Title treatment of tan text on a teal background reading 125 Years of NYPL's Slavic and East European Collections

The Slavic and East European Collections at The New York Public Library are among the most extensive publicly accessible collections in the world. Serving local, regional, and international communities of readers and scholars, their origins date back to two of the Library’s predecessors: the Astor Library, established in 1849, and the Lenox Library, established in 1870.

Since its founding in 1899, the Slavonic Division (later the Slavic and Baltic Division) systematically acquired vernacular materials in numerous languages from the region. Additionally, various other research divisions have acquired materials in Slavic and East European languages—as well as works in West European languages—about the region. In recent years, the Slavic and East European Collections have developed and grown in collaboration with Columbia, Harvard, and Princeton universities, achieving exceptional depth in documenting the region’s publishing output.

Featuring items from the 14th century to the 20th century, the works on display here give a sense of the huge range and diversity of the collection, which celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2024 and contains more than 800,000 volumes and 24,000 microform titles in various languages. These holdings offer invaluable insights into the region’s past and present. The Library’s extensive resources range from medieval manuscripts to digitized out-of-copyright titles, contemporary e-books, and over 25,000 digitized images.

This display is organized by The New York Public Library and curated by Bogdan Horbal, Curator for Slavic and East European Collections, and Rebecca Szantyr, Print Specialist for The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs.

Large Print Labels

Large print label logo

Access the exhibition's large print labels here:

125 Years of NYPL’s Slavic and East European Collections

Large-type labels are also available at the information desk in the McGraw Rotunda on the third floor of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.

Installation Views

Photograph of interior of case with three books and scroll on deck and three prints on the wall
Three-quarter view of case taken from left side showing open books on deck and prints on wall
Photograph of left side of case with two open books and a scroll on the deck and two prints on the wall
Parchment scroll laid out on plexi on display in case
Image of right side of case with two prints on the wall and two open books and a scroll on the deck
Installation image showing all items in the case and stanchion with intro text to the lefthand side

    • Exhibition Materials

    A light green cover with a female figure in a folk costume
    Halyna Mazepa (1910–1995)
    Cover for Nova Khata (New Home), 1934
    Photomechanical reproduction
    The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Print Collection

    In response to industrialization and geopolitical changes, the Ukrainian Folk Cooperative published the magazine Nova Khata from 1925 to 1939 to promote the preservation of Ukrainian identity and material culture. 

    The journal’s subtitle, “A Magazine for Nurturing Domestic Affairs,” expresses the publication’s dual mission. Like other periodicals aimed at a female readership, Nova Khata included trend pieces on fashion and the household arts, but it also featured instructional articles on Ukrainian crafts. Halyna Mazepa’s cover design for this issue—a woman in a folk costume, presented in an avant-garde cropped and angled visual aesthetic—suggests to its audience an ideal of Ukrainian womanhood that was both traditional and modern.

     

    Printed rendering of a roughly triangular building with red roof and detailing
    Anton Mikhailovich Lavinsky (1893–1968), artist
    Izba chital’nia, tablitsa no. 8 (Reading Room, plate no. 8), 1925
    Photomechanical reproduction
    Rare Book Division

    Issued by the art critic Iakov Aleksandrovich Tugendkhol’d (1882–1928), the portfolio Iskusstvo v bytu (Art in Everyday Life) sought to promote the formation of groups such as school and social clubs that would enrich public life in the Soviet Union through creative programming. Featuring brightly colored and geometric illustrations by a team of artists, the album’s contents propose what some of these projects might be: banners, exhibition cabinets, stage sets and costumes, and, as seen here, a reading room. The suggested designs were intentionally simple, enabling their execution by amateurs, and were purposely schematic, to stimulate the viewer’s own inventiveness.

     

    A print of tall trees with the silhouette of a cathedral in the background
    Vojtěch Preissig (1873–1944)
    View of St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle, 1916
    Etching and aquatint
    The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Print Collection

    Vojtěch Preissig studied, worked, and published in Prague and Paris before immigrating to the United States in 1910. A proponent of Czech independence and resistance, Preissig issued prints for these causes, and ultimately returned to Europe in 1930 to participate more directly in the movement.

    Preissig included this print in a portfolio, Za Českou Samostatnost (For Czech Independence), published in New York by České Národní Sdružení (Czech National Alliance). Although created during World War I, the work displays some of Preissig’s earlier influences, namely Japanese ukiyo-e prints and Art Nouveau, seen here in the flattened perspective in the trees in the immediate foreground.

     

    An open book with text on the left page and on the right an illustration unfolded to reveal a monotone design for recreational fireworks in the shape of a mythical beast
    Casimirus Siemienowicz (ca. 1600–ca. 1651)
    Jacob Van Meurs (1619/20–ca. 1680), engraver
    Artis magnæ artilleriæ: pars prima (The Great Art of Artillery: Part One)
    Amsterodami: Apud Ioannem Ianssonium, 1650
    General Research Division

    Casimirus Siemienowicz was a general of artillery, gunsmith, military engineer, and a pioneer of rocketry. He served in the armies of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and later the Dutch Republic. His treatise, Artis magnæ artilleriæ, became a foundational manual on artillery, rocketry, and pyrotechnics, widely used for over a century. The Latin original was translated into French (1651), German (1676), English (1729), and Dutch (1729). The work is divided into five parts, covering topics such as caliber, pyrotechnics, rockets, fireballs, and the construction of machines and set pieces for military pyrotechnics. Depicted here is a design for recreational fireworks.

