Reading Between the Borders – Books, Belonging, and the Birth of New Nations, by the British Library

The British Library’s collections offer a fascinating window into the literary and cultural worlds of Europe and beyond. The British Museum, founded in 1753, and its celebrated Library—the predecessor of today’s British Library—began a collecting journey that expanded significantly in the 1840s, bringing books from across the world into its holdings.

Since then, borders have shifted, empires have risen and fallen, and nations have emerged and redefined themselves. Throughout these transformations, books, languages and literature have played a vital role in shaping cultural identities, inspiring national revivals and reflecting profound social and political change.

This presentation explores the rich and diverse book heritage of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a vast and culturally vibrant polity whose territories, at its height, encompassed parts of present-day Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. Drawing on the British Library’s collections, we will discover how the region’s many languages, literary traditions and printing cultures reveal both the deep connections that linked its communities and the distinctive cultural identities that developed over time.

Through a selection of fascinating printed books and literary works, we will journey across languages, cultures and centuries, uncovering the shared heritage, creative exchanges and enduring stories preserved in the pages of these remarkable collections.

Dr Katya Rogatchevskaia is Lead Curator of Slavonic and East European Collections at the British Library. She has taught various courses related to Russian literature, language, and culture at the Russian State University for Humanities (Moscow), Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities, London School of Economics and Imperial College London, and has worked as a research fellow at the Institute of World Literature (Moscow). In 2017, she published Russian Revolution: Hope, Tragedy, Death (London: British Library Publishing, 2017). She serves as Chair of the Council for Slavonic and East European Library and Information Services (COSEELIS). Her research focuses on medieval Russian literature, first-wave émigré and diaspora publications, the history of Russian collections, and publishing and information policy in Russia.

Dr Olga Topol is a Curator of Slavonic and East European Collections at the British Library, managing Polish, Czech and Slovak materials. She also serves as Secretary of the Council for Slavonic and East European Library and Information Services (COSEELIS). With an academic background in literature, cultural and museum studies, her research focuses on cultural memory, diasporic identity, book history, and curation of East European collections across the twentieth century.

Open to all | Hybrid Event | Booking required for online attendance

In partnership with The British Library.
This is a Leeds City of Languages Festival event. Check the full programme at leedscityoflanguages.leeds.ac.uk