Exhibits | ScriptoriaSlavica

Category: Exhibits (page 1 of 2)

Teaching with Special Collections: From Vault to Classroom, Part 3

April 1, 2024 / johnson.60@osu.edu / Comments Off

View of the area designated for exhibit cases off of the atrium in Thompson Library. Track lighting is visible on the ceiling,; at the center is the poster for banner (4 ft. x 8 ft.) advertising the Teaching with Special Collections exhibition and a tall exhibit case with four mannequins; three other exhibit cases are spaced out around the tall case

Teaching with Special Collections in the Display Area

In the Special Collections Display area next to the atrium in Thompson Library on The Ohio State University’s Columbus campus, the largest exhibit case (large enough to house four or five mannequins!) is often occupied by items from the Historic Costume and Textiles Collection, “a scholarly and artistic museum resource of apparel and textile material culture housed within the Fashion and Retail Studies Program in the College of Education and Human Ecology.” Curator Gayle Strege selected five ensembles for the Teaching with Special Collections: From Vault to Classroom exhibition, illustrating various ways in which clothing has been integrated into courses.

Jade head of horse button, jade circular button and teardrop-shaped piece of jade affixed to gold piece with loop for a chain - all on a white background for dispplay

Teaching with Special Collections – Artifacts

Of particular interest to students and scholars of the history of the Silk Road, Central Asia, the former Soviet Union, and the Russian Empire, may be the Persian silk jacket (1925) with jade buttons (1920-1970) and pendant (2003), which in January-March 2024 was part of “The Silk Road” exhibit co-curated by Dr. Amanda Respess at Ohio State’s Marion campus.

multi-colored silk jacket on a hangar; the pattern of the silk is a hunting motif, a tribute to the importance of the horse in the cultures along the Silk Road

Teaching with Special Collections – Textiles

As the caption explains, “Horses and jade were particularly important trade items (in addition to silk itself) on the early Silk Road, connecting the regions of Central Asia and China. Horseback culture emerged on the Eurasian Steppe and China’s desire for the horses of Ferghana motivated their exploration of the Western Regions. The horseback cultures of Eurasia spread westward to Turkey, bringing with them the design motif of hunting pictured on the jacket.”

Other outfits in the case include a dark blue caftan (1970-79) that belonged to Columbus native and jazz singer Nancy Wilson. This gown was used in the “2021 exhibition Fashion & Music, which was mounted in conjunction with the class, Folk, Funk, Festivals: Music and Fashion (CSFRST 2375)“; a classic Chanel suit (circal 1960s) with “slingback pumps” that has been used in courses on 20th-century fashion, textiles, and branding, and it is featured in Historic Costume’s online gallery, Fashion2Fiber.

You must come and see for yourself the other fashion in the case, e.g., the red, white and blue polyester leisure suit that is used in courses on the history of fashion. Gayle Strege‘s caption indicates that the suit dates to circa 1976, charitably describing it as “very similar to polyester leisure suits of the 1970s, this particular one seems to have been made to celebrate the country’s bicentennial in 1976 given its color scheme.“

3 mannequins in an exhibit case visible - one wearing a dark blue caftan with rhinestones, a second in the background - a red-white-and-blue leisure suit, and to the right in the front, a dark skirt with a white shirtwaist

Teaching with Special Collections – Fashion History and Fibers

If you have the time between now and July 31, 2024, please drop by the exhibition! Exhibit gallery hours during the Spring semester are Monday-Friday 10am-6pm, Saturdays and Sundays 12pm to 6pm; Summer semester hours are Monday-Sunday 11am to 5pm. The exhibit cases next to the atrium – including Historic Costume & Textiles, Architecture and Theatre Research Institute & Independent Study – are accessible whenever Thompson Library is open.

Teaching with Special Collections: From Vault to Classroom, Part 2

April 1, 2024 / johnson.60@osu.edu / Comments Off

For those of you in Thompson Library on a particular Friday afternoon in March 2024 to attend the Book Talk by Dr. Clare Griffin about her Mixing Medicines: The Global Drug Trade and Early Modern Russia (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022),

book cover with title, author, and a distillery at the top of the cover; a beehive is in the lower right and a plant/herb in lower left

Mixing Medicines

you might want to stop by the Teaching with Special Collections: From Vault to Classroom exhibition. There are several exhibit cases in the Special Collections Display Area (THO 115) just off of Thompson Library’s atrium that include Slavic materials – Architecture, Theatre Research Institute and Independent Study, and the case dedicated to 25 Years of the Medieval Slavic Summer Institute – but the case with objects directly relevant to Dr. Griffin’s work are found in the Medical Heritage Center‘s exhibit case, which is located in the Gallery (THO 125).

