A book exhibition “Gatherers of the beautiful: collectors’ peculiar hobbies” runs at the National Library of Belarus (2nd floor, circular hall) from 17 June to 12 September.
Everyone has a passion for collecting things. Sometimes, this passion enthralls a person so much that it becomes their second profession, and then the common collecting transforms into cultural phenomena such as Tretyakovskaya Gallery in Moscow or the Museum of the History of Medicine in Riga based on Professor Stradyn’s private collection. Some gather postage stamps, some collect autographs or badges, some gather paintings, posters or postcards, some collect proverbs, aphorisms etc. It is impossible to list all things people collect. Thousands of people of all ages and professions are interested in collecting.
The phenomenon of collecting is well-known since ancient times. It is believed that Cicero was the first to use the term “collecting” more than 2 000 years ago. In his speech “On Pompey’s Command”, the celebrated orator had named “the collection” a set of separate objects. Modern historians consider the rulers of the Pergamon Kingdom in the 3rd century BC as the first collectors.
Collecting had reached its peak in the Renaissance. Thus, the Medici of Florence, along with works of art, possessed unique objects and minerals from different countries. King Louis XIV, French Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, Popes Julius II and Leo X, Emperor Charles V and other great historical figures were passionate collectors of rarities. Creation of so-called “curiosities chambers” often became a form of collecting. Such was Peter the Great Kunstkamera in Russia in the early 18th century.
Most great writers were passionate collectors. Goethe possessed the biggest collection of minerals, Walter Scott collected cold steel of different countries and peoples, I.S. Turgenev, a genuine chess-player, had a collection of 14 sets of chess board. N.А. Nekrasov had gathered 64 kinds of hunting rifles. А.S. Pushkin, not long before his dearth, had got interested in collecting of newspapers. Ilya Erenburg was a passionate collector of pipes, Mikhail Bulgakov collected theater tickets to all plays he had watched. Jules Verne gathered maps and guidebooks. Georges Simenon collected telephone directories from which he borrowed names for his characters. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first in the Soviet Union to start collecting cacti.
The National Library of Belarus offers to readers’ attention a book exhibition “Gatherers of the beautiful: collectors’ peculiar hobbies”. About 300 editions are on display. The exhibition sections are dedicated to philately, phillumeny, phaleristic, numismatics, heraldry etc.
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