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annual fee of ten rubles. In 1898 there were 10,000 books in
this big Russian-language library at Olevmägi 8, and 15,000
lendings, which was a very good indicator. This library was
gladly used by Tallinn’s secondary school pupils who, as the
head of the provincial gendarme government complained,
“chose literature of a certain tendency”, for the school library
languished at the mercy of the list of approved books. At
the beginning of the Estonian Republic in 1918 the Tallinn
Central Library applied to takeover the leaderless Maritime
Library but it went to the general staff administration.
At the beginning of the century there were three public
libraries (with “approved” books) in Tallinn: two Estonian
– the libraries of the Tallinn Estonian Handicraftworkers’
Society and the temperance society “Valvaja” (Guardian),
both established in 1903 – and one Russian-Estonian
– the library of the Tallinn Temperance Committee, also
established in 1903.
The two first ones, as can be seen by their names,
belonged to societies, but both had many members and
were important to the Estonian population of the city. Both
of them had literature that was missing from the approved
books list, altogether illegally. The police found this in the
Handicraftworkers’ Society Library and closed the society
down in1906.
The third, belonging to the Temperance Committee, not
to be confused with the Temperance Society, was a state
institution totally loyal to the czar, but still asked for 10–20
kopecks a month or a whole ruble annually. The library was
located in Mündi street. For this purpose the Temperance
Committee asked for support from the new city council.
This was not granted and the city council established the
Tallinn Municipal Free Public Library and Reading Room
instead. The Temperance Committee Library carried on
and in 1913 created another library in Vabriku street.
Now we have considered all the predecessors of
the TLMAR. As we can see the picture is not rich in
achievement. In order to see Tallinn against the background
of other cities, particularly Tartu, we present the following
figures regarding the number of libraries beginning in the
1870s. As before this does not include official goverment
institutions or school libraries.
We see that Tallinn, which was always considerably bigger
than Tartu, only managed to catch up as regards the number
of libraries in 1905, and then overtake. Of course comparing
figures in a table is questionable, for a mouse (some small
library) might land next to a giant (such as a university
library), but it does present a certain picture, if we correct
it with the importance of each city’s libraries to Estonian
culture – in Tartu the Estonian Learned Society, Estonian
Writers Society, Estonian Students Society, The Estonian
National Museum Library, not to mention the university
library, which by every measure surpasses Tallinn’s.
For a long time, until the 1870s, the power in Tallinn’s
municipal authorities was with the great merchants and
the so-called literati. Starting in 1877 the power was in
the city council chosen from among German merchants
and property owners. This ran educational matters for
the Estonian city dwellers out of necessity. The demand
for a general educational institution like a library would
have been met with a shrugging of shoulders. But in 1904
Estonians won a great victory in the city council: Of 60 seats
Estonians won 38 and Russians 5. The new city councillors
were Ferdinand Karlson, Voldemar Lender, Jaan Poska,
Mihkel Pung, Konstantin Päts, Otto Strandman and Jaan
Teemant. They are all shining lights in Estonian history.
The Estonian-minded city council influenced the city
administration to improve education, social welfare and
health care. Quite naturally the creation of a free library
for the city’s population with literature in the “three local
languages” came under discussion: one-third Estonian, onethird German, one-third Russian. As became clear in the
previous development of libraries, the establishment and
running of such a library only became meaningful in 1906
when the central Russian government ended the oppression
of public and people’s libraries with lists of banned and
approved books.
1870
Tallinn
Tartu
All cities
1875
1880
1885
1890
1895
1900
1905
1910
1915
4
8
22
4
1
27
8
13
36
8
13
41
10
13
39
10
15
49
14
20
70
22
22
89
29
24
126
48
30
164