Karataev, Ivan Prokofievich

Ivan Prokofievich Karataev ^[1] ( June 21, 1817 ^[2] - February 22, 1886 ) was a Russian bibliophile and bibliographer.

Descended from the merchant class, but he never engaged in trade. From an early age began to collect old-printed Slavic books and old prints. In the 1840s he met Sakharov , Pogodin , I. Tsarsky, and others, and was indebted to them for many tips.

Karatayev undertook a number of trips around Russia and gathered one of the best collections of old-print books, which transferred (in 1858 ^[3] ) to the Imperial Public Library : St. Petersburg Vedomosti (No. 101 for 1861) published material by A. F. Bychkov “ The new acquisition of the Imperial Public Library ", which referred to the collection of old printed books of I. P. Karataev, consisting of 485 volumes.

The first bibliographic work of Karatayev was "The chronological list of Slavic books printed in Cyrillic letters from 1491 - 1730. " (St. Petersburg, 1861), containing brief descriptions of 1581 old printed editions; This work was awarded the Demidov Prize for recalling Vostokov ). The most significant work of Karatayev is “Description of Slavic-Russian books printed in Cyrillic letters”: the first edition was published in 1878 and described 147 editions that were published in 1491 - 1600 , and the second edition ( 1883 ) deals with 686 books, published up to the year 1652 . This edition is very detailed in the descriptions; many prefaces and afterwords of the first printers, including Ivan Fedorov, are reprinted in it. "Description" Karataeva was an important milestone in the study of the early stages of Russian typography. In addition, Karatayev republished the “Osmogloshnik of 1491 printed in Krakow” (St. Petersburg, 1876 ; includes a snapshot of the monument and an article by Karatayev about it).

Karatayev was a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences and the Imperial Public Library; a member of the Society of Russian History and Antiquities .