The reference works listed below were selected from recent acquisitions at the University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign. Reviewers are Tabitha Cochran, Kit Condill, and Larry Miller.
Czech Republic
Článková bibliografie časopisu Dialog: (1966–1969, 1990–1992). By Jakub Flanderka. Edice Bibliographica; sv. 5. Prague: Ústav pro českou literaturu AV ČR, 2022. 337 pp.
Avant-garde movements of the sixties in art, music, and literature are a particular focus of the earlier period of this Czech cultural journal. Of the 2130 chronologically arranged entries indexed in this book, 1517 are from that period. Articles concerning the industrial northeastern region of the Czech Republic, including environmental problems, were a significant feature of the 1990–92 journal. The entries are annotated and indexed by author, author of illustrative material, translator, subject personalities, subjects, and place names.—LM
Literární slovník severovýchodní Moravy a českého Slezska 1918–2018. Ed. Iva Málková and Svatava Urbanová. Brno: Host, 2022. 422 pp.
The literature (Czech, German, Polish) of northeastern Moravia and Czech Silesia is the subject of this scholarly dictionary with signed (mainly biographical) articles arranged alphabetically, well indexed, and including extensive bibliographic references and source lists. The longest article is about the famous poet Petr Bezruč. This dictionary is a major resource for research on the complicated century-long cultural history of this region since the founding of Czechoslovakia in 1918.—LM
Kazakhstan
Qazaq eli: Madeni-antropologiialyq entsiklopediia. Comp. T.Kh. Ghabitov. Kazakhstan Respublikasy Ghylym zhane zhoghary bilim ministrligi. Al-Farabi atyndaghy Qazaq ulttyq universiteti, Filosofiia kafedrasy. Nur-Mubarak Egipet Islam madenieti universiteti. Almaty: Lantar Books; 2023. 473 pp.
This general “cultural-anthropological encyclopedia of the country of the Kazakhs” will be of interest to scholars of multiethnic Kazakh culture looking for basic information on topics such as Soviet-era theater companies for ethnic minorities (Respublikalyq Uighyr muzykalyq komediia teatry) or famous Kazakh mausoleums (Aitman kumbezi, Aisha Bibi kesenesi), as well as a Kazakh perspective on broader cultural topics such as the idea of a state language (memlekettik til) and “the worldview of the Turkic peoples” (Turik khalyq dunietanymy). The numerous entries on general concepts such as anomie (anomiia), morality (moral΄), and civilization (orkeniet) will be less useful to Euro-Atlantic scholars. Entries for the religions of the peoples of Kazakhstan (Jerusalem/Qudys, Moses/Musa, Muhammad/Mukhammed, the Torah/Taurat) are also included, part of a commendable emphasis on the non-Kazakh, non-Russian peoples of Kazakhstan. The entries are unsigned, usually brief, and many of them do not cite sources for further reading. The occasional references often point the reader to other Kazakh encyclopedias. The one-page entry for Kazakh cinema (Qazaq kinosy), for example, directs readers to an encyclopedia of Kazakh culture published in 2005 for further information, while the entry for God (Qudai) is even shorter, and cites no sources. One of the longer entries, for “cultural centers” (madeni ortalyqtar), contains extensive information about cultural organizations of individual ethnic minorities (Uzbeks, Meskhetian Turks, Jews, Chechens, Ingushes, Koreans, and others) in Kazakhstan, but the same source (Qazaqstan khalqy assembleiasy: Tarikhi ocherki, Raritet, 2010) is cited for each ethnicity. The encyclopedia is published by two Kazakh universities in conjunction with the Kazakh Ministry of Science and Higher Education, and compiled by Tursun Ghabitov, a prolific author and educator who founded the first Cultural Studies department in Kazakhstan in the early 1990s.—KC
Kosovo
Bibliografia e revist ë s “Sharri”: 1992–2022. Comp. Nuridin Ahmeti. Prishtina: Botime Artini, 2022. 870 pp.
