In Memory of Gottfried Kratz: Historian of Books and Librarianship

The purpose of this review is to demonstrate the relevance of factual literature based on the memoirs of a man who made a significant contribution to the development of the humanities and book culture. The collection of articles and materials, Gottfried Kratz: Man, Scholar, Colleague, Friend (Moscow, 2025), was prepared by the Turgenev Society in Moscow with the support of the I.S. Turgenev Library and Reading Room. The book is dedicated to the memory of Gottfried Kratz (1947–2022), a renowned German Slavist, librarian, researcher of the history of Russian book publishing abroad, and a member of the editorial boards of the journals Bibliography and Bibliography and Bibliology, as well as the encyclopedia Germans of Russia. The book under review includes information about the life and work of G. Kratz, the memoirs of relatives and colleagues, and the scholar’s articles on I.S. Turgenev. Of particular value are two previously unpublished articles by G. Kratz on the history of printing, as well as a selected bibliography of his works.