Kiryat Melekh Rav (City of the great King) (Psalms 48:3), a chronicle of Petrograd (St. Petersburg) from its founding. Includes descriptions of important locations and sights of interest in the city.

Kalman Schulman (1819-99) was a Hebrew author, historian, poet and writer of the Haskalah. Born at in Stari Bichov, Belorussia, he had a traditional Jewish education, studying,from 1835, for six years, in the famed Volozhin yeshivah. Schulman left Volozhin for Vilna to obtain medical treatment for an eye infection. In Vilna he entered the “Klaus” of R. Elijah Gaon. However, attracted by the Haskalah, Schulman studied Bible, grammar, and German independently. Soon after he left Vilna and went to Kalvariya, where he became an instructor in Hebrew and commenced the grammatical study of the Hebrew and German languages. In 1843 he returned to Vilna, where he entered the yeshivah of R. Israel Ginsberg (Zaryechev), from whom he received ordination. Schulman, who supported himself by tutoring the sons of affluent families, joined the circle of maskilim in the town and became a close friend of the poet Micah Joseph Lebensohn (1828-52). From 1849 to 1861 he taught Hebrew language and literature in the high school attached to the state rabbinical school. After leaving this post he devoted himself to literary work.

Schulman first became known as a writer through a petition addressed by him to Sir Moses Montefiore in 1846 on behalf of those Jews who had resided within the limit of fifty versts from the German and Austrian boundary-lines, and who by a special law of the Russian government had been driven from their homes. The beauty and clearness of his diction made such an impression on Loewe, the friend and secretary of Montefiore, that he expressed a great desire to become acquainted with the author. Through him Schulman was introduced to the poet Isaac Baer Levinsohn (1788-1860) and to the other Progressivists in Vilna. From this time forward his literary activity was redoubled. His first publication was a funeral oration delivered on the occasion of the death of Rabbi Ginsberg, and printed under the title Kol Bokhim. This was followed in 1848 by Safah Berurah, a collection of proverbs and epigrams. Schulman was under contract with Romm publishers, who paid him a pittance that scarcely enabled him to support his family.

In his writings Schulman’s aim was to bring about a Jewish renaissance in Russia. He knew that the only language by means of which this aim might be reached was Hebrew, which he believed had been neglected for centuries. He set out to resuscitate it. Schulman, in his writings, limited himself to the use of strictly Biblical terms, but so expert was he in the use of Hebrew that there was hardly any shade of thought or any modern idea that he could not easily express in that language. The result was that he came to be the most widely read Jewish author. He succeeded in creating a new epoch by implanting in the hearts of his brethren a new love for literature and science, and by showing them that they had a glorious and resplendent history, and that outside of their dark, cramped quarters in Russia there existed a beautiful world.

His books, mostly translations, were intended to spread Haskalah among the Hebrew reading public and youth. Schulman was moderate and careful in expressing his ideas, and his books, many of which went through several editions, were also popular in Orthodox circles. His widely read abridged translation of Mystires de Paris (1857–60 and five more editions in the next half-century), an adventure novel by the French writer, Eugine Sue, was an innovative experiment in the translation of a contemporary novel into Hebrew; it triggered a dispute, for the conservative circles believed it was sacrilegious to use the Hebrew language for a description of the Paris underworld. This controversy probably deterred Schulman from translating more novels, and he devoted himself to translating and adapting scientific books. Divrei Yemei Olam, a history in nine volumes, based on Georg Weber and other German historians, was commissioned by Hevrat Mefizei Haskalah (Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia; 1867–84). His translation of Josephus from German into Hebrew, focusing on the Wars of the Jews (1861–63), was the first rendition of the Jewish historian into Hebrew. His book on Bar Kokhba's heroism, Harisot Beitar (1858), was influential and popular. Schulman, a prolific contributor to the Hebrew press, published a series of books and compilations dealing with the history of Palestine and its environs, Toledot Hakhmei Yisrael (4 vols., 1873–78). Schulman used a florid biblical Hebrew, and was skillful in the presentation of new terms. His books in their time played an important role in developing the Hebrew reading public. Among his other works are Safah Berurah (1848) and the geographies, Mosedei Erez (1871–77), and Mehkerei Erez Rusyah (1870).

תולדות פעטערבורג הבירה מיום הוסדה עד היום הזה, תורת היכליה, טירותיה וארמנותיה... חבר מאת קלמן שולמאן.