Library activities of Dmytro Bahalii and historical destiny of his personal library

Abstract

The article is devoted to the investigation of the scientific and cultural heritage of the Ukrainian historian, one of the fi rst members of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences D. I. Bahalii. The scientist is known to have been engaged both in the scientific and public work. In particular, he was active in the library sphere and devoted almost ten works to the library matters. The librarian heritage of D. I. Bahalii requires more detailed research. The historical and bibliological analysis of scientifi c works of the scientist as well as books from his personal library, which are now stored in the Department of Librarian Gatherings and Historical Collections of the Institute of Book Studies of Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine, has been conducted. The tragic fate of the scientist’s personal library has been studied. Based on the available archival and documentary sources, the thematic composition of D. I. Bahalii’s private library was established. The contents of the scientist’s documentary collection has been concluded to mirror the features of his scientifi c preferences, which included the study of the history and ethnography of Slobozhanshchina. His library represented the professional interests of the scientist, demonstrated the level of requests of a certain environment and was individual and unique as each private library of that time. It was proved that because of historical events, the integrity of the historian’s library has not been preserved. At present, physical reconstruction of the library is impossible, but it can be done with the use of electronic catalogs. They should display a complete bibliographic description of books from the library of D. I. Bahalii, in particular, all possible provenances. This will allow specialists to fi nd books from the library, wherever they are. The article also focuses on the library activities of D. I. Bahalii especially on the formation of a special library at the First Department of History and Philology of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.