This index of over 6,000 Albanian-language articles, poems, and folklore materials published in the journal Sharri over a 30-year period provides a rare glimpse into the literary, cultural, and intellectual life of rural southern Kosovo during three decades of conflict with (and, in 2008, declaration of independence from) Serbia. No issues of the journal appear to be held in any library in western Europe or North America. The contents of Sharri are first listed in chronological order, issue by issue, and then again by author. Most of the items in the journal were quite brief (one page or less), and in many cases dozens or even hundreds of items were contributed to the journal by a single author or folklorist. Along with the lyrics to over 1,000 folk songs from the Opojë and Gorë regions, Sharri also occasionally featured translations of poems and short works by prominent authors from elsewhere in Europe and North America. Bedri Halimi, the editor-in-chief of Sharri, provides some background regarding the origin and significance of the journal in a brief introduction.—KC
Fjalor enciklopedik i edukimit. By Hajrullah Koliqi. Prishtina: Universiteti i Prishtinës “Hasan Prishtina,” Fakulteti i Edukimit, 2022. 2 vol.
More than 6,000 brief entries covering an enormous range of topics and concepts relating to education are included in this two-volume Albanian-language encyclopedia. In addition to providing basic information on the history and development of education in Kosovo and Albania, the work has numerous entries pertaining to the history, philosophy, and development of education around the world. The entries are not signed and do not include bibliographies, although occasionally an author's published works or other relevant titles are mentioned in the body of the entry. Entries for educators from Kosovo, Albania, and the Euro-Atlantic and ancient worlds are included, as well as articles for people whose life and work touched on education in some way (Anatolii Lunacharskii, Martin Luther, Alexander Luria). The “index of entries” at the end of the second volume serves as a table of contents. A number of entries for individuals may be difficult to find for non-speakers of Albanian, since they are alphabetized under the Albanian form of the person's name (“Zhakoto, Zhan Zhosef” for the French pedagogue Jean-Joseph Jacotot).—KC
Montenegro
Geografsko-istorijski atlas Crne Gore: Formiranje crnogorske teritorije: Prevalis—Duklja—Zeta—Crna Gora. 2. enl. ed. By Mihailo Burić. Podgorica: Dukljanska akademija nauka i umjetnosti; 2022. 114 pp.
Accompanying the text of this historical atlas of Montenegro are some 53 colored maps. The book concludes with a brief bibliography (nineteen citations) and list of five sources.—LM
Poland
Bibliografia publikacji Państwowego Instytutu Naukowego—Instytutu Śląskiego w Opolu, Instytutu Śląskiego i Stowarzyszenia Instytut Śląski za lata 2007–2021. Comp. Ewa Golec. Opole: Instytut Śląski; 2022. 134 pp.
Complete bibliographic data for 225 works including the contents of collective works are arranged under nine broad subjects. A combined index of authors, editors, and titles facilitates access to the publications of three Silesian scholarly institutions.—LM
Słownik kultury literackiej Łodzi do 1939 r. Ed. Katarzyna Badowska, et al. Kultura literacka Łódźi. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2022. 460 pp.
This illustrated scholarly literary dictionary of pre-war Łódź is arranged alphabetically and includes signed articles and substantial bibliographies. There are separate articles on the Yiddish, Polish, and Russian press in addition to articles on individual newspapers and journals and a separate index of those titles. Thanks to the large Jewish minority in the city, this work is an important resource for the study of Polish Jewish literary culture and Yiddish literature. Additional indexes are for illustrations and personal names.—LM
Russia
Bibliograficheskaia deiatelʹnostʹ Rossiiskoi gosudarstvennoi biblioteki: Bibliograficheskii ukazatelʹ. Comp. T.Ia. Briskman, et al. Rossiiskaia gosudarstvennaia biblioteka. Nauchno-issledovatelʹskii otdel bibliografii. Moscow: Pashkov dom, 2021. 358 pp.
Covering the bibliographic activities of the Russian State Library beginning in 1918, this topically arranged index is divided into two parts. The first part has 1253 entries about the library's bibliographic activities over its hundred-year history, and the second part (445 items) deals with the library's own publications concerning bibliographic practices. Electronic resources are cited in both parts. A personal name index and title index are provided.—LM
Entsiklopediia administrativno-politseiskikh uchrezhdenii Rossii. Ed. Igor΄ Potemkin and A.Iu. Klimov. Moscow: Akademiia upravleniia MVD Rossii, 2022. 479 pp.
