Crimean Tatar books in print and online

the Vsesvit poster (c) Cambridge Ukrainian Studies

A couple of weeks ago, Cambridge Ukrainian Studies held its 2023 Vsesvit evening, an annual event celebrating language, translation, and music in Ukraine.  This year was dedicated to Crimean Tatar, the Turkic language spoken in Crimea.  Among the readers (and singers) was Elmaz Asan, an incredible Crimean Tatar journalist and scholar who is currently on a research placement in Cambridge.  You can read about Elmaz and her experience of being forced from two homelands by Russian invaders – Crimea in 2014 and then Ukraine in 2022 – and how she is adapting to life in Cambridge in this University piece.

The University Library has sadly few books in Crimean Tatar, but their numbers are slowly growing.  Two books were added this week, among a group of 30 new Ukrainian ebooks.  These two are language-learning books and not usual fare for the UL, but we felt it important to buy what is available.  The strong turnout at the Vsesvit event showed how much interest there is in Crimea and also how much feeling there is for Crimean Tatars, and hopefully these two new books will be useful to those who are trying out the language.

A new volume of Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi’s works : the May 2023 Slavonic item of the month

This week, another volume was added to the 50-volume Tvory (Works) set by Mykhaĭlo Hrushevs’kyĭ that has been being published since 2002.  The new volume said it was v. 34, v. 6, and it contains part of Hrushevs’kyĭ’s epic history of Ukraine-Rusʹ.  Having taken the numbers at face value, assigning the number as v. 34(6), I increasingly suspect that the v. 6 referred to on the title page will turn out to be preceded by v. 1-5 in the set’s v. 29-33 rather than all within a massive v. 34.  Ah well – labels can be reprinted and metadata updated when we know for sure.

Cover

Title page

What we have so far in the set is: 1-4(2), 5-11, 13-16, 22-23, 34(6), 46(1-2)-47(1-2), and we have covered their contents in the first of two lengthy contents notes in the set’s record.  The second note covers what v. 1 explained would be the subsets the overall set would involve, and we have added the relevant volumes that have turned up under these subsets as they appear (again, v. 34/34(6) seems to be altering the pattern):

Series [1]. Socio-political works. v. 1-4(2). (1894-1926) — series [2]. Historical studies and investigations. v. 5-10(2). (1888-1934) — series [3]. Reviews and overviews. vol. 10(2), 14-16 (1888-1913, 1924-1930) — series [4]. Literary criticism and literary works. v. 11-13 — series [5]. Diaries and memoirs – series [6]. History of Ukraine-Russia. v. 34(6) — series [7]. History of Ukrainian literature — series [8]. Monographic historical works. v. 22-23 — series [9]. Auxiliary materials: directories, indexes, archives. v. 46(1-2)-47(1-2) — series [10]. Epistolary heritage.

‘Pislia 24-ho’ (After the 24th) and other new Ukrainian books

Among this week’s new Ukrainian arrivals was our first work of fiction about Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine: Vladyslav Ivchenko’s book of stories Pisli︠a︡-24-ho (After the 24th), referring to 24 February 2022, the date of Russia’s open invasion.  Its cover shows a black-and-white urban view through a window taped against missile damage. We also received the latest 6 volumes of the Misi͡at͡sʹ viĭny : khronika podiĭ : promovy ta zvernenni͡a prezydenta Ukraïny Volodymyra Zelensʹkoho set, which provides a chronicle of the ongoing war through monthly collections of the Ukrainian President’s speeches.  In this week’s delivery from our Ukrainian supplier, we received months 6-11.

Ukraine in new electronic resources

A tranche of funding from the UKRI and other sources earlier this year has allowed Cambridge University Libraries to buy large amounts of electronic material that had been flagged for purchase but had not previously been feasible for us to buy.  This blog post looks at Ukraine in some of these resources (but you can also see a summary of all the resources available here: https://ejournalscambridge.wordpress.com/2023/05/03/new-data-rich-research-resources-for-cambridge-in-2023/).

Banner of issue one of the Kharkiv anarchist periodical Khlieb i volia

There are three obvious candidates to search for Ukraine and Ukrainian material in amongst these new purchases:

• Russian Anarchist periodicals of the early 20th century (Brill)
• Soviet Woman Digital Archive (1945-1991) (East View)
• Soviet Cinema Online. Archival Documents from RGALI, 1923-1935 (Brill)

Hlibov books in the catalogue and online

From the National Library of Ukraine’s 1959 Hlibov volume.

Last week, I wrote about a newly rediscovered and catalogued book of works by the Ukrainian poet and fabulist Hlibov and promised an update about the other books Cambridge has by and about him this week.

First, though – his name.  Last week’s 1927 book had his name as Leonyd Hlibiv.  His standard Ukrainian form is Leonid Hlibov.  One of the items we have about him is in Russian, which would normally have him as Leonid Glebov, but it is a pre-revolutionary essay published in 1911 and therefore has pre-reform spelling – so he is Gli︠e︡bov there (technically Gli︠e︡bova since his name is in the genitive form; I have updated the record to give it a modern spelling reference too (Glebova)).

Cambridge University Libraries have four books (three Ukrainian, one Russian) where Hlibov is named in the catalogue record as author or subject: