In Russia, attitudes towards homosexuality ebbed and flowed, ranging from benign toleration in the wake of the October Revolution, through stigmatisation and criminalisation of same-sex (particularly male) desire in the Stalin era, to state-sponsored and politically motivated homophobia fostered by the current Russian regime. In the last decade, pro-Kremlin media outlets have peddled the idea of LGBTQ rights as a product of the decadent West and a tool of hybrid warfare posing a threat to national security and the Russian way of life. Much ink has been spilled over the censorship of LGBTQ content in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, where progressive authors are deemed ‘foreign agents’ and books referencing ‘non-traditional sexual relationships’ are sold wrapped in plastic and labelled with an adult content warning. While the picture is bleak, the country’s independent publishers attempt to challenge the regime by exposing and, ultimately, circumventing state censorship. This blog highlights works centred on LGBTQ experiences that attracted swathes of readers and caused a stir among Russian lawmakers.

Since the early 2010s, Russia’s stance on LGBTQ issues has been radically conservative. The legal enshrinement of compulsory heterosexuality and the systematic oppression of queer people began with the notorious anti-LGBTQ law, which severely restricted the ability to speak and educate about sexuality and gender issues. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin’s regime has tried to frame the conflict as a re-enactment of the Great Patriotic War, portraying Russia as a bulwark of tradition and vilifying the proponents of LGBTQ rights, secularism, and multiculturalism as modern-day fascists. Soon after Russian tanks rolled across Ukraine’s borders, the Kremlin initiated another ruthless crackdown on the LGBTQ community. This time around, the law introducing a complete ban on ‘gay propaganda’ was prompted by a teenage romance novel set at a Young Pioneer camp.

Covers of Leto v pionerskom galstuke and O chem molchit lastochka by Kateryna Sylvanova and Elena Malisova redesigned to comply with anti-LGBTQ laws in Russia. In order to draw attention to the censorship of literature, the publisher labelled the covers with Article 29.5 of the Russian Constitution. The Article reads: “The freedom of mass media shall be guaranteed. Censorship shall be prohibited.” Awaiting shelfmarks

Leto v pionerskom galstuke (‘Summer in a Pioneer Tie’), co-authored by Kateryna Sylvanova and Elena Malisova, is a lyrical coming-of-age novel about the clandestine relationship between two men who met at a summer camp in Soviet Ukraine in the 1980s. The book is not sexually explicit. Instead, the authors tenderly describe the experience of falling in love for the first time. Initially published in 2021 on a fan-fiction website, it was discovered by Popcorn Books, an imprint specialising in queer fiction. The book proved a runaway success, selling over 200,000 copies in its first year of publication. In 2022, it became the target of a witch hunt after the militant nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin called for the publishing house to be burned down. The novel and its sequel, O chem molchit lastochka (‘What the Swallow Won’t Say’), were hastily withdrawn from sale. The authors were declared ‘foreign agents’ and forced to flee the country.

As the term ‘propaganda of non-traditional relations’ remains undefined in the legislation, writers and editors have found themselves forced to guess what the unwritten rules are. For fear of charges for the violation of the draconian law, some publishers scrambled to censor LGBTQ themed literature ahead of the implementation of the new law in December 2022. One notable example was Max Falk’s debut novel Vdrebezgi (‘Shattered’), released by LikeBook in October 2022. With the author's consent, the publisher took the precaution of painting over approximately 3% of the text that contained descriptions of an intimate relationship between two men. The decision to visibly redact the ‘controversial’ sections rather than omit them was also made to draw public attention to state censorship without technically defying it. Despite these efforts, the novel was withdrawn from sales shortly after its publication.

Cover of Vdrebezgi by Max Fal'k. Awaiting shelfmark

Censorship has been equally pronounced in translated literature. Translated works are rarely acquired for the British Library's Russian Collection. However, we collect and preserve books targeted by the regime as they document the struggle for human rights and freedom of speech in Putin's Russia.

In April 2024, the publishing holding AST announced that several books capturing LGBTQ experiences were pulled from its website to comply with anti-gay propaganda laws, including Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life (‘Malen’kaia zhizn’), Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles (‘Pesn’ Akhilla’), James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room (‘Komnata Dzhovanni’), and Michael Cunningham’s A Home at the End of the World (‘Dom na kraiu sveta’). Furious at having to withdraw titles, AST released Roberto Carnero’s biography of the openly gay Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini with whole pages relating to his sexual orientation demonstratively inked out. The publisher sarcastically remarked that the redactions made the book ‘interactive’ as they allowed the reader to decide for himself whether to seek out the censored material through alternative channels. The initial print run of 1.500 copies sold out immediately, and another one was ordered to keep up with the demand.

Cover of Pazolini. Umeret’ za idei, the Russian translation of Roberto Carnero’s book Pasolini: ‘Dying for One’s Own Ideas (Awaiting shelfmark). On the right, cover of the Italian original Morire per Le Idee: vita letteraria di Pier Paolo Pasolini (Milano, 2010) YF.2011.a.2102

Censored pages from Pazolini. Umeret’ za idei by Roberto Carnero. Awaiting shelfmark

Pages from Morire per Le Idee: vita letteraria di Pier Paolo Pasolini by Roberto Carnero (Milano, 2010) YF.2011.a.2102

The blacked out sections of Carnero’s novel, totalling some 70 out of 400 pages, deal with Pasolini’s private life. However, a cursory reading of the Italian original reveals that the content is far from being obscene or scandalous. The heavy-handed redactions, prompted by the passages of law hostile to the LGBTQ community, had turned the book into a celebrated object of art, a powerful attribute of performance. 

With its opaque formulations, the anti-LGBTQ legislation gave rise to a culture of fear and self-censorship. The books featured in the blog transgress the boundaries of censorship and generate meanings, bringing LGBTQ struggles back into the light. They also illuminate the simple truth: Love is Love. 

Hanna Dettlaff-Kuznicka, Curator of Slavonic and East European Collections

References/Further reading:

Chris Ashford, Research handbook on gender, sexuality and the law (Cheltenham, 2020) ELD.DS.519753

Radzhana Buyantueva, The emergence and development of LGBT protest activity in Russia (Basingstoke, 2022) ELD.DS.736424

Laurie Essig, Queer in Russia: a story of sex, self, and the other (Durham, NC, 1999) 99/31881

Dan Healey, Russian homophobia from Stalin to Sochi (London, 2018) YC.2018.a.1153

Jon Mulholland, Gendering nationalism: intersections of nation, gender and sexuality (Basingstoke, Hampshire, 2018) ELD.DS.412134

Conor O'Dwyer, Coming out of communism: the emergence of LGBT activism in Eastern Europe (New York, 2018) m18/.11529

Dennis Scheller-Boltz, The discourse on gender identity in contemporary Russia: an introduction with a case study in Russian gender linguistics (Hildesheim, 2017) YC.2019.a.6769

Valerii Sozaev, Nasha istoriia: zametki i ocherki o LGBT v Rossii (Saint Petersburg, 2018) YP.2019.a.5058

Valerie Sperling, Sex, politics, and Putin: political legitimacy in Russia (Oxford, 2015) YC.2015.a.3806

Galina Yuzefovich, Weapons of the Weak: Fighting Literary Censorship in Contemporary Russia

Slovene Lands is a geographical term that describes the territories in Central and South-East Europe inhabited by the Slovenes since the sixth century AD. The Slovene Lands included Carniola, the southern part of Styria, the southern part of Carinthia, Istria, Gorizia and Gradisca, Trieste, Istria and Prekmurje.

Each Slovene land was a feudal unit. Carniola, Styria and Carinthia were duchies, Gorizia a county, Istria a margravate and Trieste a town. All the Slovene lands were ruled by the Habsburgs except those on the western and eastern borders which were controlled by Venice and Hungary respectively.

The historic maps presented in this blog are from the Topographical Collection of King George III.

