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Posted by: Taru Spiegel
Starting July 12, the Library will reopen four additional reading rooms – African & Middle Eastern, Asian, European, and Hispanic – for a limited number of registered readers by appointment only. This blog will guide you through the process of making advance appointments.
Posted in: African and Middle Eastern Division (AMED), Asian Division, European Reading Room, Hispanic Reading Room
Posted by: Taru Spiegel
The French played an indispensable role in the American Revolution in the key areas of financial aid and supplies, the French land forces and fleet, and global French military engagements that diverted British resources from North America.
Posted in: European Reading Room
Posted by: Taru Spiegel
In examining an early 20th-century edition of a book of stories by Russian author Nikolai Gogol, a Library of Congress cataloger recognized another familiar name. The full-page, sepia-colored art illustrations in the book were printed by Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii, better known as an early innovator in color photography. The book’s past ownership invites further investigation.
Posted in: European Reading Room
Posted by: Taru Spiegel
Three early Baltic German printers and their descendants made publishing a family trade in lands of today’s Latvia, i.e., the Steffenhagens, Hartknochs and the Kymmels.
Posted in: European Reading Room
Posted by: Taru Spiegel
In the 18th and 19th centuries, ships carried health certificates to reassure local officials that the places they came from were free of contagion. These filled a function something like the “vaccine passports” or “immunity passports” that are under discussion today because of Covid-19.
Posted in: European Reading Room, Hispanic Reading Room
Posted by: Taru Spiegel
The Tsine-Louine tea company’s postcard series (1899-1904) displays scenes from the company’s trading route along the new Trans-Siberian railroad, highlighting the intersection of trade and the further incorporation of Siberia into the Russian empire through the railroad.
Posted in: European Reading Room
Posted by: Taru Spiegel
The famous Russian composer, Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), wrote a number of operas. The Library of Congress has a copy of his first opera, “The Maid of Pskov,” in an 1892 edition that originally belonged to the Russian imperial family, the Romanovs.
Posted in: European Reading Room
Posted by: Taru Spiegel
A Library of Congress historian looks at the real Queen Charlotte, consort to King George III of Britain, in contrast to the fictitious “Bridgerton” royal.
Posted in: European Reading Room
Posted by: Taru Spiegel
Reference librarian Matt Young describes his work at the Library of Congress as the Russian Specialist in the European Division.
Posted in: European Reading Room