I once asked distinguished Lithuanian journalist, writer and expert in history Vilius Kavaliauskas who of the Russian workers of culture merit to have a Vilnius street named after them. He did not hesitate to name Leo Vladimirov.
The Lithuanian scientific community has recently marked the centenary of the birth of Leo Vladimirov (1912-1999), a scholar, historian and book expert whose effort helped return 20 thousand rare and valuable book collections to the library of the Vilnius University. They used to belong to it, but were withdrawn after the closure of the university in 1832. The Vilnius University and the library prepared an exhibition of the rare restituted publications which will be open up to the middle of this year. Thanks to Professor Vladimirov the most valuable for Lithuanians book – Catechism by Martynas Mazvydas – returned back home. The first book in the Lithuanian language was published in Konigsberg in 1547 and besides the basics of religion comprised also the Lithuanian alphabet. Thus it laid the basis for Lithuanian script and for the formation of national conscience. .
Only the restitution of lost treasures would be sufficient for the inclusion of Vladimirov into the list of personalities who greatly influenced the cultural development of the country. He was also the founder of a new guideline in library work. He initiated the creation of a library and scientific information desk in the Vilnius University which trained librarians while all institutes in Lithuania got a course of information basics and prepared a concept of computerized system of scientific and technical information. Today it will hardly surprise anyone. But Leo Vladimirov introduced the new course over 40 years ago as if he foresaw the advent of the era of computers with their major possibilities. The foundation he created (Vladimirov quit the desk at the age of 78 in 1990) was used by the Vilnius University to launch a year later a faculty of communications which united the bibliography, information systems, and communications theory desks.
He is the author of scientific works about printing pioneers – Francis Skaryna who published the book Apostle in Vilno in 1525 according to the sign on the front page, and Ivan Fedorov, as well as about the role of Vilno (as Vilnius was called in the Middle Age) in the emergence of book printing in Eastern Europe.
He said his main work was the General Book History. Its first part that covered a period from the ancient world to the XVII century initially came out in the Lithuanian and then (in 1988) in the Russian language. The second part has never come out as publishers changed priorities. In preparations for the birth centenary of Vladimirov the Vilnius University jointly with its library published a beautiful catalogue of restituted books – Vetera reducta. The proceeds are to be used for the publication of the second part of the book by the professor .
A brilliant intellectual and erudite who was awarded medals and other decorations by the United Nations, Vatican, the Lithuanian Gediminas Order III degree, the Belarussian Francis Skaryna medal, and the Red Star military order, Vladimirov enjoyed love and respect of the people in Lithuania who call him selfless patriot of the country.
At first there was the Book
Speaking about his teacher the academic secretary of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Domas Kaunas, was confused whether Vladimirov was a Russian, Lithuanian, or a citizen of the world. He called him “a European”. In reality Vladimirov was a third-generation citizen of Lithuania but always called himself a representative and heir of the Russian culture. That becomes clear from the role of books in his life.
His grandfather Ivan Vladimirov graduated from a medical college and was invited to work as a doctor in a small Lithuanian town of Telsai. He founded the first hospital in the province and was awarded the title of honorable citizen for that. His family preserved the traditions of Russian intelligentsia of the time: they read books out loud in the evenings, both classical and new ones. The home library had five thousand books. There was a cult of Leo Tolstoy with who Ivan Vladimirov corresponded. It was he who insisted that his first grandson be called Leo. As the First World War broke out the grandfather was enlisted into the army and served as a colonel in command of a division field hospital. As the German troops advanced his family left the native place and resettled to Ukraine from where they came back home in 1920. Ivan Vladimirov was the first to return. He was shocked to see that the library was burnt down by the Germans. The most valued relic – a letter from Leo Tolstoy – was also destroyed. Ivan Vladimirov died in 1921 after all the hardships he experienced, as well as typhoid at the front.
Children and grandchildren of Ivan Vladimirov returned back to a ruined home. Everything was looted. Leo’s father Ivan, a graduate from the St. Petersburg Technological Institute was an engineer by profession. Together with his cousin he invented and patented a substance to clean steam boilers from lime deposits. When the family came back to Lithuania he could not find employment. His wife Stefanija Daujotaite, a descendant of the ancient Lithuanian Daujotaite family, could not resume her medical practice either. She was the first woman from Lithuania who received higher medical education first in Switzerland and then in Tartu University where she qualified as a dentist. Her dentist’s office was also looted.