A 1697 French map of the Duchies of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola as the hereditary lands of the Habsburg Crown in which were included the Counties of Celje and of Gorica, and Windic March. A copperplate engraving, hand colour in outline. Maps K.Top.90.53. (Image from the British Library's Flickr account)

Carniola (in Slovene Kranjska) where about the half of Slovenes lived was ruled by German ecclesiastical and lay princely houses in succession until 1335 when it became a Habsburg province. Raised to the status of Duchy in 1364 as a Hereditary Land of the Habsburg monarchy it became integral part of the Austrian Empire in 1804, and from 1867 a constituent part of Austria-Hungary until 1918. The capital of Carniola was Ljubljana which is the capital of Slovenia today.

A 1686 Italian map of the Duchies of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola and the other hereditary entities that made up part of the Austrian Circle. A copperplate engraving. Maps K.Top.90.54. (Image from the British Library's Flickr account)

Styria (Štajerska) and Carinthia (Koroška) became Habsburg Crown lands in 1282 and 1355 respectively. Most inhabitants of the two duchies were ethnic Germans but there was a strong Slovene minority. After the First World War, part of southern Styria including Maribor, Ptuj, Velenje and Celje, and a small part of southern Carinthia, were ceded to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

A map produced in Amsterdam between 1696 and 1708 showing part of the Austrian Circle comprising the Duchies of Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and other hereditary states of the Habsburg Crown. A copperplate engraving, hand colour in outline. Maps K.Top.90.56. (Image from the British Library's Flickr account)

A 1709 French map showing part of the Austrian domain comprising the Duchies of Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and other hereditary states of the Habsburg Crown. A copperplate engraving, hand colour in outline. Maps K.Top.90.57. (Image from the British Library's Flickr account)

A German map produced around 1720 showing the Duchy of Carniola, Windic March and Istria. A copperplate engraving, hand colour in outline. Inset at upper right shows a view of Ljubljana, the capital of the Duchy of Carniola. Inset at lower right is Cerknica Lake (In Slovene Cerkniško jezero) Maps K.Top.90.72. (Image from the British Library's Flickr account)

A map produced in Amsterdam between 1726 and 1750 showing the Duchies of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola with the County of Celje which comprised the Austrian Circle. Inset at lower left features the coats of arms of the four areas. A copperplate engraving, hand colour in outline. (Image from the British Library's Flickr account) Maps K.Top.90.55.

Map of the Slovenian Lands and Regions, produced and published in Vienna in 1864 by Peter Kozler (1824-1879) a jurist, geographer and politician. A copperplate engraving, hand colour in outline. Maps 27730.(7.)

Kozler also compiled the Directory of cities, towns and places in Slovene and German as an appendix to the map of Slovenia (1864). The first 1852 edition of the map is available from the Slovenian Digital Library.
 

Milan Grba, Lead Curator South-East European Collections

Novela famosa, y exemplar, no hay contra el amor venganza. Recopilada por Isidro de Robles … En la qual se refieren los tragicos sucessos de un caballlero ingles, llamado Eduardo, por los amores de una dama inglesa, llamada Isabela, muger de el almirante de Inglaterra, y de el dichoso fin, que tuvieron sus trabajosos quebrantos, como vera el curioso lector (Sevilla: en la imprenta Castellana, y Latina de Joseph Antonio de Hermosilla, [1720?])

[Famous and exemplary novel, there is no revenge against love. Collected by Isidro de Robles … In which are told the tragic experiences of an English gentleman named Edward for love of an English lady named Isabella, wife of the Admiral of England, and of the happy end to their sufferings, as the curious reader will see.]

Title page of Novela famosa, y exemplar, no hay contra el amor venganza (Sevilla, [1720]) RB.23.a.40411

The plot: In England, the good English knight Eduardo is imprisoned for injuring the Scottish Ambassador in a joust. In prison, he falls in love with a picture of Isabella. The Admiral of England replaces Eduardo in a joust and King Ricardo (The Lionheart) rewards him with Isabella’s hand. Eduardo spies on Isabella. Her Spanish maid Rosaura sings a song in Spanish which Eduardo had written. Isabella knows Eduardo by reputation. The Admiral comes home unexpectedly and Eduardo kills him. He flees to the court of Alfonso VIII in Toledo. Eduardo rescues Alfonso when he is ambushed by Baron Belflor. Isabella wants revenge on her husband’s murderer. Dagger in hand, she finds Eduardo asleep and ‘like Psyche’, falls in love with his beauty. Love overcomes revenge. She imprisons him to protect him from execution. King Richard visits Alfonso to plan a crusade. Eduardo reminds Richard he saved his life and asks him to make Isabella pardon him. Isabella says she wants revenge, but asks the Princess to ask the King for a pardon. The King tells Isabella to pardon Eduardo and marry him.

Not an entirely accurate picture of medieval England: hunting can only take place early in the morning because of ‘the rigour of the Sun’; they arm themselves with pistols.

As you might imagine, the importance of this text is bibliographical rather than literary.

This blog celebrates the acquisition of a small book. By small book I mean a chapbook, made by folding one or two sheets twice to make a pamphlet. These were news reports (relaciones), ballads, plays (including monologues excerpted from plays, called ‘relaciones de comedia’: see Gabriel Andrés) and novels, plus works of popular religion. By novel I mean what Dr Johnson meant: ‘a small tale, generally of love’. Among famous readers of Spanish chapbooks were Samuel Pepys and Queen Christina of Sweden.

The subjects of ballads, plays and novels often overlapped (we might note the sympathetic servants in our novel), and so did their form of publication. There was a ban on printing plays and novels (from 1625 to 1634), which the publishers tried to circumvent by passing their sometimes sensational stories off as exemplary history. (Our book is ‘exemplar’ and ‘tragico’.) People were still reading these 17th-century texts in the 18th century.

Ballads, plays and novels could be published in collections (single- or multi-authored) or as chapbooks (pliegos sueltos [‘independent quires’] or when appropriate, [comedias] sueltas [‘independent plays’])).

Separately printed ballads and plays are much more common than separately printed novels, which I think it’s safe to say are rare: hence the interest of this item. Today’s book is a novel, but it has a woodcut and layout in two columns which make it resemble a ballad. And its title could be a play.

It’s difficult to know who the author is. Ripoll (pp. 54-57) confuses our No hay contra el amor venganza with El amor en la venganza by the fertile Alonso de Castillo Solórzano (1584-c.1648). Our text was first published in the collection Varios efectos de amor en onze novelas exemplares … recogidas por Isidro de Robles (1666; with reprints up to 1760) (Ripoll, pp. 165-66). So Robles is just the compiler. This suelta appears to be the only separate printing of No hay contra el amor venganza.

Alonso de Alcalá y Herrera wrote five lipogrammatic stories which were included in Varios efectos de amor of 1666: this explains why someone has written his name in pencil at the head of the title page.

The printer, Joseph Antonio de Hermosilla printed large books and small books. Indeed, he printed in Latin as well as Spanish. It’s tempting to suppose that the small books, quick and easy to print and sold at low prices but in large numbers, subsidised the bigger books (Griffin). Small books are rarely dated, but big books are (indeed, it was a legal requirement) and approximate dates for one can be deduced from the other.

Hermosilla printed a good number of comedias sueltas, all undated (Whitehead, STC, III, 51; Escudero, pp. 616-17). Novelas sueltas from his press are rare, but two are known, to which ours should now be added. The Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, has a novela suelta:

Alcalá y Herrera, Alonso de ?

Novela famosa, y exemplar, la Peregrina Hermitaña, escrita sin la letra O, recopilada por Isidro de Robles. (Seville, [s.a.]) 32 p.; 4º. CCPB000038807-6

To which (Ripoll, p. 166) adds Novela famosa y burlesca; Los tres maridos burlados … (Seville, [s.a.])

