Apart from its unique book
collections, the library also possesses an enormous quantity of
archive material which is of exceptional historical significance:
more than 10,000 early Russian documents spanning a period from
1269 to 1700: papers associated with members of the royal house;
official correspondence of the French kings and reports of their
officials on tax-gathering: documents concerning the construction
of fortresses during the Hundred Years War; numerous deeds
relating to land-ownership; and much else besides. A considerable
portion of this material dates from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Both the Western and the Russian manuscript stocks contain large
quantities of memoirs, diaries and travel notes. (Even an
incomplete inventory of Russian authograph works occupies two
volumes.) An extremely interesting section of the stocks consists
of the personal archives of writers and cultural figures from the
eighteenth century onwards.
A letter
from King Henry II of France.
A charter
issued by Grand Prince Ivan Vasilyevich of Moscow (Ivan
the Terrible). 1552
