Among a good number of new Ukrainian books that arrived in March are of course many about the Russian war against Ukraine taking place since 2014 which then intensified appallingly with the full-scale invasion launched in February 2022. Continue reading
“Every day we wake up and hope that they will be showing Swan Lake on TV.”
The ICC arrest warrant issued yesterday for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian children’s rights commissioner, for the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children may make some Russians tentatively more hopeful that Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake will appear on their screens at some point. While the UK is alerted to serious news by non-stop all-main-channels coverage complete with news alert banners and presenters in sombre dress, Russia has traditionally been alerted to significant changes by the replacement of ordinary programmes by ballet. Continue reading
Today is Taras Shevchenko’s 209th birthday. In his fairly short life (he died one day after his 47th birthday), Shevchenko revolutionised Ukrainian literature and language and art. Our oldest Shevchenko holding is the 4-volume set of his works, published in L’viv between 1893 and 1898.
As Dr Rory Finnin of Cambridge Ukrainian Studies described in his Liberation lecture in November (full recording here), Shevchenko’s importance to Ukrainians domestically and further afield cannot and could never be overstated. Thanks to donations made to the UL over the last 12 years, we have a rich collection of émigré Ukrainian books dating in particular from post-WW2 migrant communities. Here are the earliest 1945- Ukrainophone Shevchenko editions from South America, North America, and Western Europe: Continue reading
This brief post looks at a couple of welcome donations of books about Ukrainian art.
In preparation for today, the anniversary of Putin’s terrible full-scale invasion of Ukraine, librarians around Collegiate Cambridge have been promoting material about Ukraine. This post looks at some examples.
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