Hermosilla indeed advertises on the last page that he specialises in small books:

En la imprenta castellana, y latina, de Joseph Antonio de Hermosilla, Mercader de libros en Calle de Genova, donde se hallarán otras muchas Relaciones, Romances, Entremeses, y comedias, corregidas fielmente por sus legitimos Originales.

[In the Spanish and Latin press of Joseph Antonio de Hermosilla, bookseller in the Calle de Génova, where many other newsbooks [or monologues], ballads, interludes and plays may be found, faithfully corrected against their genuine originals]

Harold Whitehead records just one dated book printed by Joseph Antonio de Hermosilla: El león prodigioso of 1732 (item G162; shelfmark 1456.f.7); significantly this is a book and not a chapbook. Whitehead ascribes a date of [c. 1720] to many of Hermosilla’s comedias sueltas, and I follow his lead.

Barry Taylor, Curator Romance Collections

References/further reading:

Gabriel Andrés, ‘Relaciones de comedia en Cerdeña: los pliegos del taller sevillano de los Hermosilla (1684-1730) en la Biblioteca Universitaria de Cagliari’, Janus, 2 (2013), 48-73. Available at Researchgate.net

Francisco Escudero y Perosso, Tipografía hispalense (Madrid, 1894). 11906.c.1.

Clive Griffin, ‘Literary Consequences of the Peripheral Nature of Spanish Printing in the Sixteenth Century’, in Literary cultures and the material book, edited by Simon Eliot, Andrew Nash and Ian Willison (London, 2007), pp. 207-14. YC.2008.a.8654

Begoña Ripoll, La novela barroca: catálogo bio-bibliográfico (1620-1700) (Salamanca, 1991). YA.2003.a.1512

Barry Taylor, ‘Exemplarity in and around the Novelas ejemplares’, Modern Language Review, 110 (2015), 456-72. P.P.4970.ca.

H. G. Whitehead, Eighteenth-century Spanish chapbooks in the British Library: a descriptive catalogue (London, 1997). YC.1997.a.2900

H. G. Whitehead, Short-title catalogue of eighteenth-century Spanish books in the British Library (London, 1994) 2725.e.2791

This week the German Embassy in London together with the German Academic Exchange Service and the Goethe Institut UK are running a ‘Shout out for German’  campaign, encouraging students, teachers and fans of German to show their love for the language and their experiences learning and using it. As a small contribution I decided to look at some of the many books in the BL that have been helping people to learn this splendid language over the centuries.

Title page of The High Dutch Minerva a-la-mode; or, a Perfect Grammar never extant before, whereby the. English may both easily and exactly learne the neatest dialect of the German mother-language used throughout all Europe (London, 1680)

The first true German textbook for English speakers was published anonymously in 1680 under the title The High-Dutch Minerva (‘High-Dutch’ was a common term for German at the time). The author, Martin Aedler, was clearly a big fan of his native German, describing it as the “most copious and significant, majestick and sweet, perfect and pure, easie and usefull, antient and universal toung.” Unfortunately potential learners seem not to have shared his enthusiasm and the publication of the book effectively bankrupted him. Nonetheless, the work was reissued in 1685 and its failure did not deter Heinrich Offelen from publishing his Double Grammar for Germans to learn English and English-Men to learn the German-Tongue in 1687.

Title page of A Double Grammar for Germans to learn English and English-Men to learn the German-Tongue ... (London, 1687) 628.b.12

However, it was not until the later 18th century that English speakers really started to take an interest in learning and reading German, leading to the publication of more grammars and dictionaries. John Uttiv, writing in the preface to his Complete Practical German Grammar in 1796, was clearly not impressed with these, claiming that his predecessors’ work was “for the most part incomplete, occasionally incorrect and scarcely in any way sufficiently practical to expediate and facilitate the acquisition of the language”. Users of the grammars could also be critical: in our copy of Johann Martin Minner’s English and German Dialogues, published in 1813, a reader has corrected some of the English translations provided.

Annotated page of Johann Martin Minner, English and German Dialogues Adapted to the Style of Polite and Elegant Conversation for Social Life =
Englisch-Deutsche Gespräche für das gesellschaftliche Leben (Frankfurt am Main, 1813) RB.23.a.39241

The 19th century saw a massive growth in interest in German and in publication of teaching and learning aids. The language started to find its way into school and university curricula and dedicated textbooks inevitably followed, as did annotated or bilingual editions of texts that enabled learners to experience German literature as they studied. Some of these used interlinear translations, the so-called ‘Hamiltonian system’, which had the potential to cause confusion given the differences of English and German word order, as in the opening of Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell pictured below.

Page from L. Braunfels, A. C. White, Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell. The German Text, with an Interlinear Translation, Grammatical and Historical Notes, and an Introduction Containing the Elements of German Grammar, Second edition (London, 1859) 11746.c.40. Available online

Until the mid-20th century most German school textbooks had very straightforward titles along the lines of A Modern German Course, but in recent decades things have become a bit more upbeat and scattered with exclamation marks. Our catalogue lists cheery titles such as Alle Einsteigen! (‘All Aboard!’), Stimmt! (‘Right!’), Deutsch: Na Klar! (‘German: Sure!’) and the reassuring German with a Smile. These more modern works also focus less on the theory of grammar and more on the spoken language, often enhanced by audio or online exercises.

A selection of German textbooks from the 1960s to the 2010s

Changes in the way the language is introduced is illustrated by two books aimed at younger learners, Little German Folk from 1904 and Bringing German to Life from 2015. Both begin by introducing a German family, but in very different ways. Little German Folk presents a picture of traditional nuclear family (oddly dressed in quasi-renaissance clothing) and describes them in the third person. In Bringing German to Life two children, Anna and Alex, illustrated in a more cartoonish style, introduce themselves and their family in a dialogue, and we learn that they live with their mother and grandfather (and Max the dog). Anna and Alex accompany the learner throughout the book, but the family in Little German Folk more or less disappear after the first page. Bringing German to Life also has ideas for craft projects and activities to make learning more appealing.

Above: Meet the family from Margareta Schramm, Little German Folk: a First Book for Little Children Written in the Everyday Speech of Little German Children (Shaldon, 1904) 012808.m.50. Below: Meet the family from  Catherine Watts, Hilary Phillips, Bringing German to Life: Creative Activities for 5-11 (London, 2015) YKL.2015.b.932.

The British Library’s collections also illustrate how German has been – and remains – an important language for many professions and academic disciplines. We have specialised textbooks for builders, businesspeople, musicians, singers, and art historians among others – not to mention librarians!

A selection of German textbooks and readers for specific professions

There are also books from both world wars intended to help British and American soldiers to understand German in general and military terminology in particular. After the Second World War, US diplomats could turn to the German Basic Course created by the Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute in the 1960s, part of which was donated to the Library in 2017.

Page from F.W. Zimmermann, An Easy Handbook of German for Soldiers, containing the chief grammatical rules, conversational phrases, essays on military and technical subjects, and a handy vocabulary (London, 1914) 12963.aaa.48.

All in all, the British Library has pretty much everything you could want to help you learn German, or to study how German has been learned over the past three and a half centuries. And once you’ve learned your German, our German-language collections on pretty much all topics under the sun are yours to explore. You can’t shout out in our reading rooms of course, but I hope I’ve inspired you to join me in shouting out for German this week!

Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections

References/Further reading:

John Uttiv, A complete practical German grammar, according to the best German grammarians, containing true, plain, and easy instructions for acquiring fondamentally [sic.] and expeditiously a clear knowledge of the language, both in speaking and writing (Göttingen, 1796) RB.23.a.39233.

