scholarly journals The National Library of Poland During the Coronavirus Pandemic: A Brief History of The First Nine Months of the State of Emergency

2020 ◽  
pp. 38-56
Author(s):  
Tomasz Makowski

Thesis/Objective – This article describes the situation of the National Library of Poland (BNP) during the first nine months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The BNP played multiple roles at the same time: as the biggest library in Poland it provided readers with safe access to its unique collections; it acted as the central body for cataloguing the latest publications for libraries in Poland; and as the country’s central state library it issued recommendations for the 30,000+ libraries across Poland. Results/Conclusions – A paramount concern was ensuring the safety of the employees and readers of the BNP and other Polish libraries, as well as issuing instructions on what libraries should be doing during the pandemic. The BNP offered support for institutions which found themselves at a loss under these extraordinary circumstances. The BNP maintained its key activities during the period, especially cataloguing the legal deposit intake of new publications.

Author(s):  
Hermina G.B. Anghelescu

In 1955, 54 years after the incorporation of the Central Library of the State into the Library of the Romanian Academy, the Central Library of the People's Republic of Romania was established. It was open to all Romanians over the age of 18. In 1990, various measures were introduced in an attempt to do away with the communist order, including changes in staff. The library's name was changed to the National Library of Romania. In 1995 the library was connected to the Internet, but only library staff had access. The library is still in a ‘temporary’ building occupied in 1957; collections continue to be moved around, and only one third is accessible. Following the December 2000 elections, it is hoped that there will now be additional funding for automation, collection development and staffing, and also finance to continue the construction of the new building for the library, which was started in 1987. However, so far the situation has become worse rather than better.


Author(s):  
Semen M. Iakerson

Hebrew incunabula amount to a rather modest, in terms of number, group of around 150 editions that were printed within the period from the late 60s of the 15th century to January 1, 1501 in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Turkey. Despite such a small number of Hebrew incunabula, the role they played in the history of the formation of European printing cannot be overlooked. Even less possible is to overestimate the importance of Hebrew incunabula for understanding Jewish spiritual life as it evolved in Europe during the Renaissance.Russian depositories house 43 editions of Hebrew incunabula, in 113 copies and fragments. The latter are distributed as following: the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences — 67 items stored; the Russian State Library — 38 items; the National Library of Russia — 7 items; the Jewish Religious Community of Saint Petersburg — 1 item. The majority of these books came in public depositories at the late 19th — first half of the 20th century from private collections of St. Petersburg collectors: Moses Friedland (1826—1899), Daniel Chwolson (1819—1911) and David Günzburg (1857—1910). This article looks into the circumstances of how exactly these incunabula were acquired by the depositories. For the first time there are analysed publications of Russian scholars that either include descriptions of Hebrew incunabula (inventories, catalogues, lists) or related to various aspects of Hebrew incunabula studies. The article presents the first annotated bibliography of all domestic publications that are in any way connected with Hebrew incunabula, covering the period from 1893 (the first publication) to the present. In private collections, there was paid special attention to the formation of incunabula collections. It was expressed in the allocation of incunabula as a separate group of books in printed catalogues and the publication of research works on incunabula studies, which belonged to the pen of collectors themselves and haven’t lost their scientific relevance today.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-102
Author(s):  
V. A. Aleksandrova ◽  

The article is devoted to the history of an unrealized performance of M. P. Mussorgsky’s opera "Khovanshchina" orchestrated by B. V. Asafyev. On the basis of archival documents, stored in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts, the Russian National Museum of Music, Central State Archive of Literature and Art of Saint Petersburg, the Bolshoi Theatre Museum, most of which are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, studied the circumstances under which the opera was planned to be staged in the State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet (nowadays — the Mariinsky Theatre). Fragments from the reports of the Artistic Council of Opera at the State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet meetings, the correspondence between B. V. Asafyev and P. A. Lamm, the manuscript "P. A. Lamm. A Biography" by O. P. Lamm and other unpublished archival documents are cited. The author comes to the conclusion that most attempts to perform "Khovanshchina" were hindered by the difficult socio-political circumstances of the 1930s, while the existing assumptions about the creative failure of the Asafyev’s orchestration don’t find clear affirmation, neither in historical documents, nor in the existing manuscript of the orchestral score.


Author(s):  
Alexander Y. Samarin

The article presents the analysis of the new book of the famous bibliophile, researcher and populariser of rare books and bibliophilism, the Chairman of the National Union of Bibliophiles M.V. Seslavinsky about the history of creation, specific aspects of publishing and art design of the famous bibliophilic edition “Cantata” by A.A. Sidorov (Moscow, 1921). Comic verses of the future famous bibliologist and art critic, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR became the text for the first edition of the Russian society of the friends of books (1920—1929), the largest Association of booklovers of the 1920s. Two small runs totalled only 20 copies. The study is based primarily on the copies of “Cantata” preserved in the state collections (the Russian State Library, the State Tretyakov Gallery) and private collections, including the M.V. Seslavinsky’s one. The discovery of new documents on the history of the publication allowed restoring the list of owners of the autographed copies. Using the copy-by-copy method, the researcher succeeded in describing the numerous design options of the rarity of bibliophile publishing. The use of art-historical methods allowed to finally establish that the prototype for the image on the engraving “Bibliophile in 1920” (artist N.B. Baklanov, engraver I.N. Pavlov) was A.N. Benoit, the famous painter. The author introduces into circulation the handwritten poetic epistles of A.A. Sidorov to the owners of the autographed copies and other unique materials about preparation for printing, distribution and provenance of “Cantata”. In general, it can be concluded that M.V. Seslavinsky’s approaches to the analysis of “Cantata” can become basic in the study of bibliophile book as a special cultural phenomenon and trend in book publishing.


