earticle

한국어

This study examines the process and principles used by Olga Petrova to compile the Description of the Written Heritage of Korean Culture, a catalog of old Korean books held by the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in Russia, which was published in two volumes, in 1956 and 1963. The paper investigates Petrova’s use of reference books to characterize all 131 materials included in Volume 2 of the Description. The analysis shows that Bibliographie Coréenne by Maurice Courant and A list of old Korean books (古鮮冊譜) by Maema Kyosaku are the most frequent references. Petrova referred to these two works to describe 76 and 68 old books, respectively. Petrova referred to A list of Korean books held in Toyo Bunko (東洋文庫朝鮮本分類目錄) and A Bibliography of Korean Books (朝鮮圖書解題, 1932) to describe 36 and 32 old books, respectively. Twenty-two materials were not mentioned in any reference books that Petrova explored, and she characterizes these materials directly. The study also analyzes the principles of compilation Petrova employed in the Description by classifying them into the following four categories: 1) combining the content of various references, 2) identifying content that is different between references, 3) directly quoting the entire description contained in a reference, and 4) quoting a part of the description contained in a reference. These principles demonstrate that Petrova examined the content of each reference in detail and employed this content according to its characteristics.