Two areas of the world -- the country of Croatia and the oil-rich Middle East -- are the focus of exhibitions now on view at Sterling Memorial Library.
Croatian history
"Croatia: Themes, Authors, Books," a new exhibit spanning five centuries of the nation's history, will be on view through Oct. 31 in Sterling's cloister and elevator lobby. The display was selected and arranged by Tatjana Lorkovic, curator of the Slavic and East European Collections and a native of Croatia.
Slightly smaller than West Virginia and shaped like a boomerang swinging from the Adriatic Sea to Hungary and Serbia, Croatia served for centuries "between North and South, East and West; between Central Europe and the Mediterranean world, Christianity and Islam, science and religion, enlightenment and obscurantism, and modernity and tradition," notes Lorkovic.
"Croatia: Themes, Authors, Books" brings together a wealth of materials in a variety of formats (maps, manuscript and printed books and photographs) and disciplines (history and geography, linguistics and literature, religion, travel, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, neurophysiology and more), and from a number of Yale repositories (including the Arts Library, the Maps Collection, the Medical Historical Library, and the Slavic and East European Collections).
Among the items on view are 16th-century portolans containing navigational charts and sailing directions; manuscript samples of Glagolitic, the oldest known Slavic alphabet; grammars and dictionaries documenting a national revival based on the Croatian language in the 16th to 18th centuries when the country was simultaneously under the rule of Austrian, Turkish and Venetian powers; and literary and historical works by numerous authors, including Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andric (1892-1975).
Croatian contributions to science and technology date from the 15th century and inventors represented in the exhibit include Faust Vrancic (1551-1617), whose "Machinæ novæ" describe his various inventions including the parachute; Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), whose discovery of the rotating magnetic field was the basis of most alternating-current machinery; and chemist Lavoslav Ruzicka (1887-1976), who was the first Croatian to be awarded the Nobel Prize in 1939.
The exhibit also includes travel literature by visitors to the country, as well as by Croatian authors, and a selection of books on archeology, art and architecture.
Oil in the Middle East
"Black Gold: Geopolitics of Oil in the Middle East" will be on view through Oct. 31 in the nave of Sterling Memorial Library.
A collaboration of the Babylonian and Near East Collections, the exhibit traces the history and current geopolitical impact of oil in the Middle East and the world at large.
For millennia, note the organizers, the sands of the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf region were considered no more than wastelands traversed by wandering Bedouins. However, with the discovery of oil in the late 19th century came the realization of the wealth beneath those golden sands. Often described as "black gold," oil has become one of the world's most prized commodities, and a moving force behind modern societies, industries and civilization. For information on the Yale University Library, including its hours of service and digitized versions of some of its unique collections, visit the website at www.library.yale.edu.
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