Kristin Rodgers, Collections Curator at the Medical Heritage Center, taught a course on digital storytelling in 2014. Students were asked to choose an artifact from the collection and produce a digital story, relating the object to their own experiences in some way. Two of the objects displayed include a “Bleeding Bowl” and a “Scarificator.” Although Dr. Griffin does not mention those particular objects, she does reference the practice of “bloodletting” in her book.

bowl and metal object on plastic supports

Teaching with Special Collections – Digital Stories about Objects

To quote from Kristin Rodgers’ captions, “the scarificator was a spring-loaded instrument that has a series of twelve blades that snap out to cut the skin to allow for bloodletting…. it was in use from the early 1700s until the early 1900s….” The bleeding bowl “used in conjunction with the scarificator … was used to collect patient’s blood.” Such dishes (cup or bowl) were “popular from the time of antiquity up to the late 19th century…. Many bleeding bowls also included the presence of notches inside in order to accurately measure the amount of blood in ounces that was drained from the body. “

You may watch the digital stories created by Kristin’s students about the bleeding bowl, the scarificator and other objects at go.osu.edu/digitalstories.

The Book Talk by Dr. Clare Griffin was recorded and will be available for viewing. Teaching with Special Collections: From Vault to Classroom will be open until July 31, 2024.

Teaching with Special Collections: From Vault to Classroom, Part 1

March 28, 2024 / johnson.60@osu.edu / Comments Off

Monday, March 23, 2024, a new exhibition opened in the William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library, which is located on the Oval of The Ohio State University. A collaborative exhibit that spans both the Gallery (THO 125) and the Special Collections Display Area (THO 115) on the south side of the atrium, the exhibition focuses on the teaching that is done by Ohio State’s Special Collections.*

Teaching with Special Collections: From Vault to Classroom

Jeremy Stone, Exhibitions Coordinator, and Cameron Sharp, Head Exhibitions Preparator, worked with the items and texts provided by the special collections curators to assemble a visual feast with creative staging of books, photographs, ephemera, and a variety of objects.

Note the tiered display of stereo cards that “offer views of historic landscapes and architectural landmarks, such as the original Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, destroyed by the Soviets in 1931” in the Architecture case (outside of THO 105) featuring materials routinely requested by Ashley Bigham for her Architecture 5290 “Slavic, East European and Eurasian Architecture” class from the Hilandar Research Library and the Herman J. Albrecht Library of Historical Architecture, which is on deposit in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library.

Half of a glass exhibit case with two books lying flat, a stereo viewer, and six stereo cards stacked, two to a shelf, on a three-tiered plastic support.

Teaching with Special Collections in Architecture 5290

A stereo viewer donated by Angela Brintlinger to the Hilandar Research Library is positioned next to the cards.

The multi-tiered format is also used to great effect in the Theatre Research Institute & Independent Study case to display Colotype Postcards of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy’s drama The Living Corpse / Живой Трупъ as it was performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1911. These materials were part of an independent study that undergraduate Bailee Wolfe (Astronomy, Physics and Russian) conducted under the guidance of Lawrence and Lee Theatre Research Institute curator Beth Kattelman.

half of a glass exhibit case with a book, photograph, captions and description in front of two panels of standing behind the prone items each with 9 photographs

Teaching with Special Collections in Independent Study Courses

If you have the time between now and July 31, 2024, please drop by the exhibition! Exhibit gallery hours during the Spring semester are Monday-Friday 10am-6pm, Saturdays and Sundays 12pm to 6pm; Summer semester hours are Monday-Sunday 11am to 5pm. The exhibit cases next to the atrium – including Architecture and Theatre Research Institute & Independent Study – are accessible whenever Thompson Library is open.

*Hilandar Research Library, Lawrence and Lee Theatre Research Institute, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, Medical Heritage Center (Health Sciences Library), Ohio Public Archives, The Ohio State University Archives, and the Historic Costumes & Textile Collection.

Pimen Sofronov’s Work at St. Anthony’s in Bergenfield, NJ

August 31, 2018 / johnson.60@osu.edu / Comments Off

The Very Rev. John H. Erickson, the Peter N. Gramowich Professor Emeritus of Church History at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, is the author of the children’s book, Orthodox Christians in America (1999), which is part of the Religion in American Life series of Oxford University Press. The book is recommended for grades 7 and up or ages 12 and above.

