(For the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1953)
Fiscal 1953 witnessed the fruition of a series of important projects which were initiated, designed, and developed with the closest participation of the Slavic and East European Division. The long overdue organization of a Cyrillic Subject Union Catalog — a location guide and an effective substitute for the Soviet National Bibliography (Knizhnaia Letopis') withheld since the end of the war by the Communist Government in Moscow from circulation abroad — is now finally well under way. The thorough reorganization of the East European Accessions List, in January 1953, has established the List, next to the Monthly List of Russian Accessions, as one of the more important and comprehensive bibliographical tools in the fields of Mid-European and East European research. The operation of both projects was entrusted by the Library Administration — as it should be — to the Processing Department. However, the Slavic and East European Division was asked to play an active role in the supervision of the execution of the three projects — the Cyrillic Subject Union Catalog, the East European Accessions List, and the Monthly List of Russian Accessions.
The project "Books for Japan" was also completed in 1953. On the basis of this program — which was carried out by the Slavic and East European Division in close co-operation with the Order Division — two Japanese libraries, the National Diet Library at Tokyo and the Hokkaido University Library at Sapporo each obtained more than 850 monographs and periodicals. They represent a well-balanced collection of books and periodicals printed in English, German, and French and constituting the result of serious and independent Slavic research in the free world. The cost of the transaction was covered by the Rockefeller Foundation. The selection and recommendation of the titles from an assembled card file of over 3,000 titles of pertinent publications which appeared between 1941 and 1952, was accomplished by the staff of the Slavic and East European Division.
Through the purchase of the Hungarian Reference Library (the Feleky Collection) upon the recommendation of the Slavic and East European Division, the foundation was laid for the establishment of the Library of Congress as the leading Hungarian research center in the country. Procured from the Custodian of Alien Property, this outstanding collection of research materials relating to Hungary and issued before 1939 represents some 30 years of meticulous assembling. It comprises approximately 6,600 books and 2,600 pamphlets — about one-third of which are in the Hungarian language — files of newspapers, journals, photographs, and periodical articles. The incorporation of the Hungarian Reference Library into the Library of Congress collection has provoked some excitement outside the Library. Certain Hungarian circles raised objections to this move which were based, however, more on misinformation than on fact. Fears expressed in some Hungarian quarters lest the collection be "dispersed," might be indicative of a desire to see the collection ultimately returned to the Hungarian State.
The effort of the Slavic and East European Division to secure in addition a substantial Hungarian collection of the war period — this time from Professor John Lotz of Columbia University — failed to materialize for fiscal reasons.
A number of new projects were also initiated by the Slavic and East European Division in Fiscal 1953. Contact established by the Division with Professor Philip E. Mosely, Director of the Russian Institute at Columbia University and Consultant on Slavic Affairs to the Ford Foundation, led to the creation by the Librarian of an interdepartmental committee on the Slavic program. The task assigned to the committee was to study all aspects of the Library's Slavic program and to draw up recommendations concerning the development of its acquisitions, processing, reference, bibliographical, research, and publications activities from the viewpoint of the Library's responsibilities within the framework of Government research and in relation to the whole field of Slavic studies in the United States. On January 19, 1953, the Slavic and East European Division submitted a proposal to this committee calling for a national conference; its purpose was to provide the LC with an opportunity to acquaint all interested groups with the various LC Slavic programs and operations, to solicit appraisal and criticism and to ask for constructive suggestions regarding stabilization and expansion of its present services and activities in the Slavic field. The project was approved by the Librarian's conference. The co-operation of the Joint Committee on Slavic Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council is being sought in sponsoring the proposed conference and in approaching a foundation for funds. The Librarian's proposal will be placed on the agenda of the next meeting of the Joint Slavic Committee, scheduled for September 1953.
