Posts from the Slavic and East European Collections

Ani G. Ohanian a Doctoral Candidate at Clark University was a short-term research fellow at NYPL researching relations between the Bolsheviks and Kemalists in the South Caucasus.

"My research centers on sound changes since Common Slavic and how they are reflected in one of the Slavic dialects which demonstrates archaic language features."

In this episode Bogdan Horbal of NYPL and Smoki Musaraj of Ohio University, discussed photographer Lewis Wickes Hine's celebration of ethnic and cultural diversity as a manifesto against rising prejudice and discrimination against specific groups of immigrants.

The splendidly decorated Altar Gospel, prepared by command of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, was likely a benefaction to the Saint Alexander Nevsky Monastery in St. Petersburg.

A guest post by Smoki Musaraj, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Ohio University, who spent time at NYPL as a Short-Term Fellow.

NYPL's extensive collection of translations of Slavic folk and fairy tales shows a longstanding fascination with Slavic folklore in Russia and the West that the current young adult and popular markets are expanding upon.

22 Russian zines, most published within the last five years, have been added to our collections. They cover a wide spectrum of topics from politics, feminism, housing development, cats, and much more.

The Imperial Russian Newspapers collection comprises out-of-copyright newspapers spanning the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, up to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

Zlatá Praha was a Czech illustrated magazine that was first published in 1864-1865 and later in 1884-1929. Almost all of its content has been digitized.

Uwagi tygodniowe warszawskie was the first Polish periodical fully dedicated to the subject of agricultural development. Only 52 weekly issues were published (1768-1769). The NYPL's copy carries the handwritten notes of the previous owner(s) and some parts of the text are underlined in red pencil.

We've begun a pilot project to acquire scholarly e-books in Russian on topics such as history, politics, international relations, religion and philosophy, biographies, literary criticism, and reference sources.

N. Kymmel was a bookstore, a publishing house, and an antiquarian book dealer based in Riga (Russian Empire, later Latvia). The NYPL started purchasing books from it soon after establishing the Slavonic Division in 1899.

Like many of us, Klots' research routine has pivoted to materials he can access from his home office.

Khudozhestvennyia sokrovishcha Rossii [Artistic Treasures of Russia] is one of the best Russian periodicals on art from the beginning of the 20th century.

The digital archive includes over 40,000 pages with full page-level digitization, complete original graphics, and keyword searchable text.

"Life was difficult in Shanghai, but infinitely better than anything they had left behind. From lower-middle-class comfort, the Tobias family was reduced to poverty but not to starvation. There was always food, always something to eat, always shelter even when the Jewish community was ghettoized shortly after Pearl Harbor. Thus even under terribly difficult conditions Moses Tobias was able to take care of his family but under the Nazis the conditions of the Jews were far worse than merely 'terribly difficult.'

"Shanghai was a multiethnic city and the 

Russia — what does it make you think of? Cold winters, fur hats, vast forests, and perhaps some vodka and caviar? As a Russian historian in training, I want to help people understand that Russia is much more complex than these simple images suggest, 

According to the BBC News, "Islam is widely considered Europe's fastest growing religion, with immigration and above average birth rates leading to a rapid increase in the Muslim population." There are currently over 15 million Muslims (Sunni and Shiite) living in Europe and Islam is currently the second largest religion in the world after Christianity.

This blog post will focus on NYPL’s rich collection on the history of Islam in Europe: past and present; the historical, political, cultural, and 

Miniature children's booksI might be old school, but my favorite way of picking what to read, watch, listen, or even do research on, is by browsing. Letting inspiration be a part of what I learn next. Unfortunately, browsing is out of the question when one deals with closed stacks, offsite storage, and of course special collections.

As a Specialist in the Library’s Special Formats Processing department, what my colleagues and I mostly work on making available to the public is exactly the kinds of materials one cannot find on the open shelves.

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