Günter Wallnig, Harry Evered, Deutsch für Baufachleute = German for Building Specialists (Wiesbaden, 1979) X.622/11769

Doris Fulda Merrifield, Deutsche Wirtschaftssprache für Amerikaner (New York, 1989) YC.1990.b.1966

Josephine Barber, German for Musicians (London, 1985) X.439/13542

William Odom, German for Singers: a Textbook of Diction and Phonetics (New York, 1981) X.950/9336

Mary L. Apelt, Hans-Peter Apelt, Reading Knowledge in German: a Course for Art Historians and Archaeologists = ein englisch-deutscher Lesekurs für Kunstgeschichte und Archäologie (Berlin, 1984) 84/20490

George W. Turner, Axel J. A. Vieregg, J. W. Blackwood, German for Librarians (Palmerston North, 1972) 2719.x.14068

Erich Funke, Meno Spann, Fred Fehling, Kriegsdeutsch: Easy Texts in Military German for Speaking and Reading (London, 1943) 8339.aa.7.

Samuel A. Brown, William R. van Buskirk, German Basic Course, Units 13-24 (Guilford CT, 1965). YD.2019b.360

Nicola McLelland, German Through English Eyes: a History of Language Teaching and Learning in Britain, 1500-2000 (Wiesbaden, 2015) YD.2015.a.2313

Our exhibition Medieval Women, in their own words, closed last weekend after a highly successful run (you can still find information about the topic and view some exhibition highlights here. Something that is also drawing to a close is the 2024-25 ice skating season.

What do these two things have in common? Well, one of the many ‘Spotlights’ in the exhibition was dedicated to Lidwina van Schiedam, patron saint of ice skaters and chronic pain. That too, is a peculiar combination, to say the least. Let me explain.

Lidwina (or Liduina, or Lidewy) van Schiedam is the most famous Dutch saint. Born in Schiedam in 1380, she lived there all her remarkable life until her death in 1433. When her father wanted to marry her off at the tender age of twelve, both Lidwina and her mother resisted. Lidwina even prayed to God to send her an illness that would make her unattractive to suitors. Whether you believe in divine intervention or not, her wish came true. In the winter of 1395, she was out ice skating with friends when she fell and broke a rib.

Lidwina falls on the ice, from Johannes Brugman,Vita Sanctae Lidwinae (1498). IA.48805 (as displayed in the Medieval Women exhibition)

The fracture resulted in an abscess which did not heal and she became increasingly ill. Eventually she became completely bedridden because of her pain. The pain also prevented her from eating and sleeping. She tolerated very little food, and legend has it that she survived on the Host alone. In modern literature this is sometimes referred to as ‘holy anorexia’. Initially, she resented her illness and pains but over time she came to accept them. She used her illness to develop her spiritualism and became a mystic and a healer. She reported having visions and out of body experiences. Following an investigation into her ‘eucharistic vision’, involving Christ taking the form of a host with five wounds hovering above her knees, the Bishop of Utrecht ruled in favour of Lidwina’s account and the veneration of Lidwina increased. She became known outside the bishopric of Utrecht and people flocked to Schiedam to see her for themselves and to seek healing.

The suffering Lidwina’s vision of Christ, from Johannes Brugman, Vita Sanctae Lidwinae

Lidwina died in Holy Week in 1433. A year later the Schiedam council built a chapel over her grave. In addition, attempts were made to canonise her, but the lengthy process was stalled by the Reformation, during which her chapel and grave were destroyed. Some of her relics were saved and after some travels they are now resting in the Liduina Basilica in Schiedam.

In the 15th century four lives of Lidwina were written. The oldest dates from 1434-1436, by Hugo van Rugge, a canon from the St.-Elisabeth monastery in Brielle. Around 1448 Thomas à Kempis  wrote his Vita Lidewigis virginis using Rugge’s work. In 1470 the only title written in Middle Dutch appeared. Long believed to have been written by Jan Gerlachsz, a relative of Lidwina, it is now thought not to be by him, although no alternative author has been suggested.

The Institute for Dutch History’s Digitale Vrouwen Nederland database has an entry for Lidwina which mentions a document issued by the City Council of Schiedam on 21 July 1421. By that time Lidwina had been ill for 23 years and the Council had kept a record of her health in great detail. For instance, it lists what she drank in a week: one pint of wine, diluted with water, with sugar and some cinnamon. The original document is lost, but the text was copied by Johannes Brugman in his Vita Sanctae Lidwinae, from 1498 and so it survived. Brugman was a Dutch Franciscan travelling preacher, famous for his rhetorical skills. The phrase ‘To talk like Brugman’ has become an idiom in the Dutch language.

Johannes Brugman preaching, etching by Barent de Bakker, after a drawing by Hermanus Petrus Schouten (1782). Image from Wikimedia Commons.

In the 19th and 20th centuries interest in Lidwina grew. The works by Thomas à Kempis and Johannes Brugman were newly translated with commentary. In 1994 Ludo Jongen and Cees Schotel re-issued a translation and photographic reprint of the Middle-Dutch Vita prior, entitled Het Leven van Liedewij, de maagd van Schiedam.

 

Cover of Ludo Jongen and Cees Schotel, Het Leven van Liedewij, de maagd van Schiedam (Hilversum, 1994). ZA.9.a.5895(2)

In 2014 Uitgeverij Verloren published a volume containing two separate works: Een bovenaardse vrouw: zes eeuwen verering van Liduina van Schiedam (‘A supernal woman: six centuries of reverence of Liduina van Schiedam’) by Charles Caspers, and a new translation of Thomas a Kempis’ Vita, entitled Het leven van de maagd Liduina (‘The life of the virgin Liduina’).

Charles Caspers, Een bovenaardse vrouw: Zes eeuwen verering van Liduina van Schiedam. (Hilversum, 2014) YF.2015.a.25455.

Koen Goudriaan linked Lidwina to the Brethren of the Common Life, starting from the new insight that the oldest surviving Vita was not written by Brugman, but by Hugo Rugge, who was connected to the Brethern and that places Lidwina in that tradition. (ZA.9.a.10168)

And what about skating? That is nearly at an end. The last major competition in the 2024-25 season will be World Championship Distances in Hamar, Norway, from 13-16 March. Dutch skaters are at the top of the boards, having honed their skills for at least two centuries, looking from the painting of a women’s speed skating race in 1809.

Skating Race for Women on the city canal of Leeuwarden, 21 January 1809, by Nicolaas Bauer. Image from the website of the Rijksmuseum.

Jaap Eden was the first official world champion and over the last twenty years the Dutch have dominated the skating scene. I wonder whether Lidwina is lending a hand.

Hand-coloured photograph of Jaap Eden. Image from Wikimedia Commons 

Marja Kingma, Curator Germanic Collections

References/Further reading:

Johannes Brugman, Vita alme virginis Lidwine, ed. A. de Meijer (Groningen 1963) Ac.936.k/3.

‘Vita prior’ ed. Daniël Papebrochius in: Acta sanctorum Aprilis II (Antwerp, 1675) pp. 270-302

Thomas à Kempis, Vita Lidiwigis virginis, ed. Michael Johannes Pohl. Opera omnia vol. 6 (Freiburg, 1905) pp. 315-453. 3706.aa.6.

Thomas à Kempis, Het leven van de heilige maagd Liduina, translated by Rijcklof Hofman (Hilversum, 2014) YF.2015.a.25455.

Koen Goudriaan, ‘Het Leven van Liduina en de moderne devotie’, in: Jaarboek voor Middeleeuwse Geschiedenis (2003) 6, pp. 161-236. ZA.9.a.10168.

Ludo Jongen and Cees Schotel, Leven van Liedewij, een Middelnederlandse vertaling van de Vita prior, waarschijnlijk eerst rond 1470 vervaardigd (Hilversum 1994) ZA.9.a.5895(2). Also available online.

Ludo Jongen, ‘Uit het oog, uit het hart? Over twee heilige maagden: Lutgard en Lidewij’, in: Gouden legenden: Heiligenlevens en heiligenverering in de Nederlanden, ed. Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker and Marijke Carasso-Kok (Hilversum 1997), pp. 127-137. YA.1998.a.6022

Ludo Jongen, Heiligenlevens in Nederland en Vlaanderen (Amsterdam, 1998), pp. 46-53.