In Chapter 5 “The Quest for Unity,” Erickson focuses on “The Birth of a Pan-Orthodox Mission Parish,” in Bergen County, New Jersey, i.e., St. Anthony Orthodox Church:

“‘To establish a multiethnic parish in Bergen Country, N.J., and to adopt English for use in the services’ was the goal of seven Arab-American Orthodox families when they asked the late Metropolitan Antony Bashir for his archpastoral blessing in April 1956….

“In 1958 Gabriel Ashie was ordained a priest and assigned to the new parish by Metropolitan Antony. Within a few years a beautiful church was built in Bergenfield, bordering on Englewood and Tenafly. Pimen Sofronov, the most famous iconographer in this hemisphere, painted the icons for the iconostasis. By that point, the congregation was more than 100 families–30 percent Slavs, 30 percent Arabs, 30 percent Greeks, and 10 percent converts. The phenomenon of the pan-ethnic parish in suburban New Jersey was realized!” (Erickson 1999: 106-107; bold is added for this blog post).

St. Anthony’s has some beautiful photos on its website of the icons and stained glass in its church in a Google Photos folder labeled St. Anthony’s At a Glance (accessed August 31, 2018).

Iconostasis at St. Anthony Orthodox Church (Bergenfield, NJ)

Not all of the work depicted in the online photo gallery of St. Anthony’s interior was done by Pimen Sofronov, but the icon of St. Sophia with her daughters Faith, Hope and Charity, is immediately recognizable and familiar from an icon and fresco at the Three Saints Church in Ansonia, Connecticut.

In the Pimen M. Sofronov Collection at the Hilandar Research Library, we have several of Sofronov’s working drawings of St. Sofia with Vera (‘Faith’), Liubov’ (‘Love”), and Nadezhda (‘Hope’).

St. Sophia with her daughters Faith, Hope and Charity at St. Anthony Orthodox Church (Bergenfield NJ)

Pimen M. Sofronov in America

August 20, 2018 / johnson.60@osu.edu / Comments Off

To date, there is no comprehensive and definitive list of the works created by the Russian Old Believer iconographer, Pimen M. Sofronov (1898-1973). After immigrating to the United States in 1947, he created frescoes and icons for numerous churches and individuals, and taught iconography in various places.

*Note that the names of churches in America below are linked to current websites.

“A Brief Biography” is provided in a program for Sofronov’s “Exhibition of Icons” sponsored by The Russian Orthodox Icon Society at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in San Francisco, California, March 5-21, 1966.

Born 1898.

Began to study iconography 1910.

Taught courses in icon painting:

Riga, 1930
Paris, 1933 (10 months)
Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1934 (3 months)
Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1935-38

1939, went to Italy, where, at the request of the Vatican, he painted 56 icons for the projected World Exhibition of Religious Art.

1941, held exhibition of his iconographic work in Rome.

1947, came to America at the invitation of Russian Orthodox Archbp. Vitaly of N. Y. to paint icons in various churches.

1953-55, painted walls of Sts. Peter & Paul Church, Syracuse, N. Y.

1955-57, painted walls and iconostas of St. Vladimir Church, Trenton, N. J.

1958-60, painted walls in Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn, N. Y.

1960, became American citizen.

1961, celebrated 50th anniversary jubilee of icon painting.

1960-62, painted frescoes and icons on iconostas in Three Hierarchs Church in Ansonia, Conn.

1965, came to San Francisco at invitation of Russian Orthodox Icon Society to teach courses in icon painting.

From Pattern to Painting: The Religious Iconography of Pimen Sofronov

August 17, 2018 / johnson.60@osu.edu / Comments Off

The Hilandar Research Library exhibit about the life and work of the Russian Old Believer iconographer Pimen Maksimovich Sofronov (1898-1973) is open to the public in the Thompson Library Exhibit Gallery (1st floor), The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, May 31-September 16, 2018.

Photos of Sofronov’s working drawing or “cartoon” of the Old Testament Holy Trinity and Sofronov’s icon of the Holy Trinity from the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church in Brooklyn, New York, by M.A. Johnson, Curator of Slavic Early Printed Books and Manuscripts, Hilandar Research Library

Concept and execution of the graphic mash-up of Sofronov’s drawing and photo of Sofronov’s icon by Ken Aschliman, University Libraries Exhibitions Coordinator

Layout and design of the promotional flyer by Pam McClung, University Libraries Graphic Designer.