The Slavic and East European Division was further instrumental in promoting the idea of extending access, beyond the borders of the U.S.A., to such important library and research resources in the Slavic and East European fields as are available to scholars and Government in other parts of the free world. After the successful launching of the Cyrillic Subject Union Catalog, it seemed advisable to undertake additional steps in securing microfilms of catalogs of major Slavic collections housed in European libraries and institutions and containing materials inaccessible on this side of the ocean. The Librarian's suggestion that the Ford Foundation underwrite the expenses involved in carrying out the preparatory steps toward such a program was approved by the Director of the Ford Foundation on May 26, 1953. The sum of $12,500 was granted for microfilming the catalogs of the Russian holdings of the Helsinki University and National Library. An additional sum of $10,000 was allocated for a visit to Europe by the Chief of the Slavic and East European Division and for microfilming the catalogs of basic Slavic collections preserved in various parts of Europe. The Helsinki University Library was given first consideration because it commands a unique position among the libraries outside the Soviet Union with regard to Russian holdings. Having been in pre-revolutionary days and up to the founding of independent Finland one of the few libraries in the Russian empire which received depository copies of all Russian publications, the Helsinki University Library is today the only such depository accessible to the Western world. Its outstanding collection of Russian periodicals comprises numerous materials which are unavailable in American libraries.
Continued efforts were made by the staff of the Division to complement and improve the Library's existing collections in the Slavic and East European fields and to augment them by securing the more relevant current monographs and serials either printed in or dealing with the diverse countries under the Division's purview. In the interest of adequately meeting the rising demands of government agencies, research institutions, and individual students, the Division has endeavored to keep abreast of the latest publishing developments. The vicissitudes attendant upon the procurement of current and retrospective materials from the Soviet Union and the areas under its control, as well as the unavailability through ordinary channels of certain types of publications, made the procurement of materials from that part of Europe often a hazardous operation. At times it became necessary to search, in close co-operation with the Order Division, on a truly global scale for substitute procurement sources capable of providing essential materials otherwise unprocurable. This need has been particularly acute with regard to the obtaining of many basic works which were published in the pre-Communist era in the various East European countries but which have been absent in recent years on the book markets because of meticulous purges by communist censors. Fullest possible use was made of book outlets in various European countries, of book dealers at Karachi, Rangoon, Jerusalem, etc., as well as of occasional leads suggested by various PPO's of the Department of State. An important part in procurement was played by the German firm of Kubon and Sagner, with whom business contacts were established at the suggestion of the Chief of the Division nearly two years ago and who have remained ever since an invaluable source for the securing of many a strategic publication which was stated to be unavailable in the country of its publication.
The tracing of substitute procurement channels led to the filling of a number of signal gaps in the Library's collections, although acquisitions of old and second-hand materials had to be curtailed substantially, owing to the limited funds earmarked for such purposes. Still, in spite of these handicaps, it proved possible to purchase several small collections as well as standard works, representative of pre-Communist scholarship in these countries. Thus, in Fiscal 1953 through different contacts the Library acquired, besides the Charles Feleky Collection mentioned above, four small Hungarian collections. Among single acquisitions the three-volume standard work on the history of polish culture, Polska, jej dzieje i kultura (Warsaw, 1931 through 1933), was purchased and is at last available to the LC readers.
The mass of national and other specialized bibliographies, book catalogs and individual offers, book dealers' lists, journals, newspapers, acquisitions lists, etc., which were screened and reviewed in Fiscal 1953 as a basis for purchase recommendations, and the time and manpower allocated to these operations are apparent from the following revealing and self-explanatory statistical figures: Number of Titles Examined – 94,301; Number of Titles Recommended – 15,023.
The Hungarian Consultant and the Polish bibliographer of the Division undertook a comprehensive survey of the Library's respective collections with a view to ascertaining the most conspicuous lacunae, such as encyclopedias, reference works, dictionaries, etc. As a result of their activities, want-lists of "must-items"were prepared and submitted to the Order Division for further action.
