Politics, Power and Resistance
You took away all the oceans and all the room,/ You gave me my shoe-size in earth with bars around it./Where did it get you? Nowhere./You left me my lips, and they shape words, even in silence. (Osip Mandelstam, Voronezh, 1935)
In this section we put on display a number of items where the effect of politics on societies and individual lives has been recorded, through different periods, languages, times and mediums. Several formats are on display: posters, letters, artist books, stamps, early imprints, postcards, and even artifacts, buttons and a doormat! They all tell of the power of politics to affect and shape individuals' lives, but also of the will to resist, organize, protest and overcome.
Kermaire, Christine. 2012.
Memory of Al-Mutanabbi street. Charleroi, Belgium.
BOOKART Z266.K45 2012 K4
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Memory of Al-Mutanabbi street is an artist’s book that is part of a project for international solidarity project entitled “Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street,” commemorating the 2007 car bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad which killed more than 30 people and wounded over a hundred. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the street of the booksellers, has been the heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual communities for centuries.
![[Benazir Bhutto Election Posters], [1]](https://exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/files/original/f9429eab82e1cedaab19bd4d8d794b72.jpg "[Benazir Bhutto Election Posters], [1]")
Benazir Bhutto Election Poster
[Pakistan Peoples Party] [2008?]
uncataloged
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
This is part of a collection of posters featuring and celebrating Benazir Bhutto which are available at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library. These posters probably date from 2008, when the Pakistan Peoples’ Party—founded in 1967—last won the elections in Pakistan.
Hamadeh, Anis
Before Their Diaspora
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
This poster features twelve drawings by German artist Anis Hamadeh and references some photos featured in the illustrated book of the same title by Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi. The drawings document aspects of the everyday life of the Palestinians in Ottoman Palestine before their diaspora in 1948. The poster is part of a collection of twenty posters donated to the Columbia University Libraries by the Palestine Poster Project Archive
Indian Princely State Records, 1890-196
MS#0643
Rare Book & Manuscript Library (finding aid)
Included here is a stamped revenue document in Malayalam script from Travancore state. 18 boxes of such records are available for consultation at the Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library. The documents are of various types: petitions to the court, commercial permits, trade documents, land disputes, court affidavits, etc.
Joseph, ha-Kohen
Sefer Divre ha-yamim le-malkhe Tsorfat u-malkhe bet Oṭoman ha-Tugar. [A Book of the History of the Kings of France and the Ottoman Kings] Sabionetta? c. 1553
DS135.E81 J67 1553g
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Gift of Ari Bergmann, 2014
Joseph Ha-Kohen was a prolific writer of Jewish History in the sixteenth century. He translated a work on Christopher Columbus's travels (see "India Ha-hadasha" in the “Encounters” section of this exhibit). This work is a history of the Jews to his day. Shown here is a page describing the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.
Torquemada, Tomás de (1420-1498)
Copilacion de las instrvciones del officio de la santa inquisicion, hechas por el muy reuerendo Señor fray Thomas de Torquemada, prior del monasterio de santa Cruz de Segouia, primero inquisidor general de los reynos y señorios de España. 1576
B933.1 T629
Rare Book and Manuscript Library
This book by Torquemada, the first Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, was published after his death and gathers his instructions on inquisitorial procedure and protocols. These rules contained a statement of philosophy for the institution and outlined its bureaucracy, influencing subsequent instructions over the following centuries. RBML also holds a compilation of instructions by Fernando de Valdés, a later Grand Inquisitor.
Arellano, Humberto
Haitian Demonstration in Brooklyn
Photograph 1986
El Diario Photo Archive
(unprocessed)
Rare Book and Manuscript Library
This photograph from El Diario (one of the nation’s oldest continuously published Spanish-language newspapers) is an example of Latino, Latin American and Caribbean immigrant community coverage throughout New York City. The photograph from February 1986 captures a demonstration of Haitian immigrants in Brooklyn in reaction to the overthrow of Jean-Claude Duvalier.
