The Rare Books Section of the VSU Regional Scientific Library opened an exhibition dedicated to the 305th birth anniversary of a great Russian scientist, poet, artist, and historian, Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–1765). He was an outstanding person who embodied the very essence of Russian mentality and Russian soul.
The books he published during his lifetime are of great value. The exhibition includes a lifetime edition of Lomonosov’s “Brief introduction to rhetoric” published in 1748 in St. Petersburg. It was first published in 1747, but most of the copies were destroyed in a fire on 4 December, 1747. It only became available to a large audience in June of 1748, when it was once again published. Before Lomonosov, textbooks on rhetoric were most commonly written by the clergy and monks, who wrote either in Old Church Slavonic or in Latin. Lomonosov was the first who started using Russian to write textbooks, and his textbook was actually the first book on rhetoric in Russian.
Another interesting item of the exhibition is the “History of Ancient Russia” published in 1766 in St. Petersburg. It was the first book in Russia about the history of the Kievan Rus. Being a very educated man, Lomonosov used all the information and materials about the history of Russia available at that time.
These items, as well as many others, will be on display until 8 December at the address: Prospekt Revolutsii, 24, the Rare Books Section (room 222).