OSU Mt. Athos Photo Exhibit by Aristides (Art) Chakalis

December 9, 2013 / johnson.60@osu.edu / Comments Off

Mt. Athos Greece: Present day monks in ancient monasteries

Photographs by Aristides (Art) Chakalis

November 30 – December 30, 2013

OSU Northwood ARTSpace Room 100

Photo of mount Athos (on the left 2/3s of the photo) set in the Aegean sea (bottom half of image) with small boat and three men on the left middle of the photo. Deep blue sky above with white fluffy clouds near the sea level.

Fishing the Aegean off the coast of Mt. Athos. Photography by Aristides (Art) Chakalis, 2008.

Northwood ARTSpace is located in the Northwood-High Building Room 100, 2231 N. High Street, Columbus, Ohio. The gallery is open Monday-Saturday, 8am to 7pm except when meetings are held there – check the gallery’s calendar online at http://www.universitydistrict.org/room-100-calendar.html.

“Art Chakalis shares a series of photographs he took in 2008 while visiting monasteries of Mt. Athos Greece. Unless otherwise noted, all photographs are 11×14 inches and matted to 16×20 inches.

1) Fishing the Aegean off the coast of Mt. Athos

2) Gregoriou from the sea

3) Monks at the Gregoriou Monastery

4) Cat enjoying a sunny afternoon in Karyes

5) Walkway to a chapel in Karyes

6) Church along the path between Karyes and Xeropotamou

7) Cemetery at Xeropotamou

8) Nurturing God’s Bounty

9) Flowers on the Mountainside

10) The Refectory

11) The Outer Narthex

12) The Inner Narthex

13) Inner Narthex Chapel

14) Peering into the Nave

15) The Nave

16) Christ Pantocrator

17) The Icon Screen

18) Altar within the Sanctuary

19) Yesterday’s worship is complete and a new day begins with the setting of the sun

20) Simons Petras from the sea

21) Monks preparing to travel the steep path home from the sea

22) Life between mountain and sea

23) Solitary cross along the shoreline”

Image source: Art Chakalis

Text source: Catalog list of photographs

Musicological Conference “Beyond the East-West Divide,” Belgrade, September 26-29, 2013

September 23, 2013 / johnson.60@osu.edu / Comments Off

The International Musicological Conference, “Beyond the East-West Divide: Rethinking Balkan Music’s Poles of Attraction,” will be held in Belgrade, Serbia, September 26-29, 2013. The conference is sponsored by the Department of Fine Arts and Music and the Institute of Musicology – both of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, as well as by the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) Study Group for Russian and Eastern European Music (REEM).

The keynote speaker on the first day (Thursday, Sept. 26) is Timothy Rice on “Musical Practice and the Experiential Power of Place.” The Plenary Session, chaired by Katarina Tomašević, includes the following presentations: “Images of the Eastern Other in Serbian Art Music” by Melita Milin, “The Greek Community of Odessa and its Role in the ‘Westernisation’ of Music Education in Athens” by Katy Romanou, and Ivan Moody‘s “Turning the Compass.” The first day ends with a piano recital by Ivana Medić.

Friday’s keynote speaker is Danica Petrović, “South Eastern Europe (the Balkans) Through the Centuries: On the Paths of Liturgical Music.” The Plenary Session on Sept. 27th, chaired by Katy Romanou, includes papers by Warwick Edwards (“Music, Memory and the Rhythms of Words: What Balkan Traditions Have to Tell Us About Medieval Songs of the Mediterranean”), Katarina Tomašević (“Whose are Koštana’s Songs? Contribution to the Research of Oriental Heritage in Serbian Traditional, Art and Popular Music”), and Nevena Daković (“Balkan Film Music Between Mono- and Multi-Culturalism: Musical Scores for the Films Directed by Aleksandar Petrović”).

On Saturday, September 18, in addition to four panels of papers, there will be a lecture and discussion in Roman Hall of the Belgrade City Library by the Islamologist and Linguist, Professor Darko Tanasković on the “Oriental-Islamic Component in the Serbian Culture (Towards a Balanced Approach Methodology).” The evening activities include film screenings at the Ethnographic Museum of “Warble the Bagpipes” (directed by Dimitris Kitsikoudis), “Pročka- Forgiveness Sunday” (directed by Slobodan Simojlović), and “Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul” (directed by Fatih Akin).

