European Division

Brief Background of the European Division In 1906 the Library purchased the 80,000 volume collection of Russian bibliophile Gennadii Yudin, making the Library of Congress a leading center for Slavic research in the United States. Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam created a Slavic Section in 1907 to cope with this acquisition. After World War I, in 1919 the Slavic Section began to evolve, taking on work more like fully functioning Library division by providing cataloging and reference services. It did not get renamed to the Division of Slavic Literature until 1930. The 1930s witnessed slow growth of the East European collections, with some notable purchases such as books from the Russian Imperial Palaces, but with the growth of the field of Slavic Studies in North America, and World War II looming, the Library's leaders reevaluated the existing division and its activities, striving to increase collections and services. As a result of the reorganization of the Library in 1944, in which the cataloging and reference functions were separated, the Slavic Division was abolished. It was reestablished in 1951 as a new and more robust research center with a larger staff and expertise, ready to tackle massive, systematic acquisitions and expanded reference services to Congress, other government agencies, and the scholarly community. During the 1950s, as new countries were added to its area of responsibility, the Slavic Division morphed into the Slavic and East European Division. The name was changed again in 1978 to the European Division, when the Division's scope was enlarged to include all of Europe except Iberia and Great Britain. In 2021 the European Division was merged with the Hispanic Division to form the current Latin American, Caribbean, and European Division. To learn more, read some of the eight decades of annual reports which are transcribed in this guide