Electronic resources: Ancient children’s books published in the online library “Runivers” on the International Children’s Book Day

On the International Children’s Book Day, which is celebrated around the world on April 2, in the historic online library “Runivers” are first published 49 rare and ancient children’s books.

The project “Children's picture book” contains a unique collection of rare books of the XVIII-XX centuries. The oldest book in the collection – “Youth honest Mirror or Statement to everyday usage”, published in 1717. This manual is to train and educate children of noble class, composed by order of Peter I.

The artist Boris Kustodiev is represented in the collection of pictures for the book “Six Poems” by  Nekrasov. The theatre designer, artist Mstislav Dobuzhinsky is presented with illustrations for books by Yuri Olesha “Three Fat Men”, “The Swineherd” by Hans Christian Andersen and the book by Nikolai Leskov “Toupee artist”. One of the most famous masters of the Soviet book illustration Vladimir Konashevich is presented with his debut in the children’s book, “The Alphabet in Pictures by Vl. Konashevich”, published in 1918, is also represented at the web site.

According to the scientific curator of the project, the head of the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts of the Library of Science of MSU Irina Velikodnaya, the first editions of books of the XVIII century were small, only 600-800 copies. They disagree on the noble libraries, and today are of great value.

“The Children's Book” as a concept began to emerge in Russia until the middle of the XVIII century. Children of the seventeenth century read the manuscript primers. “Picture books”, which are now the norm in the design of children's books, at the time, did not exist.

The XIX century is the “golden age” of Russian children's literature. Not only writers and poets of the time were actively creating work for children, but also the artists tried to work specifically for children’s books. At that time the illustrations could be sold separately from the text and pasted the owners themselves.

The children's picture book of the early XX century has become an art of object: the notion of “artist's book” appeared. In the children’s book an artist and author of the text took equal positions, and sometimes an artist had predominated.

Unique antique children’s books with pictures in high resolution are available for download at the web site “Runivers”.

The historical Project “Runivers” is the electronic facsimile library. It is established in 2008 to provide free online access to primary sources, located in the stacks and public records and available to visitors of only major Russian libraries “Runivers” publishes books edited in Russia in the XIX century - the beginning of the XX century, especially in history, the works of Russian philosophers, encyclopedias, collections of documents, which have been withdrawn from the cultural circulation for nearly a century and have not been reprinted.