The Presidential Library presented “Tula Region: Pages of History” new collection

Specialists of the Presidential Library within the framework of the All-Russian Library Congress held in Tula from May 11-17, 2019 - the XXIV Annual Conference of the Russian Library Association (RLA) today, May 14, presented a new electronic collection "Tula Region: Pages of History". The main features of building digital regional collections of the Presidential Library were highlighted via new collection.

Structurally and thematically, Tula Region collection is similar to the basic collections of the Presidential Library: “Power”, “People”, “Territory”, “Language”. It includes archival materials, studies, essays, statistical, reference, cartographic and visual materials - only about 250 storage units. The list contains interesting sources. For example, “The Case of the Construction of a Prison Castle in the City of Tula” (1847), “The Case of the Introduction of Gymnastics and Fencing Teaching in the Tula Gymnasium” (1861), the book “The History of the Ancient Inhabitants of Tula Province and their Princes” by V. Ivanovsky (1897) and “How the Tula Man learned the rational mind” by V. Karpinsky (1918).

In addition to the most detailed Atlas of Tula Province (1798) with color inserts, the attention of the reader will be attracted by the publication The Whole Tula and Tula Province (1925). The reference book opens with a map of Tula Province and an overview of the old city: “Tula is a provincial city of the central industrial region. It has long been known as the center of the military metalworking industry. Tula samovars, accordions, locks, knives and other Tula metal products are also known. By its location, Tula is adjacent to an area rich in iron ore... A large place in the metalworking industry is taken by the peaceful production of military factories”.

According to the book “How the Tula Man learned the rational mind” there was always a lot of work: “Then Tolstoy was still alive, many people from all over the world came to him in Yasnaya Polyana - to communicate, and more to stare at the famous Russian writer. Once a rich Englishman arrived and began to complain that the German... builds too many factories, starts the best cars, produces the cheapest goods, invests his funds everywhere... The Englishman found it necessary to arrange an alliance against Germany and was very interested in how he thinks about this Russian man. "Let us ask, - Tolstoy offered him. They see the peasant plow the earth. They greeted, and Tolstoy told in simple words the plan of the Englishman. The peasant listened to him, until he understood, but when he understood, he spat and began to plow the land again - there is no time for me to deal with such rubbish. Plowing is not waiting.

This is the essence of the nature of a truly Tula man, which was and remains the same: the head is everything. There is something to see and learn from the hard-working people in this region.

In the “Report of the Board of the Joint-Stock Company of Tula Iron Smelting Plants” for 1916, the costs of mining iron ore, smelting iron, casting pipes, processing projectiles and others are presented. Result: products manufactured at 4,845,253.90 rubles! Giant amount for those times.

An electronic copy of the publication “Decembrists-Tula residents” (1926) gives short but detailed portraits of Ivan Borisovich Avramov, son of Venev landowner and Dmitry Alexandrovich Artsybashev, both members of secret societies and the uprising on the Senate Square, past the Siberian hard labor in exile.

The Presidential Library’s collections contain dissertation abstracts on various periods of city life. So, let's say, in the author's abstract of E. Burtseva “All-estate and estate self-government in the cities of Tula province in the last third of the XIX - early XX centuries” (2015) says that in modern conditions of the formation of civil society in Russia, interest in the history of cities noticeably increases as the birthplace of civil relations and values. The paper considers not only the city of Tula, but also 11 district cities: Aleksin, Belev, Bogoroditsk, Epifan, Odoyev, Chern, and others.

It seems that among the well-known collections devoted to Russian regions, Tula Region will take a rightful place and will interest the reader, who decides to familiarize himself with the materials posted on the Presidential Library’s portal.