In June, the Regional Library “Partenii Pavlovich” – Silistra organized for its readers and guests the exhibition “Writers, Books, Illustrations”. To learn more about the exhibition, we contacted Ms. Lilyana Velikova – Head Librarian-Specialist in the “Art” Department of the Bulgarian Library.
“The exhibition is divided thematically: History of Book Art; Book Design; The Bulgarian Book through the Ages; Manuscript Book Treasures; Book Miniatures; The Bible – the Eternal Book; In the World of Illustration; Illustrations of Children’s Books; Drawings by Writers.
The beginning is set with “History of Book Art”, where in addition to “History of Literary Culture” by Vladimir Vasiliev and “Letters and Documents on Papyrus” by Vesselin Beshevliev, a special place is given to the extremely valuable editions of
“One Hundred Bulgarian Bookplates” and “Exmusicians of Bulgarian Composers” by Petar Velichkov and “Exlibris” by Evtim Tomov, “EX LIBRIS – 2008” - catalog of the R Library – Ruse.
“Book Design” presents “Ancient and Modern Bulgarian Font” and “The Font Through the Ages” by Vasil Yonchev and similar editions in Russian.
The “Writers and Books” showcase contains Lyudmila Zhivkova’s edition of “The Four Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander”, the phototype editions of “Stematografia” by Hristofor Zhefarovich and “The Rila Charter of Tsar Ivan Shishman” with research by Ivan Duychev.
The “Manuscript Literary Treasures” theme presents art albums and phototype editions of “Manasseh’s Chronicle”, “Asemanian Gospel”, “Evtimiev’s Official Gazette” “Abagar” by Philip Stanislavov, as well as “Slavic Manuscripts from the British Museum and Library” and “The Bulgarian Literary Tradition in the Vatican Library”.
The more important titles arranged in “The Bulgarian Book Through the Ages” are “Thracian Legends”, “1000 Years of the Bulgarian Manuscript Book” by Aksinia Dzhurova, “Old Bulgarian Art” by Nikola Mavrodinov and “Bulgarian Pagan Culture 7th-9th Century” by Rasho Rashev.
The topics “Book Miniatures” and “The Bible – the Eternal Book” speak for themselves and here are selected richly illustrated and excellently produced editions from the library’s holdings.
The last three topics “In the World of Illustration”, “Illustrations of Children’s Books” and “Drawings of Writers” include editions with illustrations by Iliya Beshkov, Alexander Bozhinov, Vadim Lazarkevich, Evgeni Bosyatski, Neva Tuzsuzova. I deliberately do not mention contemporary Bulgarian and foreign illustrators. I decided to include drawings of writers as well, and from the Bulgarians I found Chudomir and Elin Pelin.
The majority of the exhibition is from the collection of the Art Department, which focuses on books and non-traditional media. The library’s exhibition space turned out to be too small in terms of area to be able to show the entire wealth of the book collections. The “Data” database in the library’s electronic system includes detailed data for each edition, which greatly facilitates the search. The rest is now a matter of a creative approach to library work.”
Photos and poster: Vasil Tonchev
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