This major scholarly encyclopedia describing police and law enforcement agencies throughout Russian history has several hundred articles with bibliographies, archival references and documentary sources. The alphabetical list of titles at the end of the book has more than 500 entries, but many of these refer to cross references rather than articles. This is an essential reference work for students of Russian history.—LM
Kulʹtura, nauka i obrazovanie v Sovetskoi Rossii—SSSR (1920–1940): Ukazatelʹ statei, zametok i retsenzii v semi zhurnalakh russkogo zarubezhʹia. By A.A. Ermichev. St. Petersburg: Izdatelʹstvo Russkoi khristianskoi gumanitarnoi akademii, 2022. 158 pp.
The contents of seven Russian émigré journals (Russkaia mysl, Volia Rossii, Sovremmenye zapiski, Novyi grad, Russkie zapiski, Russkaia shkola za rubezhom, and Novaia Rossiia) are listed separately by author. The work has two broad subject indexes and personal name indexes of authors and personalities.—LM
Personazhi russkoi literatury: Vtoraia polovina XVIII-XIX v.: Entsiklopedicheskii slovarʹ. Ed. S.A. Gudimova. Summa culturologiae. Institut nauchnoi informatsii po obshchestvennym naukam (Rossiiskaia akademiia nauk). Moscow: Tsentr gumanitarnykh initsiativ, 2022. 2 vols. (766; 822 pp).
Long signed articles by scholars from the Academy's Institute of World Literature, the Moscow Linguistics Institute, INION, Moscow University, and various pedagogical institutes are included in this dictionary of fictional characters from late eighteenth and nineteenth century Russian classics. At the end of the second volume is a twenty-page guide arranged by author, listing the titles and characters in the dictionary.—LM
Putevoditelʹ po fondam gosudarstvennogo arkhiva Kamchatskogo kraia. Comp. A.S. Sesitskaia and S.M. Stramousova. Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskii: Kamchatpress, 2022. 580 pp.
This latest edition of the Kamchatka Krai guide is newly divided into two parts: separating Communist Party documents in the first part and personal archives of communist officials in the second (115 pages). The personal archives sections have been updated from the 2013 edition and entries now include portraits.–LM
Rossiiskaia gosudarstvennnia biblioteka iskusstv, 2005–2021: Annotirovannyi bibliograficheskii ukazatelʹ. Comp. I.B Titunova and O.N. Pochatkina. Moscow: RGBI, 2022. 201 pp.
The first forty pages of this bibliographical index include 125 articles published by the Russian State Art Library, arranged chronologically. Another 883 articles similarly arranged are works about the library or by library staff, including references to newspaper reviews. Many of the entries are annotated and there are frequent links to electronic resources. The personal name index includes authors and subjects, and there is also a thematic subject index.—LM
Severnaia voina 1700–1721 gg.: Entsiklopediia. Ed. I.I. Basik and N.I. Nikiforov. Fond “Istoriia Otechestva.” Nauchno-issledovatelʹskii institut voennoi istorii. Moscow: Iauza, 2022. 639 pp.
This bulky popular encyclopedia of the Great Northern War includes more than 900 unsigned articles with brief bibliographical references and some black and white portraits and illustrations. One section of color plates includes paintings and costumes; another contains the maps. A useful feature is the inclusion of stress marks in all the headwords. Supplements include a chronology, list of abbreviations, and glossary of weights and measures. The work lacks an index.–LM
Sibirskie ogni: Literaturno-khudozhestvennyi i obshchestvenno-politicheskii zhurnal: Ukazatel ʹ soderzhanie, 2016–2022. Comp G.P. Rybina. Ed. N.I. Vasilʹeva. Novosibirsk: NGONB. 2022. 129 pp.