The Vladimirovs did not surrender on the brink of misery. They moved to Siauliai and in 1926 opened there a commercial library-shop with subscriptions and also signed a deal with Kaunas publishers where they received all the latest publications. The library had a bookbinding and restoration workshop. By the ’40s the business began to yield modest proceeds. Leo Vladimirov recalled that since the age of 12 he enjoyed helping the mother with compiling the catalogue. At that time he studied in a German boarding school in Silute. It was a deliberate choice as the only Russian school was far away in Kaunas while the German one won was famous for the quality of education. The parents reasonably believed the knowledge of yet another language would be good for the son who spoke Russian, Lithuanian, and Polish. Besides, it was important that it was a boarding school where children were fed and looked after for a modest pay. Coming back home on Saturdays and Sundays and later for holidays as a student of the Anglo-German desk of the humanitarian faculty of the Kaunas University Vladimirov worked in the home library-shop, delivered books, accepted orders, and registered new book arrivals. However he did not knew at the time that library would become his life-work.
Vladimirov met his future wife Irina Reingard, the daughter of a Russian Navy officer and captain second rank, in Kaunas University. Upon graduation he was already married but could not find employment by profession and began his career in an insurance company.
Deliberate choice
When World War Two broke out Ivan Vladimirov with sons Leo and Andrei joined the retreating Red Army to fight the Nazis. They were in Belarus and in one town saw children rescuing books from a burning school and handing them out to Red Army soldiers. One of them gave a book to Leo Vladimirov. It was the second volume of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.
The book became a mascot for him and he learned many of its parts by memory. Leo Vladimirov fought in the war in the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division. He was wounded several times and suffered concussions but survived and returned back home in the rank of a captain. On his way back home via liberated Belarus he presented the book to the first school he saw on his way. He joined the Communist Party at the front. It was a difficult but deliberate choice. He was sure it was the omnipotent political force that routed Nazis who he considered criminals destroying everything valued by a person educated by the ideas and behests of great Russian humanists.
In the XX century the fates of Russian people deprived of historic Motherland interlaced into curious patterns. While Leo fought in the Red Army his wife Irina together with small daughter Natasha found refuge from the war in the house of her father Fedor Reingard, a convinced monarchist who hated the Soviet power. His name went down in big letters into the history of pre-war Lithuania.
The noble Reingard family settled down in Lithuania in the early 18th century in the time of Rzeczpospolita near the town of Ukmerge where the they owned spacious land. All male representatives of the family were professional military men. They were Russian Germans loyal to Russia and the emperor. Fedor Reingard, a graduate from the Navy Academy in St. Petersburg, was no exception.
His life offers a script for an exciting novel about time and people. He fought in the Russian-Japanese war and was taken prisoner in Port Arthur although, according to peace treaty terms, he could have avoided captivity as an officer had he sworn to never fight against the Japanese. However he decided to share the fate of ordinary sailors. Fedor Reingard described his adventures in memoirs Short Life – Much Experience. Impressions of a Young Officer about War and Captivity which are valuable for Navy historians. He later served in the Baltic and Northern fleets.
A convinced monarchist he rejected the Bolshevik revolution, quit the command of a battleship and resigned. He said he witnessed “a complete collapse of the country in which I do not want to participate” He was insulted by the new rules in the Navy, senseless deaths of sailors and outrageous reprisals against officers. He wrote in his memoirs: “The Russian fleet participated in numerous battles and I saw many ships sink, but I do not remember a single case when an officer would rescue himself before all sailors were safe. The revolutionaries failed to stain the honor of Navy officers.”
He was naturally arrested for his convictions and had to be executed, but sailors who admired their commander saved him. He took his family to Ukraine from where he proceeded to Crimea together with the Volunteer Army of the White Guards. When Crimea fell to the Red Army he organized evacuation of the military and their families to Turkey aboard the Kronstadt transport ship.
