History of a Book: The exhibition, dedicated to the history of the national book design, at the National Library of Russia

On the eve of the 200^th celebration of the opening of the National Library of Russia, the Prints Department begins a series of exhibitions.

The first exhibition “New proletarian literature” which opened on October 11, 2013 is dedicated to the history of national book design and features more than 500 exhibits. The exposition is based on the collection of Erich Hollerbach consisting of book covers of the 1920s.

The exhibition is supplemented with posters of those years which promoted the importance of books and the reading on the life of a new society, as well as the different book publishing production.

Erich F. Hollerbach (1895-1942) – arts critic, literary and art critic, bibliographer. In 1920-30s he actively publishes his books and articles, dedicated to events of literary and art life.

A passionate collector, Hollerbach collected drawings, prints, bookplates, but his main passion throughout life was a book. He became one of the founders of the Leningrad Society of bibliophiles (LOB) and was its president (1924-1926). A few years he worked closely with the Research Institute of Book Science (1917-1933), which in 1926-1929 was attached to the Public Library.

Today the materials, collected by Hollerbach, are on display at the exhibition of the Department of prints, bright and clearly demonstrate, first of all, the book features the repertoire of the 1920s with typical for this time appeal of “The book - to the masses!”.