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All posts for the month May, 2011

The opening of the Great Exhibition: a view from Russia

The level of interest from around the world in the Great Exhibition was really quite remarkable, and Russia was no different. I’ve been digging out articles from Russian journals and present here what must be one of the very first, from the May-June issue of Sovremennik for 1851, which deals with the build-up to the […]

Crystal Palace guidebooks and descriptions

Guidebooks to the 1851 Exhibition Guide-book to the Industrial exhibition, with facts, figures and observations on the manufactures and produce exhibited (Partridge & Oakey, 1851), also on Google books. A general guidebook with particular emphasis on the manfacturing processes and machiery on show, and arranged according to these rather than national stands. Hunt’s hand-book to the official […]

Great Exhibition Catalogues

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything substantial on the Crystal Palace, so I’ve decided to focus a few posts on gathering together resources that are available on line – mainly 19th century stuff from Google books and archive.org for the time being. With this in mind, it makes sense to begin at the […]

Four short links: photographs of Russia and Eastern Europe

1. Photographs of Old St Petersburg. A great mapping website with a wonderful collection of old photographs. It’s in Russian only, but easy to use even if you don’t speak the language. 2. Henri Cartier-Bresson. Pictures by one of my favourite photographers, mainly taken during his 1954 visit to Moscow. 3. Vintage Photographs of St […]

Vera, or The Nihilists

My interest in British views of Russians recently led me to read Oscar Wilde’s first play, Vera, or The Nihilists, apparently inspired by Vera Zasulich’s attempted assassination of the Governor of St Petersburg in 1878. It’s spectacularly bad, and I’m surprised neither that its first productions, in London in 1880 and New York in 1882, […]

Translating Shalamov

My translation of Shalamov’s story Resurrection of the Larch has been published in the literary journal Cardinal Points. I’ve also written a short piece on Shalamov for the journal. I don’t intend to repeat what I said there, but I would like to make a couple of additional observations. Although this is the first translation […]

The Great Exhibition on Google

A lovely Google Doodle today to celebrate the 160th anniversary of the opening of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, on 1st May 1851: The original has a nifty magnification feature, and some nice animations – the fountain works, for example. I assume it will appear in the doodles gallery at some point. It seems […]