J.B.W.M. Möller, Sint Liduina van Schiedam: in de mystiek en in haar tijd (The Hague, 1948) 4823.h.6.

‘Afschrift, gedateerd 1451, van de Schiedamse oorkonde van 21 juli 1421 met een vidimus van Jan van Beieren’, in: H. van Oerle, ‘Tleven van Liedwy die maghet van Scyedam’, Ons geestelijk erf 54 (1980) 3, pp. 241-266. P.101/476

Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland (Huygens Instituut, Amsterdam)

One of the many reasons books are so alluring and continue to enchant us with their magic is that, while immersing ourselves in fantastical fictional worlds, we can still see aspects of ourselves in the characters – whether we identify with them, reject them, or simply observe their journeys. Unfortunately, while queer representation has become more common in contemporary literature and popular culture, this was not always the case.

Ludmila Skokanová, later known under her literary pseudonym Lída Merlínová – a female Merlin – grew up in Czechoslovakia at a time when LGBTQ+ voices were scarce in literature. As she entered adulthood and realized that her dreams and desires did not conform to widely accepted norms, she had little literary representation to turn to. The years of the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938) saw the emergence of the so-called ‘Czech New Woman’ – a generation of women who gained voting rights, access to education, and the right to divorce. However, despite these progressive steps, Czechoslovak law still criminalized homosexual acts. Against this backdrop, Merlínová, a journalist, singer and dancer who was part of the queer scene, wrote Vyhnanci lásky (‘Exiles of Love’; Prague, 1929), the first Czech novel to explore same-sex love. She preferred the term ‘invert’ over ‘lesbian’, reflecting the language and perceptions of the time.

Cover of Lída Merlínová, Zdenin světový rekord: sportovní román (Prague, 1935) [Awaiting cataloguing] 

Merlínová was a prolific author, although not all of her works focused on queer themes. Unfortunately, very few copies of her books remain available today, as many were lost or destroyed due to censorship during the communist era. However, we recently acquired a rare copy of Zdenin světový rekord: sportovní román (‘Zdena's World Record: A Sports Novel’, the first and only edition of a fictionalized biography of Zdeněk Koubek. Koubek, originally known as Zdena Koubková, won two gold medals at the 1934 Women’s World Games in the 800-meter sprint before announcing in 1935 that he would be living as a man.

Page from Zdenin světový rekord: sportovní román with a facsimile of a note signed ‘Zdenka Koubková’

Interestingly, Merlínová’s book was published just before Koubek’s public announcement. The book includes a facsimile of an approving note signed Zdenka Koubková, still in the Czech grammatical form indicating female gender. In this note, Koubek endorsed Merlínová’s retelling of his story, recognizing its appeal to both professional athletes and the general public. Shortly after the book’s release, Koubek’s announcement made global headlines, sparking discussions in major publications such as TIME and the New York Times. Contemporary sports magazines debated the science behind gender transitions, and Koubek became a symbol of shifting gender perceptions and the growing recognition of gender fluidity.

Following his transition, Koubek retired from women’s sports and pursued various ventures, including Broadway performances and media appearances, although he never competed in men’s track events. His story remains a powerful reflection of the evolving conversations around gender identity and sports.

Meanwhile, Lída Merlínová outlived her supportive husband, Cyril Pecháček, and spent the rest of her life in Prague with her female partner, Kvĕta Lukáčovská. In 1962, same-sex acts were decriminalized in Czechoslovakia, a country that, at the time, encompassed both Czechia and Slovakia. After the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, Czechia and Slovakia became independent nations. On January 1, 2025, Czechia passed a bill legalizing same-sex partnerships – granting them rights equal to marriage in all but name. However, Slovakia has yet to adopt similar legislation.

As we celebrate LGBT+ History Month 2025, it is worth looking back and reflecting on the journey of those who paved the way for social change – those who defied norms and showed us the beauty of a diverse world through the lives they led. While we work on making Zdenin světový rekord available to readers, you may want to explore other books in our collection that celebrate the richness of queer culture. 

Olga Topol, Curator Slavonic and East European Collectoions

Further reading:

Melissa Feinberg, Elusive equality: gender, citizenship, and the limits of democracy in Czechoslovakia, 1918-1950 (Pittsburgh, 2006) YC.2013.a.6652

Karla Huebner, ‘Girl, Trampka, or Žába? The Czechoslovak New Woman’, in E. Otto, & V. Rocco (Eds.), The New Woman International: Representations in Photography and Film from the 1870s through the 1960s, pp. 231–251 (Ann Arbor, Mich, 2011) YC.2011.a.7758

Vera Sokolova, Queer Encounters with Communist Power: Non-Heterosexual Lives and the State in Czechoslovakia, 1948-1989 (Prague, 2021) YD.2023.a.153

Mark Cornwall, ‘Exiles of love?: uncovering lesbian voices in interwar Czechoslovakia’, in Journal of Lesbian Studies, 2024 

And check out some of out other blogs on LGBT+ topics:

https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2021/06/i-libertini-same-sex-desire-in-italian-baroque-literature.html

https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2023/02/all-the-strength-i-muster-to-live-queer-voices-from-poland.html

https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2022/02/love-like-any-other-maria-d%C4%85browska-and-anna-kowalska.html

https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2020/04/slovenian-gay-poetry-in-translation-tracing-the-unspoken-by-milan-%C5%A1elj.html

 

Today, on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we continue to stand with Ukraine. Kharkiv was one of the first places in Ukraine affected by the war in the first hours of the invasion, and this blog is about Kharkiv and its people.

In 2010, Viacheslav Babeshko (1941-2010), a Kharkiv-born poet, wrote a poem ‘Our Kharkiv’:

Our Kharkiv has risen a long time ago
For peace, goodness, and love.
It’s constantly working and doing research
And looks as beautiful as delightful spring.

And indeed, Kharkiv is a city of students and scientists: almost half of its population have university degrees, and the Kharkiv University, founded in 1804, is the oldest in Ukraine. Three Nobel Prize laureates – biologist Elie Metchnikoff, economist Simon Smith Kuznets and physicist Lev Landau – lived in the city at various times. Photographer Alfred Fedetsky put Kharkiv on the map of cinematography when he shot his documentaries in 1896.

Page from V. Myslavs’kyi, Istoriia ukrains’koho kino 1896-1930: fakty i dokumenty. T. 1. (Kharkiv, 2018)

The first Ukrainian literary magazines – Khar’kovskii Demokrit (‘The Kharkiv Democritus: The Thousand and First Magazine’, 1816), Ukrainskii vestnik (‘The Ukrainian Herald’, 1816-19), and later Ukrainskii zhurnal (‘The Ukrainian journal’, 1824-25) – were also published in Kharkiv. These titles are not held at the British Library, but they have been digitised by the Central Scientific Library of the Kharkiv National University named after V.N. Karazin.

One of the main contributors to The Ukrainian Herald was a writer whom Ukrainians consider the ‘founding father’ of Ukrainian prose. Hryhorii Kvitka (1778-1843) wrote under the pen name Osnov’ianenko, which referred to the name of his birthplace, Osnova, a village near Kharkiv.

Stamp featuring Kvitka-Osnov’ianenko (Image from Wikipedia)

As a young boy, Hryhorii knew his namesake Hryhorii Skovoroda, a famous Ukrainian philosopher, poet, and musician who was a frequent guest at his father’s estate. Kvitka-Osnov’ianenko tried a military career and even wanted to be a monk, but found his vocation in social activities and writing: he became one of the founders of the first private professional theatre in Kharkiv and the Institute for Noble Maidens.

