Cancrinide raamatupärand Tartu Ülikooli raamatukogus

Abstract

The book heritage of the Cancrins in the University of Tartu Library

The Cancrins’ library held in the University of Tartu Library is one of the most remarkable, but so far little-studied, collections of the 18th–19th century scientific and professional literature. According to the register of donations for 1864, nearly 200
books were donated by the Russian Minister of Finance Georg von Cancrin, but the bulk of the collection comes from his father – Franz Ludwig von Cancrin, a well-known European mining engineer, architect and intellectual of the Age of
Enlightenment.

Franz Ludwig’s extensive career encompassed the mining and salt industries, architecture, water engineering and agriculture. That is why his collection is diverse: legal literature and manuals on mining, metallurgy, hydraulics and construction art form its most numerous parts. These publications provide a good overview of the technical knowledge
of the time, as well as of his connections with leading European scientists, especially Swedish and German naturalists. A large number of books bear Cancrin’s personal inscriptions and reflect his professional development and Enlightenment
thinking.

The collection also contains valuable manuscripts, including his own notes on building projects, innovations in salt production and improvements to machinery. These documents provide a rare direct insight into the engineering thought at the end of the 18th century.

Georg von Cancrin, who later became one of the most influential Ministers of Finance of the Russian Empire, supplemented the collection with works on economics, military administration and politics. His professional interests are reflected in numerous legal and administrative manuals, military supply protocols and publications on the development of science and art in Europe.

The value of the Cancrins’ library lies in its integrity and personal origin: few scholars of the 18th and  19th centuries have left behind such an extensive and well-documented private collection. It is a source of book history, an academic tool, and a
window into the history of the arrival of the knowledge
developed in Europe into the Baltic area.