Russian Geographical Society

The digital collection dedicated to the Russian Geographical Society (RGS) contains texts of charters, regulations, lists of members, surveys of individual members, expedition reports, travel descriptions, and reviews of society's work on history, ethnography, geography, and other sciences. It also includes bibliographic indexes, scientific monographs, abstracts of dissertations, catalogues of books from the society's library, descriptions of manuscripts, scientific archive with a list of funds, archival files including memoirs, personal correspondence, and various administrative, financial, and economic documents, as well as exhibition materials, cartographic materials, and visual materials.

The Russian Geographical Society was founded in 1845 by the supreme command of Nicholas I. Over the years, it was led by representatives of the Russian Imperial House, scientists, and statesmen. It was established under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, emphasizing its state status and the importance of its goals.

During its research activities, the society directly contributed to military intelligence and the defense of the Russian Empire's strategic interests in the Arctic, Transcaucasia, Central Asia, the Far East, and even Oceania. It had four departments: mathematical geography and cartography, physical geography, ethnography and anthropology, historical geography, and political geography and statistics.

In 1917, after the fall of the Imperial government, the organization changed its name to the Russian Geographical Society. The collection includes an archive file from the Central Executive Committee of the USSR on the transformation of the State Geographical Russian Society into the Geographical Society of the USSR.

The structure of the collection includes various sections, such as the foundation and history of the society, scientific expeditions, publications, archive, library, museum, regional departments, and personalities.

The first section, The Establishment of the Society. Charters, presents several editions of charters and archival materials from the Imperial Russian Geographical Society from 1885 to 1908. This section also includes information about the main stages of the history of the Society, which are revealed in a multi-volume monograph dedicated to its 50th anniversary - from 1845 to 1895. This monograph was compiled by Pyotr Petrovich Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky, the vice-chairman of the society. Other works have also been published about the history of the Geographical Society. Materials from a modern electronic exhibition celebrating the 170th anniversary of the Society (2015) are also included.

The section Activities of the Society contains a review of the organization's work, archival materials of a general nature, and materials from ethnographic and environmental activities. This includes reports, correspondence, and telegrams from the board of the Russian Geographical Society and its environmental protection commission.

A significant collection of documents characterizes the important practical area of scientific expeditions of the Russian Geographical Society. The works of the expedition organized by the Imperial Free Economic Society and the Russian Geographical Society for the study of grain trade and productivity in Russia between 1867 and 1876 are presented. These works were awarded the gold medal of the society in 1871.

As part of the expedition, eight major regions were surveyed, including the Central, Oka, Upper Volga, Priuralsk, Crimea, and others. After completing the work, a series of monographs were published under a general title. Some of these monographs were prepared by Yuli Eduardovich Yanson, an economist and statistician (1835-1893).

The following subsection introduces the materials from an ethnographic and statistical expedition to Western Russia in the late 1860s. The expedition's objectives included studying ethnic groups in Kiev, Volyn, Podolsk, and other western regions, including tribal differences in morality, customs, number of tribes, distribution of population by religion, and economic life and material well-being. The collective effort of the expedition resulted in the publication of a fundamental scientific work by ethnographer Pavel Platonovich Chubinsky in seven volumes titled Beliefs and Superstitions; Riddles and Proverbs; Witchcraft (1872), starting with the first volume.

In 1855-1862, a Siberian expedition was organized by the Imperial Russian Geographical Society under the leadership of Fyodor Schmidt (1832-1908), a geologist, botanist, and paleontologist. The expedition aimed to study the natural resources of Eastern Siberia, Transbaikalia, and Amur region. Following the expedition's scientific work, the Proceedings of the Siberian Expedition were published, which contained detailed reports on various aspects of research conducted by different departments of the society.

The "Proceedings" also included a physical and geographical map of southern Eastern Siberia that provided information on orography, geology, hydrology, and meteorology in the region. Additionally, materials from other expeditions, such as those to Tibet, the Aral Sea, and other regions in the 1850s and 1910s, were also collected.

The section on extensive publishing activities includes Notes of the Russian Geographical Society from 1846 to 1864, which cover general geography, the department of statistics, and the department of ethnography. It also includes notes, news, and proceedings from the Siberian, West Siberian, and East Siberian departments of the society from 1874 to 1898.

The section Archive, Library, and Museum of the Society (1778-1914) contains a list of digitized manuscript collections from Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan, Bessarabia, and other governorates in the scientific archive of the Russian Geographical Society. These collections include information on geography, ethnography, folklore, and the personal holdings of Academician N. I. Vavilov.

The archive also contains valuable photographic materials created using the daguerreotype method, as well as descriptions of towns, villages, and parishes.

This collection includes documents on regional departments of the society, including the North-Western, Caucasus, Siberia, West Siberia, Amur, and Yakut regions. These documents include commemorative sketches of departmental history, archival records of their formation, draft statutes, grants, reports on expeditions, ethnographic maps, and photographic materials.

The Personalities section contains documents about two chairs of the society - representatives of the Romanov family, Grand Dukes Konstantin Nikolaevich and Nikolai Mikhailovich, who led the society in the pre-revolutionary period. Biographies of the Soviet chairs of the society have also been collected. Separate collections of documents are dedicated to the founding members of the society, such as F. P. Wrangel, V. I. Dahl, and I. F. Kruzenshtern, as well as some of the most prominent members of the organization.

During the preparation of this collection, materials from the following institutions were used: the Russian Geographical Society, the Russian State Historical Archive, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the Russian State Archive of Film and Photographic Documents, the State Archive of the Altai Territory, the Altai Regional Universal Scientific Library, Central Naval Library, Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, State Public Historical Library, library of Irkutsk Regional Museum of Local Lore, Library of Moscow State University, National Library of Republic of Karelia, Pushkin Omsk State Regional Scientific Library, library of Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University, Russian State Library and Samara Regional Universal Scientific Library.. Petersburg State University, Tobolsk Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve, Mendeleev Tyumen Regional Scientific Library, Fundamental Library of S.M. Kirov Military Medical Academy, Chelyabinsk Regional Universal Scientific Library, Library of I.N. Ulyanov Chuvash State University, and Library of Russian Institute of Art History.