Published on the centenary of its founding, this index of the major Siberian literary, cultural, and socio-political journal is the fifth in a series and completes the indexing of the entire run. 1035 articles are arranged by broad subject and indexed by author, anonymous title, place, and title of literary works.–LM
Tri veka russkoi filosofii: Khronograf XVIII-XX vekov. By B.V. Emelʹianov. Nizhnevartovskii gosudarstvennyi universitet. Nizhnevartovsk: NVGU, 2022. 551 pp.
This latest version (fifty copies) of Boris Emelʹianov's massive chronology of the history of Russian philosophy follows his numerous historiographical works beginning in the 1960s, most recently his 1021-page biographical dictionary of Russian philosophers (Russkaia filosofiia: Slovar ʹ personalii. St. Petersburg, 2021). Among the vast data presented here are annual lists of significant books of Russian philosophy published each year over the three centuries covered.—LM
Zhurnal “Bibliotekovedenie”: Ukazatelʹ soderzhaniia (1952–2021). Comp. M.I. Kamysheva, G.L. Levin, and N.S. Maslovskaia. Moscow: Pashkov dom, 2022. 583 pp.
Using an ever-popular chronological arrangement, the compilers have produced this seventieth anniversary comprehensive index to the leading Russian library science journal Bibliotekovedenie and its predecessors. The 455-page listing of contents is followed by a hundred pages of indexes (contributors, personalities, library and information organizations, and books reviewed), and supplements listing editorial staff, works about the journal, and abbreviations. The introduction by Ekaterina Nikonorova describes changes in the journal's focus over the seventy years.—LM
Serbia
Bibliografija srpske knjizˇevne zadruga, 2003–2022. By Dejan Vukićević. Ed. Gordana Đilas. Kolo CXIV, knj. 767. Belgrade: Srpska knjizˇevna zadruga, 2022. 612 pp.
The latest index to the contents of this major Serbian publishing house (founded in 1892) has 677 entries arranged chronologically within publisher series. Item 678 lists the contents of eleven issues of the institution's Glasnik. The work concludes with a two-page biographical note by Gordana Đilas about the late Dejan Vukićević (1965–2022). Author, title, and subject indexes are provided.–LM
Ukraine
“Gart” (1927–1932): Khronolohichnyi ta systematychnyi pokazhchyky zmistu zhurnalu. Comp. M.I. Kostenko. Kyiv: Instytut literatury im. T.H. Shevchenka NAN Ukrainy, 2022. 186 pp.
This volume provides two different indices to the full extent of Hart, the literary and critical journal of the All-Ukrainian Union of Proletarian Writers (VUSPP), which ran from 1927–32 and was published in Kharkiv. In addition to original literary works, included are articles about architecture, fine art, sculpture, music, cinema, and literary criticism. Because the first letter in the journal's name was eliminated from the Ukrainian alphabet in 1933, the title presents several difficulties in transcription and romanization, particularly in online databases. The index is rife with useful information. After a brief introduction providing publication data and editorship, the first part of the index is a chronological guide listing the contents of each issue under section headings. Each entry contains the author's last name and first initial, article title, and page numbers. The second part is a topical index that assigns each article a number, 1–1188. There is also an index of names, which lists the article numbers from the topical index next to the author's name. Notably, this guide also indexes illustrative material (primarily photographs and graphic art) and lists the people who appeared in each photo. This guide is useful for anyone interested in Ukrainian and early Soviet cultural production.—TC
Materialy do entsyklopedii ukrainsʹkoi teatralʹnoi kulʹtury. Ed. Hanna Skrypnyk. Instytut mystetstvoznavstva, folʹklorystyky ta etnolohii im. M.T. Rylʹsʹkoho. Kyiv: Vydavnytstvo IMFE, 2022. Vol. 1 (A-H). 163 pp.
