Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Friedrich von Adelung was a Prussian historian, linguist, and bibliographer, a.k.a. Fedor Pavlovich Adelung, when he pulled up roots and moved to Russia at age 26. He was dubbed patron saint of Russian librarians when he compiled – with statistician K. Storch – a five-year review of Russian literature, 1810-1811, that marked the beginning of Russian bibliographical statistics. He also wrote a literary review of travelers to Russia up to 1700, Western and otherwise; compiled a universally celebrated bibliography of Sanskrit, 1811; and assembled another bibliography of foreign maps of Russia, 1306-1699.

Siegmund Freiherr von Herberstein: mit besonderer Ruecksicht auf seine Reisen in Russland,
by Friedrich von Adelung (1768-1843). St. Petersburg: N. Gretsch, 1818. Call Number: C135

This portrait of Sigmund von Herberstein is from Adelung’s biography of that early German traveler to Russia. Among other important bibliographical works, Adelung published, in 1827, the Austrian Augustin von Meyerberg’s account of his travels in Russia in 1661 and 1662. Adelung died during his presidency of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Sally Haines
Rare Books Cataloger
Adapted from her Spencer Research Library exhibit, Frosted Windows: 300 Years of St. Petersburg Through Western Eyes.

Both the French and the Germans were intrigued with Russian military uniforms and with good reason (see the image below). But one would think the tassels and plumes and chinstraps would have slowed a guy down and made him want to scratch rather than fight. And imagine the combatants’ manly gossip: “Tsk tsk, Yuri’s frockcoat is full of moth holes and he doesn’t know his shako from his kepi.”

Armée française et armée russe. Paris: A. Taride, [1886?] Call Number:  C5407

When Peter I created a standing army early in the 18th century he introduced standard uniforms for each branch. These uniforms evolved through the decades with each change of the guard, most starting out quite complicated and later becoming simpler and more comfortable. But how much time and energy was spent just getting fitted for these elaborate get-ups? And since the purpose of the covering was to distinguish the enemy from the fellow-traveler, how much fashion schooling did a soldier need not to take out his brother with friendly fire? Indeed sometimes the designs backfired when the color of a coat in certain terrain exposed its wearer on the battlefield. Camouflage became the order of the day in the early 20th century: 1904 in Britain, 1906 in Russia, but not until 1908 in the USA. WWI saw the re-appearance of metal headgear: the steel helmet, but the Soviets didn’t begin wearing it until the 1930s. As for hair, compare the powdered wigs of officers and the braids of infantrymen under Paul I of Russia (1796-1801) with the buzz cuts of today.

In the Kenneth Spencer Research Library’s  collections is an Austrian publication with equally attractive plates, Die Russische Armee im Felde, Wien: [s. n.] 1888, (call number: B5201).

Sally Haines
Rare Books Cataloger
Adapted from her Spencer Research Library exhibit, Frosted Windows: 300 Years of St. Petersburg Through Western Eyes.

Did you know that the Kenneth Spencer Research Library has a KU-themed Monopoly game or a memory game created by Mark Twain?  Come see the diversity of the Spencer Library’s collections presented in a new exhibition entitled “Riddle Me This: A History of Games and Puzzles.”

“Riddle Me This” exhibition. Right: Gavitt’s Stock Exchange (G-S-E).
Topeka, Kan.: W.W. Gavitt Printing and Publishing Co., 1903. Call number: RH E615

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