Author(s):  
D. V. Repnikov

The article is devoted to such an important aspect of the activities of the plenipotentiaries of the State Defensive Committee during the Great Patriotic War, as conflicts of authority. Contradictions between the plenipotentiaries of the State Defensive Committee and the leaders of party, state, economic bodies at various levels, as well as between the plenipotentiaries themselves, that were expressed in the emergence of various disputes and often resulted in conflicts of authority, became commonplace in the functioning of the state power system of the USSR in the war period. Based on documents from federal (State Archive of the Russian Federation, Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, Russian State Archive of Economics) and regional (Central State Archive of the Udmurt Republic, Center for Documentation of the Recent History of the Udmurt Republic) archives, the author considers a conflict of authority situation that developed during the Great Patriotic War in the Udmurt Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which shows that historical reality is more complicated than the stereotypical manifestations of it.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Hawkins

Purpose This paper explores the development of a luxury retail shoe brand in Belle Époque Vienna. Design/methodology/approach Footwear retailing and marketing history is a neglected area. Unfortunately, no business records have survived from Robert Schlesinger’s shoe stores. However, it has been possible to reconstruct the history of the development of the Paprika Schlesinger brand from its extensive advertising in the Viennese newspaper, the Neue Freie Presse, with the guidance of the founder’s grandson, Prof Robert A. Shaw, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, Birkbeck, University of London, England. This case study would not have been possible without the digitization of some major collections of primary sources. In 2014, the European Union’s Europeana digitization initiative launched a new portal via the Library of Europe website which provides access to selected digitized historic newspaper collections in libraries across Europe. The project partners include the Austrian National Library which has digitized full runs of several major historic Austrian newspapers, including the Neue Freie Presse. Other project partners which have digitized historic newspapers which are relevant to this paper are the Landesbibliothek Dr Friedrich Teßmann of Italy’s Südtirol region, the National Library of France and the Berlin State Library. An associate project partner library, the Slovenian National and University Library’s Digital Library of Slovenia, has also digitized relevant historic newspapers. Furthermore, the City of Vienna has digitized a complete set of Vienna city directories as part of its Wienbibliothek Digital project. Findings This paper suggests that Robert Schlesinger created one of the first European luxury retail shoe brands. Originality/value This is the first academic study of the historical development of the advertising and marketing of a European luxury retail shoe brand.


Author(s):  
Vladimir P. Bogdanov

The article is devoted to the history of acquisition of the municipal and state repositories with early printed Cyrillic monuments in the 19th — 21st centuries. The aim of the research is to show the process of acquisition of the collections of state museums, archives and libraries of Russia. The author uses descriptions of the books from the catalogues published with the participation or under the guidance of experts in archaeography of the Moscow State University (MSU) named after M.V. Lomonosov. They cover the collections of the MSU Scientific Library, as well as the collections of museums, archives and libraries of Tver, Yaroslavl and Perm Regions, as well as the State Historical, Architectural and Ethnographic Museum-Reserve “Kizhi”.As a total there are involved 3953 descriptions containing information about the date and source of acquisition of the books to the repositories. The author concluded that archaeographic expeditions made a great contribution to the replenishment of the collections of the early printed Cyrillic monuments (860 books), but this contribution was not decisive. The most part of the unique monuments got into repositories as private donations or were purchased in old book shops, or during the expropriation of Church valuables. Only in the 1920s there were obtained 1068 books from the Church libraries.Significant event in the life of repositories in the twentieth century was more or less permanent redistribution of stocks between the major collections. The most part of the early printed Cyrillic books (almost half of them already introduced into scientific discourse), preserved now in the Scientific Library of the Moscow State University, was obtained not in the course of expeditionary work, but as a result of transfer of the books from the V.I. Lenin State Library of the USSR, the State Public Historical Library of Russia, the State Historical Museum and the Moscow Kremlin Museums.


2021 ◽  
pp. 181-191
Author(s):  
Alexei F. Losev ◽  
Elena A. Takho-Godi

The publication covers an obscure episode from the scientific biography of the great Russian philosopher Alexei Losev related to his work in the 1920s at the State Academy of Artistic Sciences (GAKhN). For the first time, Losev’s thirteen articles from Research Department of manuscripts of the Russian State Library [f. 81 (State Academy of art studies), inv. 26, item 1] are put into scientific circulation: “Antiquity”, “Apollinism”, “Harmony”, “Dionysism”, “Callistics”, “Calocagathia”, “Catharsis”, “Cosmic feeling”, “Cosmos”, “Logos”, “Mania”, “Mathematics and art”, “Melos”. This articles were written in the second half of the 1920s and were intended for a publishing project of the State Academy of Artistic Sciences – the first volume of the multi-volume “Encyclopedia of Artistic Sciences”, conceived in 1922 as a “Dictionary of Artistic Terminology”. The project was never realized. The topics of the articles reflect the range of the scientific problems that interested Losev in the 1920s as well as his special attention to the study of terminology, which found its full implementation in the 1970 – 1980s during the work on “The History of Classical Aesthetics”.


Author(s):  
Sergii Berezin ◽  

The article is based on archival materials from the collections of the State Archives of Odessa Region, Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine (Kiev) and the Russian State Library (Moscow). These materials provide documental confirmation of the little-known facts of the biography of George Afanas`ev, the famous historian and educator, journalist, banker and diplomat, public and state figure. The represented source base allows to refine and supplement the information from the historiography about the life and work of Afanas`ev in the period of his stay in Odessa and activity in the Novorossiysky University. Some of these documents are published and introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.


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