In Turkey he made a boat to earn a living by fishing and transportation. In 1922 the Reingards returned to Lithuania and settled in Kaunas. Their natives land near Ukmerge was nationalized by the time. As an experienced professional Fedor was recruited into the Lithuanian army in the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He lectured Navy skills in Kaunas Technical School and later founded a joint-stock company engaged in cargo sea transportation. It was the first merchant marine in Lithuania which had two vessels. In the summer of 1940 the Soviet troops occupied Lithuania and Fedor Reingard was arrested and placed in custody in the 9th Kaunas fort where he again was waiting for execution. The offensive of German troops saved him and he found himself at large. The German occupation authorities proposed to him to head a Kaunas factory if he adopts German citizenship, but he refused. Educated in the best traditions of Russian army officers he remained honest and decent to himself in any situation. He did not understand and rejected both the Soviet power and Nazi order .
In the summer of 1944 the Soviet army liberated Lithuania and Fedor Reingard realized he would be definitely executed this time. He left the country alone (the family refused to leave) and died of a heart attack in 1947 in Bavaria. According to his will, he was buried at an Orthodox cemetery. He described the horrors of the civil war and the tragic turns of his life in memoirs. The manuscript was brought to Lithuania by a Lithuanian captain and a part of the book is kept in the Maritime Museum in Klaipeda. In 2000 some of the chapters were translated into the Lithuanian language. They were published under the title Navyman, Officer, Condemned Man.
Granddaughter Natalya of Fedor Reingard was born on the eve of the war and recollected the war life in the house of her granddad by the maternity line:
— I was very little at the time. When the war broke out the father went to Russia to fight the Germans. He participated in the Kursk and Oryol battles in the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division and liberated Klaipeda region where he was several times wounded. But we did not know anything about him and lived with the granddad and grandma in a spacious house near Kaunas which the granddad built. We had a picturesque big garden planted by the granddad. Fedor Fedorovich was a strict man, but also a reasonable house master and a do-all man. I did not know what huger was during the war as the fruit and vegetable gardens fed us and not only us. The granddad lived on the upper floor and pretended not to interfere into female affairs. The mother and grandma sheltered several Jewish families in the basement. There were also Soviet soldiers who hid in the house from time to time. One of them, a Georgian, loved to play with me and said I resembled his sister. Many years later I received a present from Georgia: a silver spoon with To Natasha inscription. I also remember how together with the grandma we went through the fields to a POW camp. The grandma gave me a basket with bread. I came close to the barbed wire and put pieces of bread into stretched out hands. Naturally, there was not enough for all.
— As far as I understand, there were deep political contradictions in the family. Did they impede the life of the family?
— The granddad by maternity line was a convinced monarchist. The old-school grandma was from St. Petersburg where she received education and lived according to her outlooks. All her numerous brothers and sisters died in the Civil war between White Guards and the Red Army. The mother was not excited by the Soviet power, to put it mildly. The father joined the Communist Party during the war and responded to all mother’s remarks: “I made a deliberate decision and have no right to reject it.” In all other aspects the parents understood each other well and refrained from fanning conflicts because of personal convictions which every person has the right to have.
Affection turned into profession
After the war Leo Vladimirov worked in the republican planning committee which opened major career prospects for him. However one telephone call from the director of the Vilnius University who invited him to head the library of the institution changed everything. He immediately quit the well-paid job and headed the ineligible business. There were close to 30 confused staff who did not know what to begin with in a building with broken ceilings and ruined book stock by the Germans. The new director focused on training top quality librarians and bibliographers for the republic. Upon his initiative the university launched first a desk and in several years a department of librarians, the first in the USSR. Vladimirov compiled a training plan, gathered a team of lecturers, and himself lectured several courses in theory and history of library organization.
His main task was to restore and replenish library stock. The fate of the library of the Vilnius University which was closed by the tsar in 1832 after the 1830 Polish uprising was miserable. Most valuable books were transferred to educational establishments in Moscow, Petersburg, Kiev, Odessa. Various circumstances brought many books to Poland and Germany. Vladimirov wanted most of all to return to Vilnius the publications that belonged to the university and were kept in the Soviet Union. It was necessary to compile a preliminary list of withdrawn books for that and determine search directions. He made titanic effort and used his charm and diplomatic skills to fulfill his plans and convince those in power in Vilnius and Moscow to help.