Kharkiv Institute for Noble Maidens (Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Although he published essays and ‘letters to the editor’ in various periodicals, Kvitka-Osnov’ianenko started his literary career relatively late in life. He was 56 years old when his collection of novellas in Ukrainian was published in 1834. Nevertheless, the book garnered much acclaim. In an immediately published extensive review, the prominent Ukrainian poet, ethnographer, and philologist Osip Bodianskii proclaimed a toast to Kvitka suggesting to praise ‘Pan Hrytsko’ for his bold and picturesque entry to literature “on a dashing Ukrainian horse”.

Apart from Kvitka-Osnov’ianenko, many Ukrainian writers lived and worked in Kharkiv in various periods of their lives. Among them were Petro Hulak-Artemovs’kyi (1790-1865), who laid the foundations of Ukrainian fables and ballads, and Mykhailo Starytsky (1840-1904), famous for his librettos for Ukrainian folk operas, translations, plays and poems.

In the 1920s and early 1930s, Kharkiv was a place where the Vilna Akademia Proletarskoi LITEratury (‘Free Academy of Proletarian Literature’) was established. Young writers and poets aimed to create a new independent Ukrainian literature and culture. They believed that the Soviet state would adopt a radically different approach from the old Russian policy of cultural imperialism. They belonged to the so-called Executed Renaissance – the generation of Ukrainian writers and educational and cultural figures who were executed in Stalin’s purges. One of the leading figures of the generation was Mykola Khvylovy.

Cover of M. Khvylʹovyĭ, H. Kosynka, O. Slisarenko, Opovidannia (Haĭdenav, [1946]) RB.23.a.33896

Cover of M. Khvylʹovyĭ, Zlochyn (Kharkiv, 1928) YA.1995.a.24647

Contemporary authors from Kharkiv have also made their mark on Ukrainian literature. One of the most translated Ukrainian writers is Serhiy Zhadan who, of course, is writing about the war today.

Cover of S. Zhadan, Sky above Kharkiv: Dispatches from the Ukrainian Front, translated by Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler (New Haven CT, [2023]) DRT ELD.DS.761929

Among our most recent acquisitions is a new book by Daria Bura ‘The Heroic city of Kharkiv: 28 Stories of the Unbreakable’.

D. Bura, Misto-heroi Kharkiv: 28 istorii nezlamnosti (Kharkiv, 2024) Awaiting cataloguing

I would like to take this opportunity to send our support to our colleagues who work at the Central Scientific Library of the Kharkiv National Karazin University, all librarians, academics, the people of Kharkiv and all Ukrainians wherever they are at this moment.

Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator Slavonic and East European Collections

Our current exhibition ‘Medieval Women: In Their Own Words’ tells stories of Medieval women and their role and influence in personal, spiritual, and social life. A number of women rulers are featured, but one that is not shown is Queen Tamar of Georgia, whose story we tell here.

Queen Tamar’s reign (1178-1213) was both the apex and the final stage of the Golden Era of the Christian Kingdom of Georgia. The lustre of this reign was so brilliant and incomparable to all that preceded it in Georgian history that her court historian allowed himself to border on blasphemy in his hyperbolic praise of her: “We view Tamar as the fourth besides the Holy Trinity”. Not only were her contemporary panegyrists, historians and poets inspired by her beauty and wise governance, but she also became a part of the national folklore, a source of inspiration for thousands of legends, tales and poems for centuries to come.

A fragment of the early 13th-century fresco of Queen Tamar from Betania (Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Tamar’s father, King Giorgi III, due to dynastic struggles, proclaimed her King during his lifetime. It was unprecedented in Georgia for a woman to be officially anointed King and hold the title of ‘King of Kings’, although some coins minted during her reign also acclaimed her as ‘Queen of Queens’. Such a bold innovation had everything to do with the development of philosophical studies in 12th-century Georgia. In the Gelati Monastery and Academy, texts by Plato, Aristotle and Neoplatonists were translated and taught. Plato demonstrates that women can be politicians and rulers alongside men. As Tamar’s contemporary, the philosopher-poet Shota Rustaveli, wrote: “A lion’s cub is of the same dignity, no matter whether it is male or female”, thus announcing the new political era in which royal women could be considered as rulers. However, not only women of royal descent but also other women of the nobility could enjoy this novel active political role.. When at the start of Tamar’s reign a faction of noblemen and merchants created attempted to limit monarchic absolutism and create a legislative body –a ‘tent – separate from the executive body, the King, Tamar, appointed two noblewomen, Kravai Jakheli and Khvashak Tsokali, to negotiate peace with the mutinous noblemen. Her choice was fully justified as Kravai and Kvashak effectively managed to quell the unrest.

Tamar and her father Georgi III. The earliest surviving portrait of Tamar from the church of the Dormition at Vardzia, c. 1184–1186 (Image from Wikimedia Commons)

The first years of Tamar’s rule were beset by struggles with the higher nobility that strove to subordinate her to their will. Because of this, Tamar was forced into an undesirable marriage to a Russian, Prince George Bogolubski. The marriage proved a failure, and George later attempted to usurp the throne, for which he was exiled from the Kingdom for good.

Tamar’s second marriage to Prince David Soslan was more successful: he was of the same lineage of the Bagrationi family as Tamar herself. The Bagrationi dynasty traced its origin back to the Biblical kings David and Solomon, a tradition that safeguarded the dynasty’s claim to rule exclusively over the Kingdom of Georgia. David Soslan proved to be an effective general who led Tamar’s army to a series of important victories over powerful Muslim neighbours. Two of those victories are of particular significance. The first was the battle of Shamkor of 1195, in which David Soslan outsmarted the enemy troops under Nusrat al-Din Abu Bakr, the atabeg of Arran, and routed his realm, establishing Shirvanshah Akhsitan there as a ruler and ally of the Georgians. The second was at the battle of Basiani in 1203 against the Seljuk Turks of the Rum Sultanate led by Sultan Suleiman II. These two great victories raised the power and prestige of the Georgian Kingdom to that of a regional superpower. Moreover, since Constantinople had been under Latin rule since the great sack of 1204, Tamar became the most powerful Orthodox ruler in Eastern Christendom, for which reason her panegyrists even dared to call Tbilisi the ‘New Rome’, while Tamar herself was acclaimed as ‘Augusta’, i.e. the Roman Empress. The Kingdom of Georgia at its height during Tamar’s reign extended from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, held a few neighboring principalities on vassalage terms, and led Christian missions to the mountainous Caucasian north. Many pagan Caucasian tribes were converted to Christianity and remained so until Islam replaced the Christian faith in the region a few centuries later.

Shota Rustaveli presents his poem to Queen Tamar, a painting by the Hungarian artist Mihaly Zichi (Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Tamar’s reign was marked by major political and cultural developments. She chose to appoint officials to high posts on the basis not of noble descent, but of personal merit, according to the advice ascribed to Shota Rustaveli: “Noble descent costs a thousand, but a good character – ten thousand; if a man is not good as a man, his noble descent avails for nothing”. In the Gelati Academy philosophical studies thrived. In fact, Tamar’s panegyrist and poet, Ioane Shavteli, punningly relates the name Gelat[i] to Hellada, Greece, stating that Tamar’s Kingdom is a true heir to the great heritage of Hellenic philosophy. The broad and audacious vision of the Gelatian scholars presented Greek philosophy as a tool to better understand the Bible, as well as a valuable spiritual and intellectual endeavour in itself. Rustaveli goes even further and in his immortal poem ‘The Knight in the Panther’s Skin’, dedicated to King Tamar, as he calls her, creates a universal, eclectic world of knowledge in which Biblical wisdom and the Christian theology are creatively associated with Greek philosophy, Persian literature, Sufi mysticism and the latest scientific developments of the epoch. Scholars justly coined the term “Georgian Renaissance” for the period of Tamar’s reign, and the contemporary culture of the Kingdom of Georgia also thrived in the fields of architecture, painting, mosaic art and metalwork, examples of which are amply represented in Georgian churches and museums.

