We have some of the leading research collections in the world for the study of Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the former USSR, giving strong support for research in arts and humanities, social sciences, Slavonic studies and Soviet and East and Central European studies.

Collection guides

Reading Room  Paul Grundy

St Pancras Reading Rooms

At St Pancras we have 11 Reading Rooms, each specialising in a different subject area or type of material and with different opening hours. In our Reading Rooms you can:

  • Consult books, journals and other items from our collections
  • Access a wide range of electronic resources and electronic journals
  • Consult subject guides, bibliographies and other research aids

If you need help, please ask our Reference Specialists at the enquiry desks or contact the Reference Service.

We offer a range of free Reader sessions and 1-2-1 consultations to help you make the best use of the Library's collections.

You’ll need a Reader Pass

Opening hours for all Reading Rooms

Blog posts

PhD Studentship opportunity – The Belarus Collection at the British Library

Thursday, April 27, 2023

Queen Mary University of London and the British Library are pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded Collaborative Doctoral Studentship from 1 October 2023 under the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Scheme. This doctoral project seeks to advance postcolonial...

Siberian Ethnographic Museums: Indigenous Lives Exhibited

Wednesday, April 19, 2023

In his autobiographical novel The Chukchi Bible, Yuri Rytkheu tells the story of how his grandfather, Mletkin, a Chukchi shaman from the village of Uelen, in the Russian Far East, was put on display for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition...

The Colonisation of Novaya Zemlya through the Photographs and Short Stories of Konstantin Nosilov

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Content warning: This blog reproduces an image of a dead animal; the vocabulary drawn from the original texts is now considered racist. Thanks to the typo of British cartographers, Stephen and William Borough – who in the 16th century created...

Digital Shevchenkiana – a Joint English-Ukrainian Project

Friday, March 10, 2023

Do not forget, with good intent Speak quietly of me (Taras Shevchenko, ‘Testament’, translated by Vera Rich) Every year, on 9-10 March, ‘Shevchenko’s Days’ (Shevchenkivs’ki dni) are celebrated in Ukraine. The national poet, founder of modern Ukrainian literature and famous...

More blog posts

Library experts

Dr Katya Rogatchevskaia

Lead Curator East European Collections

Janet Zmroczek

Head of European and Americas Collections

Milan Grba

Lead Curator of South East European Collections

Case studies

More Case studies
…It gave me the opportunity to work in a cultural institution…

Katie's collaborative PhD explores Russian women’s journalism during the 1917 Russian revolutions and civil war.

Shop

1917: Stories and Poems from the Russian Revolution

Explore electrifying poems and prose pieces written between 1917 and 1919 in the full tumult of the Russian Revolution.

£8.99

Propaganda: Power and Persuasion

Take a close look at the range of propaganda used by different states – and their opponents.

£19.99

Russian Revolution

The catalogue to accompany our major exhibition takes a fresh look at the Russian Revolution 100 years on.

£25