Anna Rubinowski and Jackie Waylen tell us about a special display of music from Eastern Europe and an exhibition of rare Slavic Studies books and manuscripts, both at the Matheson Library.
The Sir Louis Matheson Library is home to one of the major Slavic Studies collections in the Southern Hemisphere. To showcase these collections, the Library is currently hosting an exhibition of Ukrainian rare materials, with items many on display for the very first time. The exhibition was initially created for the Ukraine and the World: Culture, Politics and Society international conference which took place from 12 to 14 July 2018 in the Library.
The Ukraine and the World exhibition was prepared by the Ada Booth Librarian, Anna Rubinowski, in collaboration with the Rare Books Team and the Ukrainian Studies department at Monash. Located in the Gallery, the exhibition will run until 26th July; it showcases rare Ukrainian materials from the Ada Booth Slavic collection and the Rare Books Collection.
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The exhibition includes the oldest Slavic book in our collection, an incomplete first edition of Nebo novoe (The New Haven) by Ioanikii Galiatovsky from 1665, as well as other rare Ukrainian publications with a particular focus on Ukrainian diaspora around the world. One of the display cabinets is dedicated to the Ukrainian Australian diaspora, celebrating 70 years of Ukrainian settlement in Australia.
The music display, located on level 1 of the Sir Louis Matheson Library, is currently highlighting a small selection of the Library’s diverse collection of scores, books and sound recordings related to Slavic, Eastern-European and Eurasian studies. The ongoing acquisition of books and music related to composers from Eastern Europe, and of Australian composers of Slavic heritage, or strongly influenced by Slavic culture, from the Australian Music Centre, is funded by the Ada Booth Benefaction.
Many of the Eastern European vinyls are on display for the first time and include rare Soviet era pressings (c1955-1960s) with Russian and Moldovan folk songs, as well as classical music. Amongst the performers represented on these recordings there are a significant number who were born in Ukraine, for example, Mischa Levitzky, Sviatoslav Richter, Emil and Elizaveta Gilels, David Oistrakh and Leonid Kogan. Two of the Ukrainian vinyl recordings were donated by Andre and Alicia Filonjuk of Melbourne and provide insight into the rich musical culture of the Ukrainian diaspora community around Melbourne.
One of the central works on display is an Old Believers’ chant book from the 19th century. The Old Believers are a conservative group within the Russian Orthodox Church, which up to 1905 were not allowed to print books and in result produced manuscripts, many of them richly illuminated such as the example on display.
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| Old Believers' chant book |
The Victorian Flute Guild donations on display include works by Chopin (born in Poland), Terschak (born in Prague) and a work for flute and piano taken from a theme in the opera I Lituani (The Lithuanians) where the libretto is based on an historical poem by Adam Mickiewicz. This collection also holds music by Russian composers, and composers who lived and worked in Russia, including Tchaikovsky's flute teacher, Cesare Ciardi (1818-1877) from Italy and Ernesto Köhler (1849-1907), known in Russia as Эрнест Иосифович Кёлер (Ėrnest Iosifovich Këler), who worked in Saint Petersburg from 1871 until his death and was considered one of the best flautists of his time.
Visitors also have the opportunity to listen to songs from the vinyl recordings from Ukraine, Russia and other Slavic countries through an ipad next to the display cabinet. The collection of Slavic music materials will be on display from now until the end of the year.
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