One of the tasks assigned to Professor Milojević during his temporary assignment to the Slavic Division in October, 1952 was the examining of the Library's holdings on all aspects of the geography of Yugoslavia. As a result he compiled a sizable list of desiderata in this field, many of which have since been procured through purchase and exchange.
Among the activities of the Division's staff as recommending officers for Slavic and other East European publications special attention was given to a judiciously designed procurement program of newspapers and periodicals. It was based on a methodical and recurrent examination of the intake of periodical and newspapers; its objective was the elimination of nonessential titles and the recommendation of significant titles either new or not represented hitherto. In particular, much time was devoted to a painstaking study and comparison of various lists of Soviet and other Slavic periodicals which are put out annually by the Soviet and other satellite state publishing and export houses in various West European countries. The contents of these lists were found to differ to some extent in accordance with the countries in which they were offered for sale; by piecing together these bits of information and placing the subscriptions accordingly, a broader overall coverage was achieved. Of considerable assistance in carrying out this program was the use of the Postzeitungsliste, the official list of newspapers and periodicals offered for sale in eastern Germany. On numerous occasions this list revealed items which did not occur in the official East European catalogs, and efforts to procure such titles through subsidiary channels met often with considerable success. It can be stated that, as a result of this program, the LC's periodical collections in the languages of the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Rumania were considerably enlarged and strengthened and now comprise a representative and, as far as possible, balanced cross-section of periodical publications noteworthy for their general informational or potential research and intelligence value. Furthermore, a determined effort was made to ensure the broadest possible procurement of Slavic and other émigré journals and newspapers published in the United States and abroad and addressing themselves to larger groups of escapees from eastern Europe, as well as to the minority groups residing in the US and elsewhere.
Whenever procurement in kind proved to be unfeasible or uneconomical, recommendations for the securing of photostats or of microfilms were submitted to the Order and Exchange and Gift Divisions. Thus, in connection with the Russian duplicates exchange project, issues of Russian newspapers and periodicals missing in the LC but available in other libraries were singled out for procurement on microfilm.
Special attention was given by the Division to the improvement of the qualitative standards of exchange receipts. In the past the selection of materials to be received by the LC was often left entirely to the discretion of the exchange partners in the USSR and the East European captive countries. To remedy this situation, determined efforts were made to institute a selective exchange program based on the actual needs of the LC and aiming at rounding out its existing collections in the field. To this end, itemized lists of exchange desiderata were prepared in the Division with the technical assistance of Mrs. Yolanda Eliot, who has been detailed for this purpose to the Division on a part-time basis by the Exchange and Gift Division. It can be recorded with satisfaction that owing to the cooperation and support of the Exchange and Gift Division, some noticeable progress was achieved also in this direction.
A further major step in the implementation of the exchange program was the checking of numerous lists of publications of the Academies of Sciences located in East and Southeast Europe against the corresponding holdings of the Library of Congress. This survey has resulted in the detection of a considerable number of missing items, which were requested and have been in part already received from institutions such as the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Letters at Zagreb, the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Letters at Ljubljana, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Letters at Belgrade, the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Polish Academy of Sciences and Letters at Cracow, the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Letters at Bratislava, etc.
Through readjustments of existing exchange relations and initiation of new ones, numerous specialized and otherwise unobtainable materials from the captive countries could be secured and placed at the disposal of government and private research.
It should be finally pointed out that the Slavic and East European Division has been most anxious to establish and pursue exchange relations with organizations engaged in Slavic research and publishing activities on this side of the Iron Curtain. For example, as an upshot of discussions held in the summer of 1952 with Professor Herbert Schlenger, research associate of the J.G. Herder-Institut, Marburg, Germany, mutually profitable exchange relations have been established and maintained with this institute. The Library of Congress also exchanges at present publications with the émigré Institut fur Erforschung der Geschichte und Kultur der UdSSR at Munich.
Surveys of the salient procurement trends, the pattern of publishing in the Communist-controlled East European countries, and the noteworthy acquisitions received from this area during the year 1952 were prepared by two members of the staff of the Slavic and East European Division, Dr. Paul L. Horecky and Dr. Béla T. Kardos. They appeared in the February 1953 issue of The Library of Congress Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions.