After two panels on Sunday, September 29th, the conference will adjourn and participants will be given a tour of the exhibit “Imaginary Balkan: Identities and memory in the Long Nineteenth Century” at the Historical Museum of Serbia, by the curator Katarina Mitrović.

Source of information: Conference program and booklet

6th International Hilandar Conference, July 19-21, 2013

July 18, 2013 / johnson.60@osu.edu / Comments Off

The 6th International Hilandar Conference, “Medieval Slavic Text and Image in the Cultures of Orthodoxy,” begins Friday, July 19th, with an opening reception and keynote lecture at the Blackwell Inn on the campus of The Ohio State University at 6pm. Beginning at 6:15pm, welcoming remarks will be made by David C. Manderscheid, Executive Dean and Vice-Provost of the College of Arts and Sciences, Lisa R. Carter, Associate Director for Special Collections and Area Studies of the OSU Libraries, and Predrag Matejic, Curator of the Hilandar Research Library (HRL) and Director of the Resource Center for Medieval Slavic Studies (RCMSS).

Image of Andrei, Fool for Christ, from an original manuscript in the collection of the Hilandar Research Library

Andrei, Fool-for-Christ SPEC.OSU.HRL.SMS.2

Mirjana Živojinović, the President of the Hilandar Committee and a distinguished member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, will present the keynote address, “My Hilandar,” about her life’s work on the history and documents of the Serbian Orthodox Hilandar Monastery on Mount Athos.

20 papers will be presented at the 6th International Hilandar Conference in six panels on Saturday, July 20th (9:00 am to 5:00 pm) and July 21 (9:00 am to 12:00 pm) in Thompson Library, Room 165. The panel topics include “Hilandar Monastery,” “Image – Visual Theology,” “Focal Points of Culture,” “Medieval Textual Tradition,” “Liturgical Tradition,” and “Reinterpreting the Textual Tradition.” The presentations will be 20 minutes in length with time for questions at the end of each session.

View the preliminary program.

In conjunction with this summer’s major events sponsored by the RCMSS and the HRL, i.e., the Medieval Slavic Summer Institute and the 6th International Hilandar Conference, the exhibit in the Thompson Library Gallery is “Travelers to and from Mount Athos: The Translation of Culture, Knowledge, and Spirituality.” Summer hours of the Gallery in Thompson Library, 1st floor, are Mondays-Fridays, 10am to 4pm, and Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4pm.

7th Biennial Medieval Slavic Summer Institute (MSSI)

June 24, 2013 / johnson.60@osu.edu / Comments Off

Photo of MSSI participants and HRL/RCMSS staff in the Special Collections Reading Room

MSSI 2013 Orientation

The Seventh Biennial Medieval Slavic Summer Institute (MSSI) opened on Monday, June 24, 2013, with 11 of the 12 participants in attendance. The orientation was held in the Conference Room (105C) of the Jack and Jan Creighton Special Collections Reading Room of the Thompson Library.

Predrag Matejic, Director of the Resource Center for Medieval Slavic Studies (RCMSS), welcomed the participants and led the introductions; Rebecca Jewett, Assistant Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts and the Reading Room Manager, reviewed the procedures for conducting research, paging books, etc. Helene Senecal, RCMSS Coordinator, addressed the logistics of the housing and university benefits for the non-OSU students; Lyubomira Parpulova Gribble, HRL Assistant Curator, shared her research interests with the group; RCMSS GA Lauren Ressue introduced the participants to the OSU learning management system “Carmen”; and Daniel E. Collins of the OSU Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures said a few words about the “Readings in Church Slavonic” course that he teaches during the MSSI.

Photo of the MSSI participants and HRL/RCMSS staff at a table in the faculty club

MSSI 2013 Luncheon at the OSU Faculty Club

The participants viewed the online video, Preserving and Accessing the Past: The History of the Hilandar Research Library and the Resource Center for Medieval Slavic Studies, and then toured Thompson Library, where they wound up at a gallery talk about the current exhibit, Travelers to and from Mount Athos: The Translation of Culture, Knowledge, and Spirituality.

Luncheon was held at the OSU Faculty Club, followed by the first session of the MSSI from 2pm to 4pm, where Daniel Collins led the class through a reading of a prayer of St. John Chrysostom in manuscript BAN.13.7.5.

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