Internet resources: Old historical books on Internet

Nearly 1,2 thousand of unique documents and about 700 books, which were published in Russia in XIX – the beginning of XX century are now available via the Internet in the digital facsimile library “Runiverse”, reported the project’s organizers during the press-conference in RIA NEWS on Wednesday.

“In Russia there are still no governmental programs which determine the Internet-content, especially its most important constituent – texts dedicated to history and culture of the country. Consequently, the history of the Russian civilization is represented in the extreme biased and misleading way. We should handle this problem not even within the propaganda policy but in spheres of science and culture. “Runiverse” comes as one of the ways to solve this problem”, - commented the President of the “Runiverse” project Michael Baranov.

The library includes the books of history, works of the Russian philosophers, encyclopedias which had not been republished for almost one century. The project’s website provides access to the books of Russian and World history, the history of wars and description of lands and travel experiences.

Apart from the library the website offers the reference section of the documents which cover the most urgent historical issues. “Runiverse” represents the selected documents dedicated to the following historical events: “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact”, Katyn massacre, the history of the Crimea, Ossetia, Abkhaia, Kurile Islands and East Prussia annexation by Russia.     

The third part of “Runiverse” is the historical social net which gives researchers and lovers of the past a unique chance to exchange original historical content and represents a basis for discussion of different historical questions.

According to the organizers the aim of the project is to provide a free Internet access to the most important part of the historic-cultural Russian heritage – primary sources kept in the largest book depositaries and state archives and thus almost inaccessible to the wide readership.