![[Tefilah le-zikhrah shel ha-malkah Maria Theresa], First recto](https://exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/files/original/6830ca0adcb4245eb18ddf20432b56bf.jpg "[Tefilah le-zikhrah shel ha-malkah Maria Theresa], First recto")
![[Tefilah le-zikhrah shel ha-malkah Maria Theresa], First verso](https://exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/files/original/e1796577142c877481744354d861ccb9.jpg "[Tefilah le-zikhrah shel ha-malkah Maria Theresa], First verso")
Tefilah le-zikhrah shel ha-malkah Maria Theresa
[A Prayer for the Memory of Queen Maria Theresa].
Mantua, 1780
MS X893.15 Z6 v.32
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Item 1: recto
Item 2: verso
Despite Empress Maria Theresa’s well documented anti-Semitism (e.g. she received Jewish subjects only from behind a curtain, and expelled Jews from various areas of her domain), she benefited greatly from tax revenue and Jewish mercantilism, and thus protected Jews as well: for example, she bestowed certain banking privileges upon members of the Jewish community in 1762. This unique prayer dedicated to her was written upon her death by the Jewish community of Mantua.
Heller, Yom Tov Lipmann ben Nathan ha-Levi ben Wallerstein.
Megilat evah [Scroll of Hostility].
Vienna, 17th century.
MS Gen 153
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Item 1: Opening text
Item2: Opening of second text
Item 3: Colophon
This scroll tells the story of Rabbi Yom Tov Lipman Heller, who was arrested in Vienna on June 25, 1629, at the order of the imperial court of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. He was accused of insulting Christianity. Although he was initially condemned to death, he was ultimately released after 40 days. His descendants commemorate the Hebrew date of his release, the fifth of Tammuz, to this day.
Cavazzi, Giovanni Antonio.
Istorica descrizione de' tre' regni Congo, Matamba et Angola (1687)
Jh C314
Union Theological Seminary, Burke Library
Item 1: Title page
Item 2: p. 605 (illustration)
Item 3: p. 613 (illustration)
Item 4: p. 699 (illustration)
An Italian Catholic priest provides the most detailed descriptions of the Atlantic coast of West-Central Africa in the 17th century, including details on and images about the life of Queen Njinga (Zingha; Nzinga; Dona Ana de Sousa) of Ndongo. Njinga is a world historical figure celebrated for resisting Portuguese colonialism for over four decades in the 17th century. [Consists of 4 items: Title page and 3 illustrations]
Italian colonial composition book covers (1937-1941)
DT35.5 .S48 1935g
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Item 1: L'impero italiano d'Etiopia
Item 2: La Morte di Padre R. Giuliani
Item 3: S.E. Graziani visita le Moschee de Mogadiscio
During the mid 1930s and early 1940s, the Italian regime produced an abundance of propaganda material aimed at Italian school children, their teachers, and their parents. Examples of colonial propaganda material include the school composition books shown here, which treat Italy’s colonial invasion and occupation of Ethiopia, 1935-1941 as events to celebrate. The colonial occupation of Ethiopia also coincided with the Italian colonial rule in Eritrea, Libya, and southern Somalia. [Consists of 3 items: “L'impero italiano d'Etiopia” ; “La Morte di Padre R. Giuliani” ; “S.E. Graziani visita le Moschee de Mogadiscio”]
Materials on protest in Ukraine, 2013-2014.
Rare Book Bakhmeteff Collection, BA#0642
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Item 1: Postcard "Out of Ukraine"
Item 2: Buttons
Item 3: Doormat
The three items displayed here―an anti-Putin postcard, protest buttons, and doormat with the image of then-President Viktor Yanukovych―were selected from a collection of eighty-two items connected to the protests that ultimately drove Yanukovych from power (and Ukraine), and precipitated Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine’s Eastern borderlands.
The Columbia University Libraries’ commitment to capturing the often transitory legacy of political movements dates back to the acquisition of a large collection of Russian, Czech, Polish and Yiddish anarchist ephemera, back in 1903. The Libraries continue to seek out non-commercial flyers, posters, statements, manifestos and the objets that reflect such portentous events.