This is the first installment of a biographical dictionary that features key figures in Ukrainian theater: operatic singers, conductors, directors, scenographers, choreographers, ballet masters, actors, instrumentalists, and entrepreneurs. Organized alphabetically by last name, each entry is signed and includes biographical data, a professional history, and bibliographic references; some are accompanied by portraits. Notably, this biographical dictionary includes not only Ukrainian figures, but also those who significantly influenced Ukrainian theater (Gennaro Astarita, an eighteenth century Italian composer of operas). The content is well-researched and written by a team of scholars from the M.T. Rylʹsʹkyi Institute for Art Studies, Folklore and Ethnology at the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences. These entries are useful not only for their content, but also for understanding what current scholars have identified as key influences in the history of Ukrainian theater, eighteenth century to the present.—TC
Nazdohnaty cherepakhu: “Pryvatna kolektsiia” Vasylia Gabora v suchasnomu literaturnomu dyskursi. Ed. Vasylʹ Gabor. Lʹviv: Piramida, 2022. 538 pp.
Published as a twentieth anniversary celebration of the monograph series “Private Collection” of Vasyl Gabor, this volume is part anthology, part bibliography. “Private Collection” originated in 2002 to spotlight the works of writers from the 1980s, the best fiction writers of the 1960s, and masters of Ukrainian translation. The series also expanded to include works of contemporary Ukrainian writers and translators. The book contains seven sections dedicated to a different aspect of “Private Collection”: anthologies, readers, and reprints; works of the New York group, sixtiers, and post-sixtiers; Ukrainian history and memoirs; works of the eightiers and ninetiers; literary studies and artistic publications; translations; children's books; and works about the prose of editor Vasyl Gabor. Each section starts with a bibliography of the books to be discussed, including citations to where the book was reviewed, and then selected articles about the books. The volume concludes with an annotated bibliography of all the books published in the series, a chronological list of Gabor's other literary projects, and a list of books from the “Private Collection” funded in part by NB Arts Foundation (Canada). Since the collection encompassed older and newer works, Nazdohnaty cherepakhu provides insight into trends of the contemporary Ukrainian literary world over the past twenty years.—TC
Natsionalʹna spilka pysʹmennykiv Ukrainy: Biobiliohrafichnyi dovidnyk. Ed. Vasil Klichak. Natsionalʹna spilka pysʹmennykiv Ukrainy. Kyiv: Ukrainsʹkyi pysʹmennyk, 2023. 1007 pp.
This bio-bibliographical dictionary contains professional biographies and bibliographies of all the members of the National Writers’ Union of Ukraine (NSPU) as of December 31, 2022. Entries are organized by oblast branch of the NSPU, and each oblast section begins with contact information and history of its branch. The final 467 pages cover the union's Kyiv city branch. In general, each author's entry includes name, predominant genre (prose writer, poet, satirist), date and place of birth, education, published works, awards, and a portrait. Unfortunately, no contact information is provided. The thoroughness of author information varies because it was submitted by the heads of each oblast branch and the members themselves. Because the organization's website does not offer a public-facing directory of members, this basic reference work is important for students of contemporary Ukrainian literature and will be of value to future historians and literary scholars.—TC
“Pluh” (1922, 1928–1932): “Pluzhanyn” (1925–1927): Khronolohichnyi ta systematychnyi pokazhchyky zmistu zhurnaliv. Comp. L.P. S hymanʹskoi and T.V. Stalʹnoi. Kyiv: Natsionalʹna akademiia nauk Ukrainy, Instytut literatury im. T.H. Shevchenka, 2023. 445 pp.
From 1922–33, Pluh was a union of peasant writers in Kharkiv, Ukraine, who aimed to uplift and inculcate the peasantry and proletariat against urban bourgeois ideology. Their main publisher was Pluzhanyn from 1925–27 and Pluh in 1922, and from 1928–32. This volume begins with an introduction containing the journals’ publication information (editorships, printing houses, subscription costs, contributors, and print run) and proceeds into chronological and topical indices. The chronological index is organized by year and issue, placing entries for each article under the section headings of the original publication. The topical index organizes all 3309 articles by genre: literature (with subgenres poetry, prose, humor, and dramaturgy); literary studies; art (with subgenres architecture, fine arts, sculptures, music, cinema, theatre, museum studies); letters from the editors; and illustrative material. The index of personal names includes subjects and authors. Scholars of early Soviet Ukrainian literature and politics should find this index useful.—TC