     

    An open manuscript written in black ink with some red text, a floriated initial, and some decoration in the right margin of the righthand page.
    Armenian manuscript, ca. 1639
    Manuscripts and Archives Division, Armenian Manuscripts Collection

    This manuscript, written by three scribes, includes philosophical treatises on David the Philosopher and Aristotle, along with commentary on the New Testament. It was initiated by Yovhannes in the year 1088 of the Armenian calendar (1639 CE) and completed by Baltasar a year later. Folios 117–132, authored by an unidentified scribe, were later additions. An inscription within the manuscript mentions three priests—Melk Isedek, Movses, and Aharon—who were likely its owners. The manuscript was acquired by the Astor Library from Barnace Matthiew Ayvad of New York in 1889 and transferred to the newly opened New York Public Library in 1896.

     

    An open parchment manuscript with unfastened ties and an attached seal with a fabric cover attached to the bottom edge
    Livonian parchment, 1345
    Manuscripts and Archives Division, Livonian and Danish Parchments and Seals 1345–1493

    This 1345 document by Godfredus, bearing the seal of the Roman Catholic Bishopric of Reval (present-day Tallinn, Estonia), is part of a collection of 15 documents dated between 1345 and 1493 and related to this ecclesiastical structure. Following the establishment of Danish rule over Reval in 1219, King Valdemar II created the Bishopric in 1240. Until 1374, the see was suffragan to the Archbishop of Lund in Denmark (present-day Sweden). It was subsequently transferred to the Archbishopric of Riga (present-day Latvia) and ceased to exist in 1560 during the Protestant Reformation.

     

    An illuminated manuscript shown open to two elaborately illustrated pages, each with text in the center, featuring floral motifs, perched birds, acanthus leaves, and other decorative elements
    Kniga sviashchennagō pĕsno khvaleniia (Book of Sacred Song of Praise)
    Russia, ca. 18th century
    The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Spencer Collection

    This richly illuminated manuscript contains vespers “for the sweet singing and the solemn hymns for the good holidays of Our Lord.” It is written in Church Slavonic, a conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church. It begins with hymns for the Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos. This feast, celebrated on September 8, is one of the Twelve Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church and commemorates the birth of the Virgin Mary. Theotokos is a Greek title for the Virgin Mary, meaning “God-bearer” or “Mother of God,” and is used primarily in Eastern Christianity.

     

    • Learn More about the Slavic and East European Collections

    The Rose Main Reading Room on a sunny day with a walkway dividing the room into two sections populated with long desks, chandeliers, domed windows, and a cloud-filled mural mounted on an ornate ceiling.

    The New York Public Library’s holdings of Slavic and East European materials extend from early 14th century illuminated manuscripts to the latest imprints. Materials in the vernacular Slavic and East European languages number more than 500,000 volumes and 24,000 microform titles. Upwards of 300,000 volumes of works about these lands and peoples in other world languages and formats are held by NYPL. Relevant materials in Hebrew and Yiddish, as well as the Turkic and other languages of the former Soviet Union, and in other formats (e.g., maps, prints, manuscripts), are also held by the Library. In addition, the World Languages Collection at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL) holds circulating volumes of general and popular fiction and nonfiction books, periodicals, and videos in various Slavic and Baltic languages, as do a selection of the neighborhood branch libraries.

    Explore more information about the Slavic and East European Collections, including their history, in this LibGuide by Bogdan Horbal, Curator of the Slavic and East European Collections.

    Please also see the following LibGuides for information about specific Slavic and East European holdings:

    Curatorial Acknowledgments

    We thank Brent Reidy, Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Research Libraries, and Franses Rodriguez, Deputy Director of the Research Libraries. We especially thank our supervisors, Jason Baumann and Madeleine Viljoen, for supporting our work on this display, as well as Sara Spink and Becky Laughner from the Exhibitions Department at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building for working with us. Many other colleagues helped to bring this project to fruition. They work in the following departments: 

    Conservation and Collections Care: Ursula Mitra and Emily Muller.

    Creative Services: Rosalene Labrado-Perillo, Charles Arrowsmith, Emma Colón, Loré Yessuff, Peter Frasco, and Melvin Backman.

    Digital Imaging Unit: Rebecca Wack, Steven Crossot, Pete Riesett, Doran Walot, Jeanie Pai. 

    Exhibitions at the Schwarzman Building: Carl Auge, Ryan Douglass, Jake Hamill, Natalie Ortiz, and Vivian Jiawei Wu. 

    Wallach Division of Art, Print Collection: Margaret Glover and Alvaro Lazo.

    Registrar’s Office: Deborah Straussman, Caryn Gedell, and Martin Branch-Shaw. 

    Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books: Julie Golia and Tal Nadan.

    Permissions and Metadata: Dina Selfridge and Kiowa Hammons.

    Special Collections Processing: Heather Lember, Karly Wildenhaus, Sarah Adams, and Zoe Waldron. 

    Outside of NYPL, we’d like to thank Edward Kasinec for his help with the text in Church Slavonic as well as Jesse S. Arlen and Margarit Ordukhanyan for their help with the Armenian manuscript. 

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