing house, namely, “Concise

sacred history” (1867).

The source study analysis of the materials of the archival fund showed that their use in

works and research, the object of which is the personality, heritage, views of M. Z. Vinokouroff;

the history of the Vinokouroff family; history of the Russian Orthodox Church in Yakutia and

America; the political life of Yakutia at the beginning of the 20th century; Yakutia of the late 19th

and early 20th centuries; Yakut language and literature of Yakutia; creativity and personality of

the Russian-speaking poet P. N. Chernykh-Yakutsky; history of periodicals in Yakutia, the literary

process of the first third of the 20th century; personality, works and views of Innokentii

Veniaminov; religious and everyday culture of the Russian diaspora; adaptation of Russian

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emigrants; the richest correspondence allows to explore the circle of communication of M. Z.

Vinokouroff and many other problems.

Conclusion

M. Z. Vinokouroff as a bibliographer and bibliophile, realizing the need to preserve and

disseminate information, and also thanks to his personal interest and initiative, collected, preserved

and transmitted a huge amount of materials, thereby creating an accessible information resource

for many interdisciplinary researches. Thus, the archival fund of M. Z. Vinokouroff at the Alaska

State Library is a massive information resource available for free social use in society. Researchers

of the issues of the Russian Orthodox Church and Russian America, as well as historians,

bibliographers, linguists and literary scholars will be interested in numerous documents, diaries,

letters, books and photographs from the archival fund of M. Z. Vinokouroff.

The main directions of the effective scientific use of documents from the personal archive

of M. Z. Vinokouroff 's study and publication of his unpublished and little-known diaries and notes;

personal correspondence; the study of issues of his individual ties with the Yakut intelligentsia;

study of the poetic heritage of M. Z. Vinokouroff - "Taezhnik"; study and publication of documents

on the history of the Russian Church in Alaska and Yakutia; documents and letters of St. Innokentii

(Veniaminov); studying the issues of the political and literary life of Yakutia at the beginning of

the 20th century; research of the first periodicals and literary editions of Yakutia; study of materials

on the Yakut language and literature of Yakutia.

Acknowledgments

The paper has been funded by Russian Foundation for Basic Research according to the

research project № 19-012-00467а.

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