Books of the 18th century in the collection of the Tambov regional universal scientific library named after A.S. Pushkin

We analyze the qualitative and quantitative composition of the book collection of the civil press of the 18th century, which are in the collection of the Tambov regional universal library named after A.S. Pushkin (hereinafter TRUL). The relevance of the work is connected with the need to restore an objective picture of the creation and functioning of manor libraries of the late 18th century as an element of the cultural environment. The implementation of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research project allowed showing the world of the Tambov book of the 18th century in all its diversity. The novelty of the work lies in a system approach to the study of the array of books in Russian and foreign languages of pre-revolutionary libraries of the Russian province. We consider Tambov collections of foreign books of the 18th century, system information of which is currently absent in historiography and appears only as separate mentions in the works of local historians. The work with the existing repertoire of the library showed the key importance of Derzhavin library for the formation of modern Tambov collections of rare books of the 18th century. It is shown that the main array of the identified publications reflects the products of the Capital printing houses of the 18th century. The variety of thematic composition of the revealed collections is demonstrated. Among these collections of TRUL books there are publications on history, literature, philosophy, religion and natural sciences. The research proves that the study of the composition of the book collections of civil press of the 18th century gives important information for the study of book culture of the Tambov province, allows to analyze the appearance of the book works in the region and to find out the degree of attention to foreign and Russian media. Also it allows to detect the role of the book in the structure of cultural environment.