State Regulation of Public Libraries’ Activities in Russia in the Second Half of the XIX-th Century

The purpose of the article is to present the evolution of state policy towards public libraries in Russia in the second half of the XIX century. As a result of the research, the author has established that the content of laws and by-laws regulating the work of public libraries was determined by their status as public organizations and reflected deep contradictions of the government course during the years of bourgeois transformations and in the post-reform era. The government of Alexander II took the library initiative of education zealots as continuation and support of their own reformation attempts. The author shows how the legal status of public libraries was fixed in the legal field of Russia, acquisition rules were changing, the procedure for opening public libraries and supervision for their activities was carried out. The author notes how the repressive nature of legislation, aimed at protecting the urban reading public from unwanted literature, which intensified in the 1880s and 1890s, had a negative impact on public self-organization in the field of education. He concludes that circumstances formed significantly hindered the development of public libraries in Russia.