Humanities and Social Sciences Library > Collections & Reading Rooms > Slavic and Baltic Division

Exhibitions

Recent Exhibition

Russia Engages the World, 1453-1825

On View from Friday, October 3, 2003 to Saturday, January 31, 2004 in D. Samuel and Jeane H. Gottesman Exhibition Hall and Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery (First Floor)

Through a selection of approximately 230 rare works on paper, drawn from the collections of twelve New York Public Library divisions, the exhibition traces Russia’s interaction with Europe, Asia and the Americas during its rise from relative isolation to global empire. All of the materials on view date from 1453 to 1825 and nearly a third are in languages other than Russian. The exhibition places Russia in a global cultural context and stresses the exchange of ideas within and outside of its borders.

Online Exhibition

Past Exhibitions:

In 1999, items from the Division's collection appeared in the Zimmerli Art Museum (Rutgers University) exhibit, Defining Russian Graphic Arts from Diaghilev to Stalin, 1898-1934.

Selections from the Slavic, Baltic, East European, and Eurasian Collections of the NYPL figured prominently in two past exhibitions:

St. Petersburg: The Legacy of Peter the Great

"St. Petersburg: The Legacy of Peter the Great" (January 15, 1997 to March 9, 1997) was organized by the Arts & Events office of Manhattan's World Financial Center as part of a three month long "St. Petersburg: A Cultural Celebration". Contributing institutions included the Russian National Library, the Russian Museum, the Museum of St. Petersburg History, the Museum of Theater and Music (St. Petersburg), the Tsarskoe Selo Museum, and the Zimmerli Museum of Art, at Rutgers University. NYPL's contribution, "Between the Two `Greats': The Russian Illustrated Book in St. Petersburg from Peter I through the Reign of Catherine II," included rare 18th century imprints from the Library's holdings.

The Romanovs: Their Empire--Their Books. The Political, Religious, Cultural, and Social Life of Russia's Imperial House, 1762-1917

From November 1, 1997 to February 28, 1998, the NYPL featured the exhibition "The Romanovs: Their Empire--Their Books. The Political, Religious, Cultural, and Social Life of Russia's Imperial House, 1762-1917," curated by Professors Marc Raeff and Richard Wortman of Columbia University, and Edward Kasinec and Robert H. Davis, Jr. of the Slavic and Baltic Division.

During the 1920s and 30s, The New York Public Library was one of very few U.S. libraries to purchase nationalized library materials from the Former Soviet Union. Preeminent among these purchased collections were those of the Romanov family. This exhibition examined  some of the fundamental preoccupations of, and influences upon, imperial rule, via the books and manuscripts that filled the shelves of their libraries. This unusual prism provided new insights into how Russia's rulers approached and interpreted issues of empire, religion, peoples, culture, leisure, and war.