Month: July 2014

Slavonic item of the month : July 2014

On By europeancollectionsIn New Acquisitions, Russian, Slavonic, Ukrainian2 Comments

The Russian and Ukrainian publishing markets have been quick off the mark to produce books which relate to the ongoing Ukrainian crisis.  For this month’s feature, we look at two specific examples, one from each country, and we also look at how library catalogue subject headings might be used for material on events in Ukraine.

Euromaidan and Crimea have become major subjects in the Ukrainian and Russian book markets, and the ongoing crisis in eastern Ukraine will no doubt follow suit as soon as manuscripts can be found which fit the bill.  The speed with which publications have appeared certainly make the University Library’s Slavonic book selector cynical, but the importance of our collections containing examples of books published in immediate reaction to such extraordinary events is not in doubt.

The front covers of Evromaidan imeni Stepana Bandera (left) and Nebesna sotnia (right)
The front covers of Evromaidan imeni Stepana Bandery (left) and Nebesna sotnia (right)

The two main examples featured here both relate to the Euromaidan protests which ultimately led to Ianukovych’s removal as president of Ukraine.  Through their covers, they are immediately illustrative of the extremely diverse views of the Maidan – were the protestors violent fascists or patriotic defenders?  The book on the left is Evromaidan imeni Stepana Bandery : ot demokratii k diktature (The Stepan Bandera Euromaidan : from democracy to dictatorship; C203.d.7080), a Russian-language study of right-wing extremism in Ukraine by Stanislav Byshok and Aleksei Kochetkov.  The book on the right is Nebesna sotnia : antolohiia maidanivs’kykh virshiv (The heavenly hundred : an anthology of Maidan poems; C203.d.7081), a volume of poems collected in memory of those who died during the Euromaidan protests.  The Molotov cocktail and bat in the hands of the protestor in the first have turned into a spear and a shield showing the Ukrainian trident in the second.  While the first is surrounded by fire and anarchy, the second marches with a companion – presumably towards the Berkut, the loathed riot police.

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Archives numériques de la Révolution française

On By europeancollectionsIn E-resources, French, Historical collectionsLeave a comment

The Archives numériques de la Révolution française (the French Revolution Digital Archive), a collaboration between the Stanford University Libraries and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, gives us an opportunity to highlight how online resources are enriching and supplementing the collections of libraries in Cambridge.

Screen shot of site
Screen shot of Archives numériques.

The goal of the Archives numériques de la Révolution française is to “produce a digital version of the key research sources of the French Revolution and make them available to the international scholarly community. The archive is based around two main resources, the Archives parlementaires and a vast corpus of images first brought together in 1989 and known as the Images de la Revolution française“.

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Operation Valkyrie 1944

On By europeancollectionsIn German, Historical collectionsLeave a comment

The most famous assassination attempt on the life of Adolf Hitler took place on July 20th 1944 at the Wolfsschanze or Wolf’s Lair headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. The plot was codenamed Operation Valkyrie and was led by the German aristocrat and army officer Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg in conjunction with General Friedrich Olbricht and General Ludwig Beck of the German general staff. The plot was the culmination of a more widespread anti-Nazi German resistance movement to overthrow Hitler and the Third Reich. This feature will commemorate the 70th anniversary of Operation Valkyrie and explore how the story of Stauffenberg and the July assassination plot is represented in the UL’s German collections.

Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (source)
Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (source)

Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was born in 1907 into the German aristocracy and began his military career in the 1920s before Hitler and the Nazis came to power in 1933. Although he was never a member of the Nazi party, he did support Hitler’s invasion of Poland at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and was severely wounded in action in Africa in 1942. It was not until 1942-43 that Stauffenberg became one of the central figures of the German resistance movement within the Wehrmacht and by July 1944 he was the main driving force behind the plot to assassinate Hitler.

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First editions of Eça de Queirós at Cambridge University Library

On By europeancollectionsIn Historical collections, PortugueseLeave a comment
A portrait by Antonio Carneiro, from Alves & Cia. (F192.d.12.2)

The University Library has recently acquired twelve original first editions of Eça de Queirós, one of the greatest novelists in Portuguese and a leading figure of the “Generation of 1870.”

Most of these first editions were published by Livraria Chardron, Léllo & Irmão, one of the oldest and most beautiful bookstores in Portugal, dating back to 1906 and still standing at 144, Rua das Carmelitas, in Porto. Eight out of the twelve editions were published posthumously, often at the initiative of Eça’s son, Jose María Eça de Queirós. They have all been catalogued and can be consulted in the Library’s Rare Books Room.

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Luis Buñuel: international iconoclast

On By europeancollectionsIn Historical collections, SpanishLeave a comment

Former University Library staff member Glynne Parker died in October 2011, and after his death his wonderful collection of printed matter and ephemera on film was presented to the Library. At the time of writing, about 50% of the 2800 items have been catalogued. The general collection will feature in a future blog post, but some material is particularly worthy of mention.

A young Luis Buñuel (top right) with friends, including Federico García Lorca (bottom right), Madrid, 1923. ((source))
A young Luis Buñuel (top right) with friends, including Federico García Lorca (bottom right), Madrid, 1923. (source)

The A.G. Parker Film History Collection contains several books about Luis Buñuel (1900-1983), an artist and man of great contrasts and contradictions: he was arguably the best-known and most significant Spanish filmmaker of the 20th century, but almost all of his most famous films were produced outside Spain; he achieved international fame (and infamy) with his first two features, Un chien andalou and L’âge d’or, but then took 20 years to get his filmmaking career properly underway again; he was a leader of the international Surrealist movement, but made one of cinema’s most critically acclaimed and influential realist works in Los olvidados.

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The cyclist as hero: Harry Graf Kessler and private press books (Special Collections blog)

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This post, written by guest author Dr Jaap Harskamp (formerly Curator of Dutch & Flemish collections at the British Library, who is now working on the University Library’s early Dutch books) celebrates the coming of the Tour de France to Cambridge.  It concerns Harry Graf Kessler and the connections between cycling and private press books.

The Eclogues of Vergil, in the original Latin. Edition limited to 264 copies [Weimar: Cranach Press, 1927], classmark Broxbourne.a.17 (p. [1])
The Eclogues of Vergil, in the original Latin. Edition limited to 264 copies [Weimar: Cranach Press, 1927], classmark Broxbourne.a.17 (p. [1])
The Library holds a number of collections of both printed and archival material of typographical interest such as the outstanding Stanley Morrison collection of books and papers, the Broxbourne collection, and others. It also has a considerable collection of printing artefacts associated with private presses (the Golden Cockerel Press, Eragny Press, and Ashendene Press amongst them) – including the punches, matrices and bookbinders’ tools from Harry Kessler’s Cranach Press.

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The cahiers of Marcel Proust

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In 2008 Brepols began to publish the 75 notebooks used by Marcel Proust between 1908 and his death in 1922 – Marcel Proust : cahiers 1 à 75 de la Bibliothèque nationale de France. The notebooks consist of some 8,000 handwritten pages, which are of fundamental importance for any study of the genesis of À la recherche du temps perdu. Barely a quarter had been published previously.

Proust cahiers - Covers
Proust cahiers – Covers

The cahiers are not being published sequentially. First to appear was cahier 54, which dates for the most part from 1914, approximately halfway through the composition of À la recherche du temps perdu. It deals almost entirely with the disappearance of Albertine and its aftermath. Three more cahiers have been published subsequently, numbers 26, 53 and 71.

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