Lately, the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Slavic Studies advised the Slavic and East European Division of the seven more important newspaper titles for the microfilming of which cost estimates should be established. In June 1953 information for the assembling of complete or nearly complete sets of the selected titles and of their best coverage in US libraries was passed on to the LC Photoduplication Service, along with the recommendation to conduct, with the use of funds from the Rockefeller grant, the remaining operations of the project, such as:
a. Ascertaining item by item the newspaper runs (in LC and other libraries. b. Establishing cost estimates for the microfilming of the selected seven newspaper files. c. Canvassing the US and foreign libraries regarding their interest in the purchase of the microfilms of these sets.
The Chief of the Division, in his capacity as a member of various LC committees, has endeavored to contribute to a better organization of Slavic and East European materials and to the expansion and perfection of LC's bibliographical publications related to the Slavic field. Thus, he has participated in the work of the committees on the: a. Cyrillic Union Catalog and Monthly List of Russian Accessions; b. East European Accessions List; c. Slavic Program and, as invited guest, in the meetings of the Committee on Bibliography and Publications.
In the interest of ensuring the fastest possible processing of the more important accessions and of making them available at the earliest possible point to Government and research agencies, the staff of the Slavic and East European Division has actively participated in the establishing of cataloging priorities. The number of items which were assigned cataloging priorities in Fiscal 1953 approached 15,000.
While this function was performed on a regular basis, the Slavic and East European Division was further repeatedly requested to render advice on one or the other phase of processing or organizing of Slavic materials. For instance, assistance was given to members of the Staff of the Subject Cataloging Division in matters concerning Slavic materials; the Division elaborated, at the request of the Exchange and Gift Division, a scheme for an equitable and purposeful distribution of Russian duplicate newspapers among the cooperating libraries; and the Descriptive Cataloging Division sought and received advice concerning the transliteration of titles in the Macedonian language. The Division has also cooperated in the selection of books to be included in the reference collections in the Slavic Room. Thus, an itemized list of 133 basis Polish reference works was submitted to the Slavic Room for readjustment of its present Polish reference collection.
Reference work represented a major element in the operations of the Slavic and East European Division in Fiscal 1953. The monthly average of close to 300 reference inquiries handled by the staff over the telephone, in conferences with visitors, through correspondence or in form of special studies bears testimony to the ever-mounting volume of reference work which the Division was called upon to perform in response to the active interest of government and the general public.
The Divisional files and records for the past fiscal year record requests for reference assistance and guidance from private citizens and high-ranking government officials, from scholars and students, side by side with inquiries from scholastic and private research organizations. In numerous instances the occasion arose for the Division to provide members of Congress with topical information and with translations from diverse East European languages. Among the agencies of the executive branch of the Government whose queries had the attention of the Division, were the White House, the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and other Defense Agencies, the Departments of State, Agriculture, and Commerce, the US Office of Education, the Social Security Administration, Bureau of the Census, National Science Foundation, and others. An impressive array of colleges and universities all over the country and of associates of scholastic institutions — such as the Russian Institute of Columbia University, the Russian Research Center at Harvard University, and the Hoover Institute and Library on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford — sought and received reference assistance. Private research organization concerned with East European research, including the Mid-European Studies Center of the National Committee for a Free Europe, the Rand Corporation, the Research Program of the USSR, etc., often consulted with the Division on their research problems and methods of investigation. Another segment of the Division's clientele comprised editorial and staff writers of newspapers, magazines, and news agencies (Washington Post, The Kiplinger Magazine, Boston Globe, Associated Press, and others), as well as free-lance writers.