Then Lithuanian Communist leader Antanas Sneckus supported the effort and the valuable Catechism by Martynas Mazvydas printed in 1547 was exchanged and returned from Odessa University to Lithuania. In the ’50s of the last century the family did not practically see Vladimirov as he constantly traveled to find books from Lithuania and have them returned back. It is only natural that no book keeper would voluntarily part with his stock. Vladimirov was often barred from libraries as their directors knew it was sufficient for him to just have a look at the cover page to determine the origin of the book. Thanks to his effort the Lenin library in Moscow returned such rare publications as Catechism by Mikalojus Dauksa (printed in 1595) and the only surviving copy of Francis Skaryna’s Apostle printed in Vilnius in 1525. Under Vladimirov the university book stock increased by one million printed publications. He was the first librarian who launched exchange with European countries without a single ruble from the budget.
A lesson to America
In 1964 the United Nations announced a contest to hire the director of its new library in New York. There were 18 contenders from the United States, Canada, Japan, Hungary, and other countries. The chances of Vladimirov, a Russian from Lithuania and a Communist, were slim. The requirements were strict. However Vladimirov won not only because he was fluent in six languages but mostly due to his superior professional qualities. Professional circles in the world were well aware of his noble cause of returning lost treasures back home and called him “book catcher from Vilnius”.
He worked as the director of the UN library in New York from 1964 to 1970. He began with computerizing (!) the stock and replacing manual information processing by mathematical. Even in America not everyone understood at the time the necessity of using computers for search purposes. Vladimirov was convinced electronic library search had to provide access to all those wishing not only to the source of information (references to books and magazines) but directly to the information. Many library-goers complained that it took too much time to find a reference while librarians had to sort several thousand cards a day. Besides, affiliates of the library were scattered around the world and each of them had its own book registration system. Vladimirov developed the New York library into a guiding center of all UN libraries with a single computerized information system.
After his innovations the biggest in the world Library of the US Congress got an electronic catalogue and thus became accessible for everyone. In New York Vladimirov wrote a book about pioneer printer Francis Skaryna and held an exhibition in the library devoted to the outstanding personality of Belarussian culture. He prepared essays on the history of books and libraries in Lithuania from the 15th century up to 1917 which comprised the basis of his scientific thesis. He also considered it to be his duty to develop cultural ties with Lithuanian emigrants and constantly lectured in various American universities about cultural life in Lithuania.
Back in Lithuania he found out that the post of the director of the university library was occupied. Vladimirov was offered a similar post in Moscow in the Foreign Literature Library, as well as in Minsk. But he preferred to stay in Vilnius where for many years he headed the university desk of library organization and scientific information. He modestly called himself “only a librarian” but could foresee the possibilities and horizons provided by computer technologies.
His creative legacy comprises close to 400 works in various languages and fundamental works about pioneer printers Francis Skaryna and Ivan Fedorov. In 1988 his monumental work General Book History came out. Only the first volume was printed and he worked on the second one up to the end of his life. His heirs have the manuscript but unfortunately cannot have it published because of financial problems. Several Moscow publishing houses initially agreed however later postponed the publication for unclear reasons.
He was not afraid of anything
Natalya Vladimirova recalled that her father was a fearless man and always said the truth and advocated his opinion. He told his children: “Do not be ever afraid of anything. Let others be afraid and think you have some backup”.
She remembers that the father spent all the time at his working desk and children were strictly prohibited from interfering. He was a taciturn, but joyful and witty man. If the mother complained about naughty children and jokingly suggested to lash her madcap son Yuri he always responded: “I cannot do it today. I am kind today”. In general he entrusted the mother with upbringing of two daughters and the son. There was a deep spiritual relationship and full mutual understanding between the couple.
Sometimes he teased the wife by reading Mayakovsky verses which she disliked. When he saw she was angry he switched to Pushkin. But he was very attentive to her. When his wife was hospitalized he every day told her about a new episode of Santa Barbara soap opera which was aired on TV at that time. The mother passed away five years before the father died in 1999. He could not cope with the less. It seemed to the children he continued to live with his spouse and she was always present in his undertakings and work.
It is inspiring that Leo’s grandchildren continued his cause. They grew up in international families with a mixture of Lithuanian, Russian, and Jewish blood. Natalya’s daughter Nina works in the Russian literature department of the Martynas Mazvidas Library. Other grandchildren are software engineers and experts in information which is also close to the grandfather. Under his leadership over two dozen most talented students defended their theses. At a seminar devoted to Leo Vladimirov one of his students and the head of the rare book department of the university library Ina Kazuro admitted sadly there are no people of Vladimirov’s scope, true patriots of Lithuania in the modern history of the country. It remains to wait and see. . .
Galina Afanasyeva,
for Amber Bridge