A new year sees new or renewed resolutions for some of us.  Today, I thought I’d do some more updating of the infamous “records in non-roman scripts” that we’ve written about before, where affected books have no proper record in the online catalogue.  This time I took myself off for an hour or so to the UL’s North Front to focus on books in the Ukrainian and Caucasus history sections, fixing in total four books in Ukrainian, one in Georgian, and eight in Russian.  Not crazily high numbers, but the work takes time and care – and every addition of a good catalogue record is a positive for the reader.  This post looks at the four Ukrainian books, and ends with a link to a Mass Observation project paper about new year resolutions…

Karpatsʹki kurhany pershoï polovyny I tysi︠a︡cholitti︠a︡ nashoï ery / M.I︠U︡. Smishko.  A 1960 book about kurgan grave mounds in the Carpathians that date back to the first centuries AD.

Zymnivsʹke horodyshche : slovʹi︠a︡nsʹka pamʹi︠a︡tka VI-VII st. n.e. v Zakhidniĭ Volyni / V.V. Aulikh.  This one is also archaeological – a 1972 book about a Korchak culture site in western Ukraine.

Pry dz︠h︡erelakh borotʹby : spomyny, vraz︠h︡enni︠a︡, refleksiï / Mykola Kovalevsʹkyĭ.  A 1960 posthumously published autobiography of the Ukrainian politician Mykola Kovalevsʹkyĭ (1892-1957).  The book I fetched from the shelf at 588:4.c.95.284 now turned out to be a duplicate copy, since we had taken another copy in a donation about 12 years ago when the catalogue suggested we didn’t have one already (the donated copy stands at 9004.d.7357).  Happily, the presence of the hidden copy on the open shelves allowed readers at least to bump into it by chance if not by catalogue; it has been borrowed in 2012 and 2021.

Z︠H︡ovtenʹ i ukraïnsʹka kulʹtura : zbirnyk materialiv z miz︠h︡narodnoho sympoziumu = Október a Ukrajinská kultúra : zborník materiálov z medzinárodného sympózia / [redakt︠s︡iĭna kolehii︠a︡: Mykhaĭlo Rychalka (holovnyĭ redaktor) … et al.].  An eye-catching find, this one, even if the photo above doesn’t do it justice.  Like many of the books in the UL, this had been hardbound by the Library with its paperback cover retained inside, keeping its red colour really fresh.  This is a conference publication on the October Revolution and Ukrainian culture, with papers in Ukrainian, Slovak, and Russian accompanied by useful summaries in English and German.  I’ve included photos above of its two-page English list of contents.

For readers who’ve made it this far and are debating the usefulness of New Year resolutions themselves, here is a prize: a short and diverting Mass Observation paper, File report 3183 : new year’s resolutions, November 1949.  One panel member declares that resolutions “cannot possibly be kept throughout the year, and are usually a mere palliative for an uneasy conscience, only too well aware of its master’s weakness and faults”.  Others still believe in their usefulness, with various specific resolutions listed.  If you have got any, best of luck with them.  Try not to be like the person who the Mass Observation project wrote to a year after he’d described his resolution in some detail, asking how he got on.  “Unfortunately he did not reply”.

Mel Bach