Whether of simple or complex nature, whether prompted by practical research needs or by the search for factual information per se, the fields of inquiry with which the Division had to cope, were diversified in scope and encompassed the vast expanse of knowledge relative to the countries and cultures of the Slavs and Baltic peoples, in addition to Hungary, Rumania, and Albania. They ranged from questions about species of birds indigenous to Hungary to health legislation in Rumania, from the organization and output of publishing houses in the USSR to the history of Polish music and painting. A few examples will epitomize the variety of reference cases: At the request of a Congressional Committee, statements by Soviet leaders were provided on the question of co-existence and incompatibility between Communism and Capitalism. The National Science Foundation was assisted in getting off the ground a research project on the training of scientific personnel in the USSR. The Division supplied extensive data and references to the Mid-European Studies Center for a comparative study of higher education in Poland before and after World War II. In response to an inquiry from a member of the faculty of Indiana University in charge of a government-sponsored project on the area of the Mari and Bashkir Republics of the USSR, pertinent source materials were pointed out. A GI on active service, skeptical as to his fellow soldier's statement to the effect that "during the years 1932–1935 native Spaniards were forcibly removed and sent to Latvia to become acquainted with the Russian way of life,"found his doubts confirmed in the Division's reply.
Another important facet of the reference activities of the Division was the preparation of research reports and surveys of reference materials for East European research. Following the end of World War II, German scholarship resumed its important role in East European area research and has made great strides in this field. To keep American research abreast of these developments a report on the present situation of Eastern European studies in Germany, and especially in its Western Zone, is being prepared in the Division by Dr. Epstein. Also, during the past twelve months various specialists on the staff of the Division contributed a series of notes to the LC Information Bulletin in which significant LC acquisitions, as well as Library and publishing events, were reviewed.
The absence of specialized area catalogs and bibliographical files which are vital to an efficient discharge of the reference and bibliographical service, constituted a serious handicap in the infancy of the Division. To a large extent this deficiency was remedied in the past year through laborious efforts toward the development and maintenance of such reference tools, and this in spite of considerable obstacles caused by the acute shortage of manpower. As a result, the qualitative standards of reference work could be improved, and the time devoted to specific assignments was in many cases substantially curtailed. In view of the heavy demand for English language materials pertaining to the East European area and the adequate coverage in LC accessions lists in East European languages, the reference files of the Slavic and East European Division comprise primarily entries of potential reference value in English, French, and German published since 1939. The arrangement is by subject categories which are adapted to standard types of recurrent inquiries, and the files include also articles from periodicals and magazines, which at times are the principal sources of up-to-date information in the field. The forementioned reference facilities have been found to be of extraordinary usefulness in and outside the Division. They were, for instance, made available to the officers of the Association of American University Women for the purpose of compiling a list of basic readings on the USSR for the membership of the Association, and the American Foundation for Political Education took advantage of these files for the preparation of a three-volume publication, Readings in Russian Foreign Policy which has recently appeared in print.
As a result of contacts established by the Slavic and East European Division with various library centers in Germany, microfilms of catalogs and indices of their Slavic collections were secured for the LC. This was the first step toward the establishing of bibliographical controls over important collections in Europe, a program which will be fully explored in the course of the forthcoming personal survey by the Chief of the Division of major Slavic collections in European libraries and institutions.
So far, the Library has been able to secure, at the initiative of the Slavic and East European Division, microfilms of more than 4,000 Slavic titles represented in the catalog of periodicals of the Westdeutsche Bibliothek at Marburg. The material comprises both the holdings of the former Prussian State Library. (Preussische Staatsbibliothek) at Berlin and the acquisitions of the Westdeutsche Bibliothek since 1949. Furthermore, the Slavic and East European Division was able to obtain from the Institut für Weltwirtschaft at Kiel, Germany, a complete list of its unique collection of newspapers published during the Second World War in East and Southeast Europe in territories under German occupation or in states allied with Germany.
Dr. Epstein particularly cooperated with Dr. H. Kramm, (Westdeutsche Bibliothek), editor of the Internationale Bibliographie der historischen Zeitschriften fuer die Zeit von 1939–1951, in the compilation of a volume devoted to Slavic periodicals, which is now in preparation.
