Güleç İsmail
Why and How Did Katanov Books Come From Kazan to Istanbul
50th Annual Meeting of the PIAC, Kazan 2007
From Kazan to Turkey, there have been two trends directly supporting Turkology studies. First, by means of Turkologists who came from Kazan, Turkology studies in Turkey, was accelerated and widened, and many Turkologs have been raised. Secondly, Katanov Books, which were almost unreachable in Turkey, were Istanbul. Thanks to these books, Turkish scientists have been aware of the scientific studies in Russia and enriched their studies.
Among the Katanov Books, we see books printed in Taskent, Kazan, Baku, Orenburg, St.Petersburg, Ufa, Astrahan, Semerkand, Turkistan, Tibilisi, Yaroslav, Novograd, Simbirsk, Irkutsk, Omsk, Simferepol and Askabad, which today are in different countries, but were in Russian territory during that period. This information, also allows us to learn about the main cultural centers of Russia in that period.
We understand that Katanov has collected every book that he could find about the religions, languages, cultures, customs of the people living in a wide geography from East Turkistan to Finland, South Siberia to Northern Black Sea. In addition to these, travel and excavation reports, city yearbooks, museum catalogs, coin catalogs, administrative and educational rules and regulations, statistics and maps, law, history, politics are the subjects of the books that Katanov has collected. This is a Library that, everybody who researches the Mid Asian and Southern Siberian Nation’s ethnographies, archeologies, folklores, cultures, languages and religions are obliged to see.
Another important side of the Katanov Books, is cowering some very rare and valuable pieces. The number of books printed right after the invention of printing machine are more than which can be underestimated. In addition to that, containing hand written pieces increases the material and virtual(spiritual) value of the books. Besides, Russian and Turkish periodicals of the period, which are very hard to find in our country, are another riches of the Library.