Monuments of book culture: "Books of Ancient Russia" in Omsk

The Books of Ancient Russia exhibition, timed to the Day of Slavic Literature and Culture, which is celebrated on May 24th, was opened in the Omsk State Regional Scientific Library named after A. S. Pushkin.

The exhibition opens with the jubilee, 1000th anniversary of the creation of the Slavic alphabet, publications of the Lives of Cyril and Methodius. In 1864 and 1865 these texts were first published in the secular edition entitled the "Readings at the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities." The exhibition presents a copy from the library of the Siberian Cadet Corps.

In the center of the exhibition are monumental facsimile editions, including Ostromirov Gospel - the oldest dated Russian manuscript (1056-1057 gg.) that made it to our times. Its facsimile edition was undertaken in 1988. Published two years earlier - in 1986 - "The Life of Cyril and Methodius" in handwritten scrolls of XII-XV centuries are here as well as a kind of encyclopedia of theological knowledge and medieval ideas about the universe named "Explanatory Paley" and many other interesting items.

Visitors to the exhibition can look through a rare bibliophile copy of "Song of Igor's Campaign", released by the Academia Publishing House in 1937. This book was designed as a "jewelry box" which asks to examine it observing an amazing work of Palekh artist Ivan Golikov.