Basil the Treasurer, court historian of Queen Tamar, image from the manuscript ‘Life of the King of Kings – Tamar’, Or. 17154

Tamar was a deeply religious woman. She abhorred violence and forbade both torture and capital punishment in her realm. In a sincere display of humility, she would sew and knit priestly garments with her own hands and give them to humble priests. Her piety is evidenced in the many churches built all over Georgia on the most inaccessible hilltops to establish ceaseless prayer for her Kingdom and people. Before the decisive battle of Basiani, Tamar walked barefoot from Tbilisi to the monastery of Vardzia in a sacrificial feat of procession and prayers for the salvation of the Kingdom. There is a surviving hymn dedicated by Tamar to the Khakhuli icon of the Holy Virgin Mary in which we glimpse both her devotion and theological education:

From your virgin blood, o Bride, you became a mysterious matter of the heavenly Providence, having become the begetter of the Son of God, who also was born your Son, for the salvation of the world! Embellish, exalt and glorify me, Tamar, who, like you, also a descendant of David, for I have dared to embellish Your Icon that depicts You and Your Son, protect me together with my son.

The Orthodox Church of Georgia canonized Tamar soon after her death. There are two feast days celebrating her memory, one on May 14, the anniversary of her death, and another in the second week after Easter, celebrating Tamar on account of her piety alongside the women who came to the tomb of the resurrected Jesus.

Golden cross of Queen Tamar, composed of rubies, emeralds and large pearls (Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Tamar’s reign symbolizes for Georgians the height of their political and cultural success and grandeur. In the subsequent history of Georgia, with its hardships and calamities, Tamar’s memory has shone as an unfading star, providing Georgians with hope for a better future. Georgians believe that she continues to protect the country assigned to her, and will continue to do so until the end of time.

Levan Gigineishvili, Professor at Tbilisi State University

References and further reading

https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2021/11/two-new-fine-editions-of-georgias-national-poet.html

https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2023/06/georgian-manuscripts-in-the-british-library.htm

Shota Rustaveli, The Man in the Panther’s skin: a Romantic Epic … a close rendering from the Georgian attempted by Marjory Scott Wardrop. (London,1912) 14003.bb.16.

Shota Rustaveli, Vepʻxis tqaosani = The knight in the Panther’s skin. In Georgian, German, English, Russian and French. (Tbilisi, 2016) LF.37.b.367.

Shota Rustaveli, The knight in the Panther’s skin: Selected Aphorisms. Translated from Georgian by Lyn Coffin. (Tbilisi, 2017) YD.2017.a.2390

David Shemoqmedeli, The knight in the Panther’s skin: a masterpiece in world literature. New York, 2017 (YC.2018.b.1050)

Ioane Savteli, Abdul-Mesiani. Tbilisi, 1915 (YF.2019.a.3365)

David Marshall Lang, Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints. (New York, 1976) W.P.5206/15

John Oliver Wardrop, The Kingdom of Georgia: Travel in a Land of Women, Wine and Song. (London, 1888) 2356.c.14

William Edward David Allen, A history of the Georgian People: From the Beginning down to the Russian Conquest in the Nineteenth Century. (London, 1932) X.802/1941.

Donald Rayfield, Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia. (London, 2012) YC.2013.a.14021

On February 14, European Collections featured at Doctoral Open Day themed ‘Global Languages, Cultures and Societies’. Marja Kingma, Curator of Germanic Collections, delivered a presentation introducing PhD students from across the UK and beyond to navigating the collections and identifying resources to support their research. In the afternoon, our curators hosted a show-and-tell session, offering the students a glimpse into the Library's unmatched holdings from continental Europe. The selections ranged from a quirky bottle-shaped Czech book to a Russian glossy LGBT magazine and a modern illuminated manuscript from Georgia. Spoiler alert – love-themed curatorial picks proved crowd pleasers. For those who could not make it, here is a taster of what you might have missed.

Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator of Slavonic and East European Collections, Olga Topol and Hanna Dettlaff-Kuznicka, Curators of Slavonic and East European Collections, turned the spotlight on minority languages and cultures, giving voice to the Evenks, Sakha, Kashubians, Silesians, and the Gagauz people of Ukraine. It was a revelation to many of the students to learn that Eastern Europe was both linguistically and culturally diverse, with a plethora of languages, ethnicities, and religious traditions across the region.

V. A. Dʹiachenko, N. V. Ermolova, Evenki i iakuty iuga Dalʹnego Vostoka, XVII-XX vv. (St. Petersburg, 1994) YA.1997.a.2298.

Marcin Melon, Kōmisorz Hanusik: we tajnyj sużbie ślonskij nacyje (Kotōrz Mały, 2015) YF.2017.a.20547. An interesting example of a crime comedy written in the Silesian ethnolect.

Milan Grba, Lead Curator of South-East European Collections, highlighted a groundbreaking work by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, Srpski rječnik (‘Serbian Dictionary’), which proved very popular among researchers with an interest in linguistics.

Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, Srpski rječnik (Vienna, 1818) 12976.r.6.

It was the first book printed in Karadžić’s reformed 30-character Cyrillic alphabet, following the phonetic principle of "write as you speak." The dictionary contained over 26,000 words and was trilingual, with Serbian, German, and Latin entries. It standardised Serbian orthography but also preserved the nation’s oral tradition. The dictionary’s encyclopaedic entries encompassed folklore, history, and ethnography, making it a pivotal text in both linguistic reform and cultural preservation.

Anna Chelidze, Curator of Georgian Collections, showed the students a contemporary illuminated manuscript created in 2018 by the Georgian calligrapher Giorgi Sisauri. The Art Palace of Georgia commissioned the work especially for the British Library to enrich our Georgian collections. The poem Kebai da Didebai Kartulisa Enisa ('Praise and Exaltation of the Georgian Language') was written in the 10th century by John Zosimus, a Georgian Christian monk and religious writer. It is renowned for its profound reverence for the Georgian language, employing numerological symbolism and biblical allusions to underscore its sacredness.

(Giorgi Sisauri), John Zosimus, Kebai da Didebai Kartulisa Enisa, (2018) Or. 17158

Sophie Defrance, Valentina Mirabella and Barry Taylor, Curators of Romance Language Collections, treated the students to some ... romance.

Sophie Defrance took a tongue-in-cheek approach to the theme by suggesting another way to look at (some) love letters with Le rire des épistoliers.

Cover of Charrier-Vozel, Marianne, Le rire des épistoliers: XVIe-XVIIIe siècle (Rennes, 2021) YF.2022.a.9956

The volume gathers the proceedings of a 2017 conference at the University of Brest on the expression, manners, and importance of laughing and laughter in 16th- and 17th-century correspondence, with examples from Diderot’s letters to his lover Sophie Volland, or from the exchanges between Benjamin Constant and his confidante Julie Talma.

Valentina Mirabella decided to revisit the Boris Pasternak’s timeless love story ‘Doctor Zhivago’. Turns out, the history of the novel’s publication in Italy was nearly as turbulent as the story itself! It was first published in Italian translation as Il dottor Živago in 1957 by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. Although an active communist, Feltrinelli smuggled the manuscript out of the USSR and resisted pressure against its publication. The demand for Il dottor Živago was so great that Feltrinelli was able to license translation rights into 18 different languages well in advance of the novel's publication. The Communist Party of Italy expelled the publisher from its ranks in retaliation for his role in the release of the book they felt was critical of communism.

Cover of the 34th (in the space of just two years!) edition of Il dottor Živago by Boris Pasternak translated from Russian by Pietro Zveteremich (Milano : Feltrinelli, 1959) W16/9272

Barry Taylor drew attention to the epistolary relationship and an electric bond between the Spanish author Elena Fortún (1886-1952) and the Argentine professor Inés Field (1897-1994) with the book Sabes quién soy: cartas a Inés Field (‘You know who I am: letters to Inés Field’).

