Tucked away in the National Library of Finland, the library’s history was shaped, and continues to be shaped, by Finland’s relationship with Russia. It remains an important research hub for scholars of Soviet Russia.
When Finland was under the Russian Empire, the library received its published materials directly from the Russian state. These collections make up what the library is most famous for: the Legal Deposits Collection, accumulated between 1828 and 1917.
After the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, Finland gained independence and no longer received these publications. However, the library continued to acquire materials from the Soviet Union. Although it has become more difficult in recent years, the library continues to stay up to date on books and periodicals published in Russia to this day.
During my first week in Helsinki, I met up with librarian Jussi Hyvärinen who explained the collections along with the peculiar layout of the library itself. As a first-time visitor from Canada spending the summer as a research intern at the Aleksanteri Institute (which lies just a brief walk from the National Library), I was struck by the breadth of accessible material in the library, the friendliness of the staff, and the welcoming research atmosphere. One could spend all day just browsing through the periodicals that span from the eighteenth century to the present.
The libraries origins extend back to 1841, when the library was established as a separate collection of the Imperial Alexander University by Jakov Grot, a professor of Russian language and literature. The library was intended as a way to strengthen relations between Russian and Finnish scholars and thus, strengthen relations between the two states. When Finland secured its independence following the Russia civil war in 1924, the library and its collections became part of the National Library of Finland, where it continues to be to this day.
To access the collections, you must first enter the National Library and then follow the blue dots through a series of stairways before a very visible sign indicates that if one turns left they will be in the historic Slavonic Library. At the entrance of the library there is a collection of literature on Slavic history and politics in a variety of languages, including new books being published in Russia today. Then follow the periodicals, organized alphabetically by title, rendering titles very easy to find if you know what you’re looking for.
All collections from before 1950 are housed in this main section of the library that spans several rooms. At the very back is the collected works room, in which there are a couple of desks where you can sit and conduct preliminary research. All collections from after 1950 are housed downstairs in the Aquarium, where there are plenty more desks for sitting and reading, and simply enjoying the atmosphere.
The library contains a breadth of material from the Soviet period that would be of interest to researchers of the Soviet period and beyond. For intellectual historians of the Soviet Union in particular, there is a vast periodical collection of journals published in the Soviet Union on science, literature, art, and culture. For the ongoing ARGIH project Culture’s Politics under Authoritarian Rule (CUPOLA), which looks at the interaction between culture and state politics in the late Stalin era through intellectual history with a particular focus on Soviet humanities and sciences, researchers noted the usefulness of the vast Soviet era ‘thick journals’ and modern scholarship in in both Slavic and other European languages.
In analyzing the cases of philosophy and musicology in the late Stalin era, the CUPOLA researchers have drawn on key Soviet-era publications in Slavica, such as Bolshaya Sovetskaya Entsyklopedia (1926–1947), Voprosy filosofii (1947–1989), Sovetskaya muzyka (1933–1992), Literaturnoe obozrenie (1973–2001), and Novyi mir (1925–present). These resources offer valuable long-term insight into the development of the humanities in the Soviet Union and illuminate the impact of late Stalinist governance on the content of scholarship and cultural production more broadly. These journals are just some of the materials that illuminate the richness of library holdings that provide a window into the intellectual debates that shaped public life in the Soviet Union.
Beyond the visible collections (which provide the library with its charm) there are millions of microfilms supplementing the material and a number of collections available upon request. Notably, in an agreement to help pay off Soviet debts to Finland inherited by Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed, copies of Soviet-era newspapers and monographs and dictionaries from the 1920s and 30s that are absent from the physical collection, among other items, were gifted to the library on microfilm in the early 2000s, where they remain accessible today.
The special reading room is located at the back of the adjacent music library, and this is where the most precious and rare materials can be read upon request. Computers stationed throughout the library give patrons an easy way to browse the collections and make requests for such items. The library also has a vast collection of electronic resources that can be accessed remotely with a National Library card.
The library is not just a repository of research materials, but also a welcoming workspace with international appeal for scholars working on Russia, the Slavic-language speaking world, and the former Soviet Union. Its role as a hub for scholars extends back over a century. When the collections were under threat after the collapse of the Russian Empire, scholars came together to protect the collections, recognizing them as a vital resource for scholars at home and abroad.
During the Cold War era, the library became particularly significant for Western scholars. Helsinki’s geographical proximity to the Soviet Union and Finland’s and the USSR’s unique political relationship allowed scholars to use the Slavonic Library as their base while conducting archival work in Moscow and Leningrad. In this way, researchers could move between institutions with relative ease, and the library’s collections complemented materials found in Soviet archives.
This atmosphere remains today. The library has reading rooms dedicated to short-term research trips, where desks can be requested by researchers in advance for use for 3-6 months at a time, allowing scholars to establish a regular working space and connect with other visiting scholars from a range of disciplines, all connected by a shared interest in the Slavic world.
The physical environment of the library also contributes to its appeal as a research space, retaining a sense of intimacy and allowing for unexpected discoveries. The openness of the collections means users can browse shelves that span centuries, and the library’s continued insistence on acquiring print copies of even the most recent material where possible, encourages a kind of research that is difficult to replicate digitally.
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, international researchers of Russia have been forced, at least in part, to rely on resources housed outside of Russia proper. This has created new opportunities for researchers to focus on collections that may have been overlooked in the past and has further highlighted the continued importance of repositories such as the Slavonic Library for academic freedom.
Jussi noted that since the invasion, the library has received a notable increase in international visitors. As one of the world’s largest repositories of Russian-language scholarship outside of Russia, it is perhaps unsurprising that researchers have turned to Helsinki in greater numbers. For scholars unable to access archives or libraries in Russia, the Slavonic Library offers not only a substantial body of primary source materials, but a stable and welcoming research environment.
There are, however, certain limits to the library's collections, particularly due to space constraints. A large part of the librarian’s work consists in rotating materials, deciding what new items to acquire that fit the library’s profile, and determining which materials are no longer needed.
On the positive side, this means the collections are continuously refreshed and kept easy to navigate. The materials that are rotated out are sent to the repository and can be located through the electronic catalogue, remaining available to researchers upon request . At the same time, it is clear that difficult decisions must be constantly made as to what is readily accessible. Additional space would undoubtedly benefit the library and help ensure the long-term accessibility of the increasingly vital collections.
Even so, the library’s continued commitment to acquiring contemporary Russian-language scholarship and filling out its collections with materials in other Slavic languages demonstrates the institutions enduring commitment to the field. More than simply a repository, the Slavonic Library is an active centre for scholars, playing a vital role in the preservation of materials that have become increasingly difficult to access.
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