One of my favorite things about cataloging Special Collections materials is finding little treasures left in the book by its owner. Often they have nothing to do with the subject matter and seem to be placed there for safe keeping or out of convenience: notes, shopping lists, book lists, bookmarks. However, sometimes the ephemera in the book not only provides additional primary sources on the subject, but tells us about how important this book once was to his owner. The collection I most often deal with is André and Catherine de Saint-Rat collection of Russian history, literature and art, in which every book was carefully selected, sought after, taken care of, and researched. Nothing, with the possible exception of the “Pill Book” (guide to medication), is out of place and every book has a history. A very large number of books contain related newspaper clippings, notes related to their publication, or inscriptions on the inside cover with their provenance. My favorite ephemera are the ones that document a controversy or special value of the publication. One such book is a catalog of an exhibition titled “The Avant-Garde in Russia, 1910-1930: New Perspectives.” Laid in the book is a newspaper clipping from “The New York Times” with the review of the exhibit, the program, a journal article by a prominent Russian art scholar and a personal friend of Mr. De Saint-Rat, John Bowlt, and a letter from a former student, by then a history professor. All these items, carefully cut out, copied, or stapled relate to the event of the exhibition. The letter is particularly touching. A part of it reads: “It’s a remarkable exhibition, made even more so by your contributions. I have a sense of pride at having been one of your students and I realize how fortunate I am to have seen many of the treasures in your collection.”
Another example of ephemera providing additional research value and history of the event it describes is “Russian and Soviet Painting: An Exhibition from the Museums of the USSR.” This catalog, in particular, has a wealth of material documenting the controversy of the exhibition held in 1977. Clippings from American newspapers acknowledged the big steps art museums of both countries were making with an art exchange in the middle of the Cold war. Articles from Russian immigrant papers chronicled the outrage of the Russian American community regarding the choice made by the Soviets to send mostly little-known socialist realism rather than paintings of higher artistic value. A passionate letter to the editor of one of these papers by John Bowlt defended the cultural value of the exhibition, showing great tact and expertise.
While I get very excited by such finds, as a cataloger I am faced with the issue of preserving the connection between the book and its ephemera without damage to either of them from paper acid and the bulk of materials straining the spine of the book. All the ephemera is usually separated from the book and kept in acid-free envelopes clearly marked with its original location. A project is being started to edit the bibliographic records of books that had related materials inside and to organize the ephemera so it can be found easily upon request. I believe that this material and the respect for each of these books is what makes them valuable as research sources, as well as objects.
Masha Stepanova
Cataloging & Processing
This fall we’re featuring two exhibits in the Walter Havighurst Special Collections exhibit gallery. Both focus on 19th century London, but expose different facets of the outcomes of the Industrial Revolution. Both also feature some of our more wonderful books. The exhibits are free and open to the public and will be available through December 14, 2012.
The Crystal Palace & the Great Exhibition of 1851, curated by Special Collections Librarian Kim Tully, provides a different perspective on a London forever changed by the rapid evolution of transportation, manufacturing and commerce. An early world’s fair, the Great Exhibition provided a venue to display the benefits of the Industrial Revolution: its wide array of goods, its conveniences, and its technological capability to bring the world closer together. We have several original documents from the Great Exhibition showcasing the remarkable Crystal Palace, an icon of the age.
The National Alliance of Russian Solidarists (Natsional’no/Narodno Trudovoi Soiuz rossiiskikh solidaristov), or NTS, is one of the least known anti-bolshevik organizations behind one of the most influential movements. Formed as a youth group in Belgrade in 1930, it sustained many decades of vigorous political activity. Many generations of Soviet intellectuals read works by Russian dissidents (Solzhenitsyn, Galich, and Okudzhava among them) in NTS-controlled publications “Posev” and “Grani,” which were smuggled into the Soviet Union in the 1980s. The organization eventually became legalized in Russia and some members even ran for government posts, but because their politics failed to adjust to the context of the new Russian democracy of the 1990s and because of their alliance with the controversial general Vlasov during the war, their attempts at being a part of the political scene were unsuccessful. However, decades before this the anti-Soviet propaganda and forceful tactics of NTS were considered threatening enough by the Soviets to respond with arrests, kidnappings, assassination attempts, and diplomatic pressure, as in the case of the closing of “Radio Free Russia” in Germany by the German government. NTS members, who were caught on the territory of the Soviet Union were immediately killed, arrested, or punished in more creative ways. Some examples of such punishments are in the Walter Havighurst Special Collections.
After World War II a number of arrests of NTS leaders resulted in a wave of “reformed” memoirs denouncing the anti-Soviet activity of NTS. The most striking is “NTS, nam pora ob”iasnitsia!” (“NTS, we need to talk!”) by Evgenii Divnich. The book was published in 1968, two years after his death and under unclear circumstances. It’s interesting that the introduction to the book very subtly yet forcefully emphasizes the facts that he was not incarcerated while writing it and, in a different paragraph, that he wrote it on his own initiative. Divnich was one of the founders of NTS and its chair from 1934 to 1940. After being arrested by the Soviet government and sent to a Gulag, a number of articles supposedly authored by him were published. There are other examples of books in the André and Catherine de Saint-Rat collection with similar stories and fascinating context, which I plan to pull together in a digital exhibit later this year.