These 14 books, on history, literature, theatre, the 2014- Russian war against Ukraine, law, and broader geopolitics, came to us in late 2023 and have just been catalogued. Their iDiscover records (linked to further down) will be shown in their updated form late in the morning of the day after this is posted.
Our last Slavonic item of the month for 2023 is a newly purchased ebook about the history of books and printing in Ukraine. Z istoriï knyz︠h︡kovoï kulʹtury Ukraïny [From the history of the book culture of Ukraine] looks at items in the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine. It contains the following 4 main sections, which contain a total of 15 chapters. I give the 3 chapters that fall under the all-important library section. Continue reading “Ukrainian book culture : the December 2023 Slavonic item of the month”
One of the Christmas carols sung this year by the Library choir was a version of The holly and the ivy. This inspired me to choose greenery associated with Christmas for this year’s festive blog post. Christmas trees (a little more on these later) have had brief mentions in previous years (2020’s A very merry online Christmas and 2014’s Christmas comes but once a year) but other traditional Christmas plants such as holly, ivy and mistletoe are new territory here and provide the opportunity to showcase some wonderful botanical art from across the centuries contained in UL books.
In pre-Christian pagan times evergreen plants were used to help celebrate the winter solstice festival, warding off evil spirits. Later on, the plants were given meaning by the Christian church. The fact that many of us today still continue the ancient tradition of decorating our spaces with greenery is rather pleasing. In my house, we will have a holly wreath on the door, ivy adorning the staircase and the tops of pictures, and mistletoe strategically placed for a kiss or two! Continue reading “Glorious Christmas greenery”
Every month, the Library of Congress publishes new additions and changes to their subject headings (LCSH). The October 2023 list of approved changes focused on Ukraine, and this post gives a quick summary of them. They all relate to the events of 2013 and 2014 onwards, to the present day.
Continue reading “Changes to Ukraine-related bibliographic subject headings”
We recently received a gift of books from the Latvian Embassy in London, some in Latvian, some in English, some in both, and all about Latvia and Latvian culture. Details are provided below, in reverse date order of publication, from 2021 to 2018.
This month, the Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics Faculty Library and the UL received their copies of the 2023 book Mova-mech : i︠a︡k hovoryla radi︠a︡nsʹka imperii︠a︡ [Language-sword : how the Soviet empire spoke] by I︠E︡vhenii︠a︡ Kuzni︠e︡t︠s︡ova. The book had been requested by the Language Teaching Officer in Ukrainian at the Faculty, and the libraries had agreed to buy a copy each.
The 374-page book contains 87 short chapters covering the history and various aspects of Soviet language policy and its effect, including on Ukraine and Ukrainian. The book’s table of contents can currently be seen as snapshots on the publisher’s page for the title. Continue reading “Language-sword : the November 2023 Slavonic item of the month”
The question of restitution of spoliated cultural works currently engages most European countries, especially former colonizing nations. It came into the forelight in France when President Emmanuel Macron advocated for the “return of African heritage” during a visit to Burkina Fasso in 2017. This blog post will look at the headlines of France’s handling of the question of restitution with the details of related books inserted throughout.
Macron commissioned a study by two academics, Bénédicte Savoy (then History professor at the Collège de France in Paris, now at the Technical University of Berlin) and Felwine Sarr (a writer, then Economics professor at Gaston Berger University, Senegal, now in the Romance studies department at Duke University, US). Their report on The Restitution of African cultural heritage: Toward a New Relational Ethics was published in 2018: it examined the history and current state of publicly owned French collections of African artworks originating from illicit or disputed acquisitions, as well as claims and recommendations for preparing restitutions. From a wider perspective, they recommended international and inter-African cooperation, improved access to research, archives and documentation (including through digitisations), to fill the gap relating to the preservation, study and wider appreciation of African culture. This would imply training, circulation of temporary exhibitions, as well as educational initiatives to ensure transmission of African cultural heritage.
This week saw the 10th anniversary of the start of the protests on Maidan Nezalez︠h︡nosti (Independence Square) in Kyïv against President Yanukovych’s sudden shift away from a closer formal relationship with the EU. A few months ago, our English collections lead, Rebecca, bought a new book by Dr Giovanni Ercolani about the memory and interpretation of the events that started in 2013, called The Maidan Museum : preserving the spirit of Maidan : art, identity, and the Revolution of Dignity.
Continue reading “10 years on : a look at the Maidan Museum”
Dr Dan Knorr of the Faculty of History explains the significance of a huge new Chinese acquisition.
It is no secret that the study of China, especially in the premodern period, is heavily conditioned by the availability of source material. Both the opening of archives and the digitization of archival materials have opened up exciting new avenues for research in recent decades. However, concerns about both physical and digital access to these materials temper optimism about this trend stretching endlessly into the future. Moreover, the uneven regional and chronological distribution of historical materials available to and appreciated by scholars continues to impose limits on our understanding of China.
Against this backdrop, the University Library’s recent acquisition of the 200-volume collection Shandong wen xian ji cheng 山东文献集成 offers exciting opportunities for scholars of China across the premodern and modern periods.
Continue reading “New Chinese acquisition: Shandong wen xian ji cheng 山东文献集成”
A quick post today about some Ukrainian books that arrived just this week.
Languages across Borders 