Elena Fortún, Sabes quién soy: cartas a Inés Field (Seville, 2020) YF.2021.a.15259

Fortún was the author of the popular Celia books, which followed the heroine from a seven-year-old in well-to-do Madrid to a schoolteacher in Latin America. The books give a child’s-eye-view of the world. They were censored by Franco and the author was exiled, but the books have been re-published by Renacimiento of Seville in the 2000s. Fortún’s novel Oculto sendero (‘The hidden path’) published in 2016 is seen as a lesbian Bildungsroman.

Fortún met Inés Field in Buenos Aires. Now that both women are dead, critics feel free to read the correspondence through the prism of the Bildungsroman.

Ildi Wolner, Curator of East and South-East European Collections, explored the representations of love in art with Agnes’s Hay Sex : 40 rajz = 40 drawings.

Agnes Hay, Sex: 40 rajz = 40 drawings ([Budapest, 1979]) YA.1997.a.2586

Ágnes Háy is a Hungarian graphic artist and animation filmmaker, who has lived in London since 1985. Her unique experimental style of drawing uses simple lines and symbols to convey complex meanings and associations, and this booklet is no exception. Considered rather bold in Communist Hungary at the end of the 1970s, this series of sketches explores the diverse intricacies of gender relations, without the need for a single word of explanation.

Page from Sex : 40 rajz = 40 drawings [Budapest, 1979] YA.1997.a.2586

Susan Reed, Curator of Germanic Collections, shared a fascinating collection of essays examining aspects of the love letter as a social and cultural phenomenon from the 18th century to the present day.

Cover of Der Liebesbrief: Schriftkultur und Medienwechsel vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, herausgegeben von Renate Stauf, Annette Simonis, Jörg Paulus (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008) YF.2010.a.14652

The authors scrutinised letters from historical and literary figures including Otto von Bismark, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Rainer Maria Rilke. The book ends with a consideration of how online messaging forms might transform the way we write love letters.

Ela Kucharska-Beard, Curator of Baltic Collections, displayed a mysterious metal box containing a booklet in English and Lithuanian, some photographs, posters and letters.

Vilma Samulionytė, Liebe Oma, Guten Tag, or The Pact of Silence (Vilnius, 2018) RF.2019.a.120

Liebe Oma, Guten Tag, or The Pact of Silence is a moving tribute from the Lithuanian photographer Vilma Samulionyė to her grandmother, a Lithuanian German Elė Finkytė Šnipaitienė. When Vilma’s grandmother took her own life in her 70s, Vilma and her sister Jūrate decided to delve into the family history. Their research resulted in a documentary film, an exhibition, and an artists’ book. Along the way the sisters face taboos, one of them being a chain of suicides in the family.

The journey into the family’s German history and their post-war life in Lithuania left them with some unsettling questions. Who was Kazimieras and was he the reason why Ella Fink left her family behind? Throughout the story letters and photographs create a link between the family in the West and in the East, between the living and the dead. 

We hope you have enjoyed this virtual show-and-tell of highlights in our European collections. We look forward to welcoming you to the next Doctoral Open Days in 2026!

One of the exhibits in our current exhibition Medieval Women: in their own Words is the first European printed book ascribed to a female printer. The printer in question is Estellina Conat, who worked with her husband Abraham printing Hebrew books in Mantua in the 1470s. The book is an edition of a 14th-century poem by Jedaiah ben Abraham Bedersi entitled Behinat ha-‘Olam (‘The Contemplation of the World’). It was printed around 1476 and in the colophon, Estellina states: “I, Estellina, the wife of my worthy husband Abraham Conat, printed this book”. (In fact she says she “wrote” the book since the Hebrew language had not yet settled on a word for the relatively new technology of printing.) She adds that she was assisted by Jacob Levi, a young man from Tarrascon in Provence.

Final page of Behinat ha-‘Olam (Mantua, ca 1476) C.50.a.5. (ISTC ij00218520) The colophon at the foot of the page names Estellina Conat as its printer

No other book from the Conat press survives with Estellina’s name in the colophon, and she has often been overlooked as the first woman printer in Europe, perhaps because she printed in Hebrew rather than in classical Latin or Greek or the contemporary European vernaculars more familiar to western scholars of early printing. Many sources still give the name of Anna Rügerin as the first woman printer instead.

Anna is named in the colophons of two books printed in Augsburg in 1484 (around 8 years after Estellina’s work!). She was part of a family of printers: her widowed mother had married the printer Johann Bämler, and Anna’s brother Johann Schönsperger, perhaps encouraged by Bämler, set up a press with Anna’s husband Thomas. After Thomas died, Anna appears to have taken over from him and printed in her own name editions of the historic German law book, the Sachsenspiegel and of a handbook for writers of legal and official documents entitled Formulare und deutsch rhetorica (Augsburg, 1484; IB.6605; ISTC if00245500).

Colophon naming Anna Rügerin as the printer of an edition of the Sachsenspiegel (Augsburg, 1484) IB.6602 (ISTC 00024000). Image from Wikimedia Commons, from a copy in the Bavarian State Library.

Another woman printer emerged in the 1490s in Stockholm. Anna Fabri, like Anna Rügerin, took over the work of printing on the death of her husband, a common pattern for female printers in the early centuries of the industry. In 1496 she put her name to the colophon of a Breviary for the diocese of Uppsala. Here she explicitly states that she completed the work begun by her husband. As in the case of Estellina Conat, no other book survives bearing her name.

Final Page of  Breviarium Upsalense (Stockholm, 1496; ISTC ib01187000), naming Anna Fabri in the colophon. Image from a copy in the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris. The British Library holds a single leaf inserted in a copy of G.F. Klemming, Sveriges äldre liturgiska literatur (Stockholm, 1879) C.18.c.13.

We don’t know exactly what role Estellina and the two Annas played in the production of the books that bear their names, but it’s certainly possible that it was more than merely overseeing the work and that they were involved in the physical processes of the print shop. We know that nuns of the Florentine convent of San Jacopo in Ripoli worked as typesetters in the printing house associated with the church and its Dominican community, and a Bridgettine abbey at Vadstena in Sweden printed a Book of Hours in 1495, although their press apparently burned down soon after and was not restarted. The current BL exhibition also features woodcut prints made and coloured by another Bridgettine community at Mariënwater in the Netherlands. All this work carried on the long tradition of medieval nuns working as scribes, artists and illuminators (also richly evidenced in the exhibition), bringing it into the new age of printing.

A leaf from a music book for use in the Latin Mass, illuminated by nuns of the Poor Clares convent in Cologne in the late 14th or early 15th century. Add MS 35069

The 18th-century scholar of early Hebrew printing, Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi, criticised Estellina Conat’s edition of the Beh.inat ha-‘Olam as unevenly printed, and scornfully suggested that it might be “the effort of a woman attempting something beyond her powers.” But as Estellina and her sister-printers show, printing was indeed within the power of women and they played a part in it from the early decades of the industry. Thanks to ongoing research, and publicity such as the Medieval Women exhibition, these woman printers and their work are ever more visible today.

Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections

References/Further reading

Adri K. Offenberg, ‘The Chronology of Hebrew Printing at Mantua in the Fifteenth Century: A Re-examination’ The Library, 6th series, 16 (1994) pp. 298-315. RAR 010

Hanna Gentili, ‘Estellina Conat, Early Hebrew Printer’, in Medieval Women: Voices & Visions, edited by Eleanor Jackson and Julian Harrison (London, 2024) [Not yet catalogued]

Sheila Edmunds, ‘Anna Rügerin Revealed’, Journal of the Early Book Society for the Study of Manuscripts and Printing History 2 (1999) pp. 179-181. 2708.h.850

Anabel Thomas, ‘Dominican Marginalia: the Late Fifteenth-Century Printing Press of San Jacopo di Ripoli in Florence’, in At the Margins: Minority Groups in Premodern Italy, edited by Stephen J. Milner (Minneapolis, 2005), pp. 192-216. YC.2005.a.12149