The Hungarica Ex Libris of the Moscow Rudomino Library in Hungarian and International Context
Written by Kornélia Vasné Tóth PhD
NSZL–Gondolat, Budapest, 2015.
[National Collection, series edited by László Boka and Ferenc Kégli], 360 pages
ISBN 978 963 693 606 8
Today, in the midst of the post-modern age, one of the highlighted topics of the new discourses of cultural and art history is image: its role, effects and reception in the visual culture. In the wake of the “iconic turn”, we have been witnessing also in the area of research a remarkable shift towards emphasizing the importance of modern visual techniques, and visuality in general. Consequently, the interpretation of the ex libris as visual objects is particularly timely, and the related research has to be given new directions and points of view. This is the topic of Kornélia Vasné Tóth PhD, researcher at National Széchényi Library, who has been working for many years on the study of the ex libris.
The interpretation of the ex libris as visual documents is not limited to the study of the expressive tools in fine arts, it is inter-disciplinary, and its analysis offers rich details to various areas of our cultural and scientific life. To “read”, that is to interpret the images, we have to take into account the overall cultural history context, including aspects like the personality of the ex libris collector, or the motivation for preparing and collecting them. The corpus of the research is made up of the 4585 small graphics of the Rare Books Department at the Moscow Rudomino All-Russian Foreign Language Library. The Hungarica (Hungarian-related) ex libris research was focused on Hungarica in terms of area, language, person and content.
National Collection
National Collection is a joint book series of National Széchényi Library and Gondolat Publishing House that started in 2010 with the purpose of continuing the previous series National Széchényi Library Publications (Országos Széchényi Könyvtár Kiadványai) and National Széchényi Library Booklets (Országos Széchényi Könyvtár Füzetei), keeping their values alive. It is a collection of publications on history of culture, press, books, library and library informatics that all relate to the Hungarian national library or its collections. Apart from studies and conference materials, National Collection also publishes special bibliografies and catalogues based upon the Hungarica resources at NSZL, providing help for the further research of Hungarian culture history.
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