A library in Moscow

[George Thompson]

About fifteen years ago I found at one of Berkeley's many good bookstores a
three-volume set of Darmesteter's _Le Zend Avesta_, published in 1892 in
the Annales du Muse'e Guimet. A very attractive set of D's translations and
commentaries, with valuable photographs and diagrams of Zoroastrian
rituals, ritualists, and ritual implements, etc. A real treasure.

The set had once belonged to the Joseph M. Gleason Library [a library of
San Francisco State Univ., I suppose?] from which it was withdrawn. There
is a hand-written note in the first volume, made by an Ernest Dawson,
stating that the set had been bought by him in Moscow in May 1937.

There is a faint, faded stamp below this note indicating that the set had
once belonged to "Biblioteka Moskovskoi Dyxovnoi Akademii", i.e., "The
Library of the Moscow Spiritual Academy."

I have often wondered about the sort of persons who may have studied at
this academy and pored over the pages of these old, now very fragile,
books.

Would anyone on the list know anything about this academy? What was the
fate of such organizations in general?

Just curious.

George Thompson