Consultative service and bibliographical aid was rendered by the members of the Division's staff to: a. foreign scholars, e.g. representatives of McGill University, Montreal, the Free University at Berlin, Deutsche Hochschule für Politik at Berlin, University of Frankfurt, University of Marburg, University of London, Oxford University, University of Caen, France, etc.; b. Officers of foreign governments: Austrian, British, Italian, Indian; and c. Research institutions, such as Research Program of the USSR, National Committee for a Free Europe, Russian Research Center at Harvard University, Russian Institute at Columbia University, Joint Committee on Slavic Studies, National Science Foundation, J.G. Herder-Institut, Marburg, Germany, Institut für Erforschung der Geschichte und Kultur der UdSSR at Munich, American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, etc.
The Chief of the Division continued his functions as liaison officer with the Joint Committee on Slavic Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies and of the Social Science Research Council. He also presented a brief paper on the Slavic collections of the Library of Congress at an American-Canadian conference of Slavicists, which was organized by the Harvard, Michigan, Columbia, and California Universities and which took place in the last days of June at Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The staff of the Division, consisting of only four regular members — the chief of the Division (part-time), the USSR and East European Area Specialist (part-time), the Slavic Research Analyst, and the Secretary of the Division — has been able to attend to and carry out the various functions described above, thanks to details and the temporary appointment of additional personnel to the Division. However, it has to be pointed out that, although special attention has been given by the Library Administration and the Director of the Reference Department to the needs of the Division, this has only enabled it to provide for a partial coverage of the area of which the Division is meant to be in charge.
Dr. Béla T. Kardos appointed to the Division on a part-time basis, has been of particular help in carrying out steps pointing to the establishment of the Library of Congress as one of the leading centers of Hungarian studies in this country.
Through the transfer of funds from the National Committee for a Free Europe, Dr. Janina Wojcicka has been functioning in the Division on a part-time basis as a bibliographer on Polish materials.
Professor Borivoje Milojević of Belgrade spent two weeks, from October 1 to 15, 1952 as Consultant on Yugoslav Geography in the Division, preparing a draft of a comprehensive bibliography on geographic problems of Yugoslavia.
Mr. Di-Tsin Tsing, a State Department Chinese Grantee, continued his survey on Soviet propaganda towards China.
Two temporary members of the staff, detailed to the Slavic and East European Division on the basis of an agreement with the Air Information Division, have made it possible for the Division to prepare a series of want lists for the Exchange and Gift Division and to take care of the project "Books for Japan." The Air Research Division came to the rescue of the Division in supplying clerical help.
Finally, Mr. Harold Beverly, a library intern, was assigned to the Division on a rotation basis from March 23 to April 17, 1953. The Division was able to make use of his special qualifications for editorial work on the Union List of Post-Revolutionary Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian Newspapers.
Although the press of official business and the need to meet frequent deadlines caused a heavy strain on the work schedule of the staff of the Division, particularly of its regular members, and left them with but little time for the pursuit of research and writing, nevertheless, they found it possible to participate in diverse professional activities in the fields of their own specialization.
The Chief of the Division acted in August 1952 as consultant to a project conducted by the Hoover Institute and Library on War, Revolution and Peace and related to special aspects of scientific life in the USSR.
His report on Tensions Within the Soviet Union, prepared at the behest of Senator Wiley of Wisconsin, was translated into German, Italian, and Korean. At the request of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he undertook to bring this study up to date, and the enlarged manuscript was submitted to the Committee at the beginning of June 1953. Another research report, prepared by him for the Senate Subcommittee on Overseas Information Programs of the United States (Staff Study No. 3), appeared in print in November 1952.
Dr. Epstein, serving half of his time as director of research of the War Documentation Project conducted by the Bureau of Applied Social Research of Columbia University under contract with the Air Force, was in charge of a Guide to Captured German Documents.
