About Origin of Some Jewish Manuscripts (Fond 182 of the RNL Manuscript Department)

Abstract

In the Soviet time, libraries only preserved the names of private and, occasionally, institutional collections. Standalone manuscripts or small sets of manuscripts would become part of the collections in national languages. The information concerning the origins of new arrivals was not considered valuable enough to keep record of. Such was the case of Fond 182 of the Manuscript Department of the Russian National Library, commonly referred to as the Schneerson Library. Close examination of the content, handwriting, binding, stickers and owners’ inscription may allow us to identify some of the manuscript’s former owners. Thus, the collection contains not only the manuscripts of the Schneerson family proper, but also those belonging to Zelig Persits, Yaakov Maze, Benyamin Epstein, Bentsion Ettlinger, and the Karaite national library “Karay Bitikligi”, as well as the materials – mostly fragments – that should have been ascribed to the Günzburg Collection and some “trophy” manuscripts that were brought over to the USSR after the WWII and due to the lack of qualified scholars, wound up in Fond 182.