Exhibitions - April 2024

Montenegrin Cyrillic Printing of the 15th and 16th Centuries
March 6 - April 30, 2024

Poster - Opening ceremony - Photogallery

Montenegro is one of the first countries, in which printing was developed after the invention of printing press. Thanks to the ruling Crnojević family, Oktoich or The Octoechos of the First Tone was published in 1494 in Cetinje, the capital of the then independent Principality of Zeta. It was the first book printed in Cyrillic in Southeastern Europe. Crnojević´s printing house was also one of the first to print books in Cyrillic script. The printing activity of Đurađ Crnojević, the Lord of Zeta in 1490–1496, was continued by Božidar Vuković (1460–1539), who printed his books in Venice due to the Ottomans conquest of the Montenegro territory. Books published by the two founders can rightfully be ranked among the most precious works of the time, which significantly influenced not only regional but also wider European book culture.
The exhibition was prepared by Matica crnogorska and has been organized in association with the Slavonic Library. Display panels with texts in Czech and English clearly present this significant initial period of Slavic book printing, its key personalities and their work. Thanks to many reproductions, a visitor can discover the most important works published in the printing offices mentioned above. Two titles – Psalter with Cantos (1495) printed by Ðurađ Crnojević and Festal Menalon (1538) by Božidar Vuković – are featured in the form of phototypical editions.

Klementinum, ground floor (gate A)
Mon - Sat 9 am - 7 pm
Admission to the exhibition for the NL registered users and those with a one-day Admission Ticket in the NL Opening Hours
NL readers entrance free

Why We Do Not Lend You All Books or
The Permanent Preservation of Modern Collections in the National Library
March 22 – May 31, 2024

Poster - Opening ceremony

The extensive National Library holdings include nowadays over 7.7 million volumes. Most of them are the modern library collections, i.e. documents published after 1800. Every year the collections grow by tens of thousands of various documents, we have to take care of in order to preserve them for the future generations. We will show you that the collections management is not only the delivery of books from stacks to the reading rooms or to the circulation desk in the Main Hall. You will have the opportunity to look behind the scenes and discover what happens to books after they „enter“ the National Library. Through the basic steps of managment you will get to activities that help us preserve books for the future. You will learn about protective materials or deacidification and other methods of protecting books. You may be surprized that one of the options for their protection is their digitization, thanks to which the documents are available in the digital library and we can view them online, for instance from the comfort of our home.

The Klementinum Gallery
Tuesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Admission free

Slovenian Literary Modernism in the Czech Environment
March 27 – April 31, 2024

Poster - Opening ceremony

The exhibition features the phenomenon of Slovenian literary modernism, with the focus on its key personalities, the forms of the influence of the Czech environment on their work and especially, on the reception of their work in the Czech environment. Special attention is paid to Ivan Cankar and Zofka Kveder or to individual translators from Slovenian, active in the first decades of the 20th century, as well as to the Slovenian theatre performances on Czech stages or the reception of Czech literature and culture in Slovenia in the period of modernism. The display thus provides evidence of rich Slovenian-Czech cultural relations that continue to this day.
The exhibition, organized by the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, University of Nova Gorica and the National Library of the CR – Slavonic Library, has been prepared as part of the international conference „Transformations of Intimacy in Central and East European Literatures. (1890–1920)“.

Klementinum, ground floor (gate A)
Mon - Sat 9 am - 7 pm
Admission to the exhibition for the NL registered users and those with a one-day Admission Ticket in the NL Opening Hours
NL readers entrance free